- Grayscale has expanded its quarterly Top 20 cryptocurrency list with six new additions including Hyperliquid, Jupiter and Jito, though these are flagged as highly volatile investments.
- The investment firm’s selection process evaluates projects through multiple metrics including community growth and development progress, with current focus areas spanning political impacts, AI integration and Solana ecosystem expansion.
- The updated list saw notable changes with the addition of AI-focused projects like VIRTUAL, which achieved remarkable growth of 45,844% since its March 2024 launch.
- Established projects like TON and Near were removed in favour of assets offering potentially stronger quarterly returns.
Grayscale, a veteran in the space of crypto-related exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and other exchange-traded products (ETPs), has come out with a new research report revealing several fresh additions to their Grayscale Research Top 20.
The list features those crypto projects that “have high potential over the coming quarter”, as per the report.
Six New Additions with Promising Potential
New assets added to the list are Hyperliquid (HYPE), Ethena (ENA), Virtuals Protocol (VIRTUAL), Jupiter (JUP), Jito (JTO) and Grass (GRASS); though Grayscale did point out that these are considered high risk due to their volatility.
Grayscale conducts these quarterly assessments of digital currencies to guide the rebalancing of their index family. They generate a curated selection of 20 promising blockchain projects, chosen through comprehensive evaluation of metrics like community expansion, development milestones, core metrics, price assessment, distribution rates and potential downsides.
Related: Analyst Warns of Lacklustre Year for Ethereum Despite Stellar Month for ETFs
For the current period, they’re focusing on projects aligned with three central themes: the impact of upcoming US political decisions on crypto oversight, especially regarding automated finance platforms and yield generation, innovation in distributed artificial intelligence and its integration with blockchain systems and rising momentum in the Solana blockchain environment.
Brand New Projects and Battle Tested Names
Anyone following developments in the crypto industry would have heard of some of these names (like Jupiter and Jito), but some, like VIRTUAL and GRASS, are a little bit newer and less known.
The Virtuals Protocol enables users to build and share ownership of AI-powered digital entities on the Base blockchain, allowing these autonomous agents to make decisions and engage with users and their surroundings, similar to human interaction patterns.
VIRTUAL, which launched in March 2024, saw an explosive surge in price in late 2024, going up by 45,844%.
The cryptocurrency with a supply of 1 billion went from 5 US cents (approximately 8 Australian cents), to currently US$4.62 (AU$7.44).
Other re-entries in the top 20 list are Optimism (OP), Chainlink (LINK) and Helium (HNT), based on Grayscale’s belief in Ethereum scaling, as well as tokenisation and the DePIN narrative, which stands for decentralised physical infrastructure network.
Related: XRP and XLM Surge Ahead, Outshining Broader Market: Here’s What’s Happening
TON, Near, Stacks, Maker (Sky), UMA Protocol and Celo left the list, not because Grayscale doesn’t think they’re valuable projects but rather because the updated list offers more “compelling risk-adjusted returns for the coming quarter”.
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