Original article from Grayscale Research
Compiled by Odaily Planet Daily Golem ( @web3_golem )
Editors Note: At the beginning of each quarter, Grayscale selects the top 20 tokens with the greatest growth potential from hundreds of digital assets. In the second quarter of 2025, Grayscale focused on RWA, DePIN and IP tokenization, so three new tokens were added to the Top 20, namely IP, SYRUP and GEOD. At the same time, in this article, Grayscale reviewed the overall performance of the crypto market in the first quarter of 2025.
In order to help readers better understand the performance of Grayscale Select tokens, Odaily has counted the performance of the six new tokens added by Grayscale in Q1 2025 in this article. The result is that due to the overall downward market environment in Q1, the prices of the six new tokens added by Grayscale have all fallen since January 1, 2025, among which VIRTUAL has even fallen by more than 80%. See below for the full content.
Summarize:
Cryptocurrency valuations, as measured by the FTSE/Grayscale Crypto Sectors Index, retreated in the first quarter of 2025, along with tech stocks and other risk assets.
Indicators for Bitcoin network activity in the first quarter performed well overall. In contrast, usage of smart contract platforms declined as Meme Coin transactions on Solana slowed. Application-related crypto asset classes account for three of the five crypto markets classified by Grayscale, generating more than $2 billion in revenue in the first quarter.
At the same time, Grayscale updated Grayscale Researchs Top 20 Potential Tokens. The Top 20 represents diversified assets in the cryptocurrency space that Grayscale believes have high potential in the coming quarter. The three new assets added this quarter are Maple (SYRUP), Geodnet (GEOD), and Story Protocol (IP). All assets in the Top 20 list have high price volatility and should be considered high-risk assets.
Today, there are more than 40 million tokens in the entire digital asset industry (excluding NFTs). To track them, Grayscale Research has divided them into five different cryptocurrency markets based on the actual usage of the underlying software. Investors can monitor the performance of each market segment through Grayscales Crypto Sectors tool. As of the latest data, the Crypto Sectors framework now covers 227 different assets with a total market value of US$2.6 trillion, accounting for approximately 85-90% of the total market value of cryptocurrencies.
Crypto Sectors divides digital assets into five segments
Summary of Q1 2025: Cryptocurrency valuations fall across the board
Cryptocurrency valuations fell across the board in the first quarter of 2025, along with tech stocks and other risk assets. The market-cap-weighted cryptocurrency industry price index fell 18% this quarter (ending Friday, March 21), but Bitcoin and some other cryptocurrencies fell less or still rose in price (such as XRP). The weakest segments this quarter were consumer and cultural, mainly due to the decline in DOGE and other meme coins.
Cryptocurrency valuations to fall in Q1 2025
Indicators of Bitcoin network activity generally performed well in the first quarter. For example, the number of addresses with a balance greater than or equal to $1 reached a new high of 48 million. In contrast, monthly active on-chain users remained roughly flat from the previous quarter at 11 million. The widening difference between these two metrics suggests that recent demand for Bitcoin may be coming from users interested in its function as a store of value rather than a medium of exchange. Bitcoins hash rate increased to nearly 800 exahash (EH/s) in the first quarter, meaning that a network of 5-6 million Bitcoin mining machines around the world are trying to solve the proof-of-work algorithm at a computing power of about 800 trillion times per second.
The steady growth in the number of Bitcoin “hodlers”
Fundamental indicators in the smart contract platform space generally declined in early 2025, largely due to a pullback in Meme Coin trading activity on the Solana blockchain . Although Meme Coins offer no real-world utility and can pose a particularly high risk to investors, interest in Meme Coin trading may have brought many new users to the Solana ecosystem.
According to Token Terminal, Solana’s monthly active users reached 140 million by the end of the fourth quarter of 2024 and averaged nearly 90 million in the first quarter of 2025. Even with the slowdown in Meme Coin transactions, Solana still generated about $390 million in fees in the first quarter, accounting for about half of the smart contract platform’s estimated total fees.
Solana peaks at ~140 million monthly active users
Grayscales Crypto Sectors framework includes three application-related crypto asset classes: Financial, Consumer and Cultural, and Utilities and Services. These segments include all components of on-chain economic activity, including user-facing applications, related application infrastructure (such as oracles and cross-chain bridges), and specialized blockchains. As such, the category is highly diverse, and Grayscale believes it is best to evaluate them based on similar assets that focus on specific areas. That being said, for assets in these three application-related crypto categories, we estimate the total cost to be approximately $2.6 billion, a 99% increase from the first quarter of 2024.
Blockchain applications generate over $2 billion in quarterly fees
The chart below provides some key fundamental statistics for various parts of the digital asset market. Overall, these metrics have seen solid growth compared to the same period last year, but mixed changes compared to the previous quarter.
Grayscale Research Top 20 Tokens List
Every quarter, the Grayscale Research team analyzes hundreds of digital assets to inform the revaluation process of the FTSE/Grayscale Crypto Sectors Index. After this process, Grayscale Research generates a list of the top 20 Crypto Sectors assets. The top 20 represents a diverse range of assets in the cryptocurrency industry that Grayscale believes have high potential in the coming quarter, combining a range of factors including network growth/adoption, upcoming catalysts, sustainability of fundamentals, token valuations, token supply inflation, and potential tail risks.
Performance of new tokens in Q1 2025
Over the past quarter, Grayscale Research has been encouraged by emerging assets at the blockchain application layer (rather than the infrastructure layer). HYPE, ENA, VIRTUAL, JUP, JTO, and GRASS were added to Grayscale’s Q1 2025 Top 20 list (Recommended reading: Grayscale’s Q1 2025 Selection: 20 Tokens with High Growth Potential ).
According to CoinGecko data, the performance of these six new tokens since Grayscale’s disclosure (January 1, 2025) is as follows:
Hyperliquid (HYPE) : The price on January 1, 2025 was US$24, down 33% so far ; the highest price in Q1 2025 was US$27.94, a relative increase of 16%; the lowest price in Q1 2025 was US$12.15, a relative decrease of 49.37%, and the lowest price has increased by 33% since then.
Ethena (ENA) : The price on January 1, 2025 was $0.91, down 53% to date ; the price reached a high of $1.27 in Q1 2025, a relative increase of 39.5%; the price reached a low of $0.33 in Q1 2025, a relative decrease of 63%, and the lowest price has increased by 30% to date.
Virtual Protocol (VIRTUAL) : The price was 4 USD on January 1, 2025, down 80% to date ; the highest price in Q1 2025 was 4.99 USD, a relative increase of 24%; the lowest price in Q1 2025 was 0.53 USD, a relative decrease of 86%, and the lowest price has increased by 52% to date.
Jupiter (JUP) : The price on January 1, 2025 was $0.82, down 30% so far ; the highest price in Q1 2025 was $1.26, a relative increase of 53%; the lowest price in Q1 2025 was $0.46, a relative decrease of 43%, and the lowest price has increased by 23% so far.
Jito (JTO) : The price on January 1, 2025 was US$3.2, down 22% so far ; the highest price in Q1 2025 was US$3.5, a relative increase of 9.3%; the lowest price in Q1 2025 was US$2.1, a relative decrease of 34%, and the lowest price has increased by 19% so far.
Grass (GRASS) : The price on January 1, 2025 was US$2.6, down 38% so far ; the highest price in Q1 2025 was US$3.4, a relative increase of 30%; the lowest price in Q1 2025 was US$0.9, a relative decrease of 65%. The lowest price has increased by 77% so far.
In summary, since Grayscale disclosed, the prices of these 6 tokens have experienced a significant retracement in Q1 2025, and if you hold the above tokens from Q1 to now, you will be in a loss without exception, and you will not make a penny. However, if you can judge the bottom range and buy it until now, there will be a good increase.
New tokens added in Q2 2025
This quarter, Grayscale will focus on tokens that reflect non-speculative applications of blockchain technology in the real world. These tokens are divided into the following three categories: RWA (real world assets), DePIN (decentralized physical infrastructure), and IP (tokenized intellectual property).
Based on the above themes, the following three assets were added to the Top 20 list for Q2 2025:
Maple (SYRUP) : Maple is a decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol focused on institutional lending through its two core platforms: Maple Institutional (for accredited investors) and Syrup.fi (for DeFi native users). The protocols total locked value (TVL) has grown to over $600 million and generated $20 million in annualized network fee revenue in the past 30 days. It also seeks to establish Maple Institutional as a trusted institutional loan originator by partnering with traditional financial institutions.
Geodnet (GEOD) : Geodnet is a DePIN project that collects real-time positioning data. As the worlds largest real-time dynamic positioning (RTK) provider, Geodnet provides geospatial data with an accuracy of up to 1 cm, providing affordable solutions for users such as farmers. In the future, Geodnet may provide value to autonomous vehicles and robots. The network has expanded to more than 14,000 devices in 130 countries, and annualized network fee revenue has grown to more than $3 million in the past 30 days (an increase of approximately 500% year-on-year). It is worth noting that compared to other assets in the top 20, GEOD has a lower market capitalization and is listed on fewer exchanges, so it can be considered to be riskier.
Story (IP): Story Protocol is trying to tokenize the $70 trillion intellectual property (IP) market. In the AI era, proprietary IP is used to train AI models, leading to copyright infringement claims and large-scale lawsuits , such as the New York Times and OpenAI. By bringing IP to the chain, Story will enable companies to use their IP for AI model training while allowing any individual to invest, trade, and earn IP royalties. Story has already brought songs from Justin Bieber and BTS to the chain and launched an IP-centric blockchain and token in February.
Top 20 list for Q2 2025
In addition to the new themes mentioned above, Grayscale is still optimistic about themes from previous quarters, such as Ethereum expansion solutions, the intersection of blockchain and AI development, and DeFi and staking solutions. These themes are represented in the Top 20, such as Optimism, Bittensor, and Lido DAO.
This quarter, Akash, Arweave, and Jupiter were removed from the Top 20. But Grayscale Research still recognizes the value of these projects, and they remain an important part of the crypto ecosystem. However, the new Top 20 list may provide a more attractive risk-return for the next quarter.
Investing in crypto assets involves risks, some of which are unique to the crypto asset class, including smart contract vulnerabilities and regulatory uncertainty. In addition, all of the top 20 assets have high volatility and should be considered high risk, and therefore are not suitable for all investors. Given the risks of the asset class, any investment in digital assets should be considered in the context of a portfolio and taking into account the investors financial objectives.
