The on-chain boom has emerged, can exchange tokens rise to the top?

Recently, Bitcoin's market share has dropped from 60% to 55%, marking the beginning of the altcoin market. Market hotspots are emerging frequently, showcasing a hundred flowers blooming: the AI Agent sector has performed brilliantly, with a certain protocol's market cap once exceeding 300 million USD; an AI project from a certain ecosystem also surpassed a market cap of 1 billion USD; another ecological coin has even increased by more than 10 times. In terms of products, the open interest on certain exchanges has repeatedly hit new highs, surpassing 4.3 billion USD. Even the once-silent NFT sector has seen some movement, with several well-known platforms issuing tokens, driving up many blue-chip NFT projects under the Ethereum and Solana ecosystems.

From the above hotspots, it can be seen that the market focus is mainly on on-chain projects. So, have the tokens of centralized exchanges really been forgotten by the market?

In fact, it's not like that. There is another narrative in this round of bull market that cannot be ignored: Trump may be elected. This means that cryptocurrencies will officially enter the public eye. The improvement of regulations and the relaxation of supervision are conducive to external funds entering the cryptocurrency market. This can be confirmed by the continuous net inflow of funds into Bitcoin and Ethereum spot ETFs. The Trump family's cryptocurrency project also leads by example, purchasing a large amount of DeFi-related coins within a month, including ETH, CBBTC, AAVE, LINK, ENA, and ONDO.

So, how do these coins perform after being purchased? What common characteristics do they share? Which concept coins are worth paying attention to? Let's explore together.

Purchase Record Overview

Starting from November 30, the project has invested a total of 44.75 million USD to purchase cryptocurrencies. As of December 18, all held coins are in a profitable state.

Interestingly, compared to traditional institutions, this project seems to have more interest in Ethereum than Bitcoin. The holdings of ETH in its portfolio far exceed those of Bitcoin, which may indicate a higher level of optimism regarding the future price trends of Ethereum.

AAVE, as the leader in lending across the entire market, ranks first in TVL among all protocols, with a deposit scale nearing $40 billion, reaching a historical high. Recently, in the past seven days, the price of AAVE has risen by 35%. Additionally, the project's community has proposed a collaboration with AAVE, which is currently undergoing a temporary review phase in AaveDAO. If the proposal is ultimately approved, it will bring new users and more actual benefits to AAVE.

LINK is a well-known oracle project. On November 14th, the project announced that it would adopt Chainlink as the standard for on-chain data and cross-chain connectivity, to securely drive the large-scale application of DeFi into the next phase.

The development of ENA is closely related to the current bull market. As its revenue comes from arbitrage between futures and spot, the higher the market sentiment, the higher the Ethereum funding rate, which allows Ethena to benefit from it. Recently, its TVL broke through 6 billion USD, setting a new historical high. In terms of products, they have also partnered with a large asset management company to launch an RWA stablecoin backed by government bonds, which has alleviated some concerns in the market about the potential for funding rates to turn negative and lead the protocol into a death spiral.

ONDO is currently the leader in the RWA sector. After a large asset management company announced the launch of a related fund, Ondo Finance invested over $95 million, becoming the largest holder. In terms of compliance, legitimacy, capital scale, and market recognition, ONDO is the best choice in the current RWA sector.

In addition to the above-mentioned coins, it is worth mentioning COW. When purchasing these coins, the project only used a certain protocol for trading, so COW is also regarded as a related concept coin.

Future Coins to Pay Attention To

Based on the investment logic of the project, we can speculate on the targets they may focus on next.

First, the ideal tokens are those that have partnerships with the project. Secondly, projects with a "clear business model" and "stable actual returns" are preferred. AAVE, LINK, ENA, ONDO, etc. all have clear product positioning, a large ecosystem of users, and actual revenue models. This indicates that they do not blindly pursue "novelty" or "pure concept" tokens, but are more inclined to invest in protocols that can bring long-term value.

LDO: Considering that the project's holdings of ETH far exceed those of BTC, it is evident that they are very optimistic about Ethereum's long-term potential. As the Ethereum staking mechanism matures, combined with the possibility of ETFs introducing Ethereum staking yields, a leading protocol may become the preferred choice. This protocol is the largest liquid staking protocol in the Ethereum ecosystem, with a TVL of $37 billion, accounting for 30% of the entire Ethereum staking market.

Pendle: Primarily focused on the yield splitting market, allowing users to trade future yield rights. With the rise in Ethereum staking rates and the yields of protocols like USDe, the demand for yield trading markets continues to increase, bringing Pendle significant attention in this bull market. Recently, Pendle's TVL has exceeded $5 billion and has established partnerships with several mainstream DeFi protocols.

UNI: A well-known decentralized exchange is the pioneer of DeFi Summer and is currently the most commonly used DEX by users, making it a leader in the space. Although the market response to their recently launched new products has been lukewarm, this does not affect users' reliance on their core products.

Summary: Blue-chip projects are gaining attention

Regarding the project's large-scale purchase of cryptocurrencies, an analyst stated to the media: "This may be to gain more trust, or to promote the development of its own project by attracting attention to these assets. Because if these assets perform well, the project may also benefit from it."

The project is actively laying out blue-chip projects, which not only enhances the market's confidence in mainstream DeFi protocols but also injects more institutional funds into the crypto market. This flow of funds further stabilizes the market and drives mainstream projects towards higher market value and development potential.