Key Points
- Grayscale Research adds 6 altcoins to their Top 20 list of tokens with bullish potential in Q4.
- Its approach incorporates factors including, adoption, catalysts, valuation, risks, supply inflation, and more.
Grayscale Research offers new insights into crypto sectors for the fourth quarter of the year.
In a new report on September 26, Grayscale reveals an updated Top 20 crypto tokens worth watching in Q4.
This top represents a diversified set of assets across various crypto sectors with a strong potential for growth at the end of the year.
Grayscale’s Top 20 Crypto Tokens for Q4 2024
The Grayscale Research team analyzes hundreds of digital assets and following the process, they produce a Top 20 list from all over the crypto sectors of the industry.
Grayscale’s top digital assets to watch this last quarter of the year include important players in the crypto industry:
- Bitcoin (BTC)
- Ethereum (ETH)
- Solana (SOL)
- Toncoin (TON)
- Chainlink (LINK)
- Near (NEAR)
- Uniswap (UNI)
- Stacks (STX)
- Aave (AAVE)
- Arweave (AR)
- Maker (MKR) recently rebranded to SKY
- Lido DAO (LDO)
- Akash Network (AKT)
- Aerodrome (AERO)
Bitcoin surpassed other market segments with an upward trajectory and impressive returns, most likely due to the approval of the BTC ETF products at the beginning of the year.
While ETH underperformed BTC, the digital asset managed to outperform most other cryptos. Despite appreciating less than BTC, ETH is holding its position compared to its crypto sector and the broader market.
Other assets included in the list such as Toncoin, Tron, and Near have gained traction due to their fee revenues.
But, besides these tokens, six newcomers are making their way into Grayscale’s Top 20 crypto list in Q4.
6 New Assets Included in Q4’s Top 20 Coins Worth Watching
1. Sui (SUI)
Sui (SUI) is a high-performance L1 smart contract blockchain that offers innovative apps. The third-generation blockchain was developed by a team of former Meta engineers.
Grayscale notes that a couple of months ago, Sui underwent a network upgrade which led to improved transaction speed by 80%, even surpassing the one of Solana. This triggered its recent increased adoption on the network.
2. Bittensor (TAO)
Bittensor is a platform facilitating the development of open and global AI systems. Grayscale noted that Bittensor has only made it to their Top 20 list thanks to an improvement in market structure. This is translating into more available pricing sources and higher liquidity.
Bittensor emerged as a prominent player at the intersection of crypto and AI, triggering increased interest as it attempts to leverage economic incentives to create a global decentralized platform to sustain AI innovation.
3. Optimism (OP)
Optimism is an Ethereum scaling project based on optimistic rollups (scaling solutions). It helps scale the Ethereum network while developing a framework for building scaling solutions called The Superchain.
The Superchain is used by Coinbase’s L2 BASE and an L2 built by Sam Altman’s Worldcoin.
4. Helium (HNT)
Helium is a decentralized wireless network running on Solana and leading the DePin (decentralized physical infrastructure).
Grayscale noted in their report that the addition of Helium reflects their preference for category leaders and projects that have sustainable revenues.
Helium leverages a decentralized model to efficiently allocate resources for wireless network coverage and connectivity. It’s rewarding participants for maintaining the network’s infrastructure.
It’s also worth noting that Helium is expanding to more than 1 million total hotspots and 100,000 mobile subscribers, producing over $2 million in network fee revenue YTD.
5. Celo (CELO)
Celo is a mobile-first blockchain project focused on stablecoins and payments in developing countries. It has gained traction in Africa led by the Opera Browser’s MiniPay app.
Celo benefits from a unique adoption trend around stablecoin use and prediction markets.
Also, Celo recently passed Tron as the top blockchain for stablecoin usage by daily addresses.
The project is currently migrating from a standalone blockchain to an Ethereum L2 in Optimism’s Superchain framework.
6. UMA Protocol (UMA)
UMA is an optimistic oracle network providing services on Polymarket, one of the most important blockchain-based prediciton markets and other protocols.
UMA records the resolution of each Polymarket event contract outcome on-chain and it facilitates votes on Polymarkeet outcome disputes. This ensures a resolution without centralized, arbitrary, or biased interference, which is important especially since we’re in an election year.
Grayscale noted that this quarter of 2024, they rotated the following out of their Top 20: Render, Mantle, ThorChain, Pendle, Illuvium, and Raydium, although they continue to see value in the projects and they remain important elements for the crypto ecosystem.
The research team noted that the latest revised top is more appropriate to provide more compelling risk-adjusted returns for the last quarter of the year.
Grayscale’s Approach for Including Tokens in Top 20
The firm’s approach in choosing the digital assets with the highest potential involves various factors including the following:
- Network growth/adoption
- Upcoming catalysts
- Fundamentals sustainability
- Token valuation
- Token supply inflation
- Potential tail risks
Grayscale mentioned that all the assets listed in their Top 20 have high price volatility and should be considered high-risk tokens.
The warning is especially viable as 2024 is a US election year, and the upcoming period may trigger even more volatility for the crypto markets.
