Top Crypto Assets for Q1 2025: Grayscale's Best Altcoin Picks Revealed

According to the study's authors, "Our approach incorporates a range of factors, including network growth/adoption, upcoming catalysts, sustainability of fundamentals, token valuation, token supply inflation, and potential tail risks." Three major market trends inspire the most recent additions to the top 20 list Grayscale expects will impact the coming months: the US election and associated regulatory ramifications, rapid breakthroughs in decentralized AI, and the growing Solana ecosystem.

While Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, Chainlink, Uniswap, SushiSwap, Aave, Bittensor, Optimism, Lido DAO, Helium, Arweave, Aerodrome, and Akash Network are still on the list, six new altcoins have been added since the previous quarter. "We are adding the following six assets to our Top 20 list for Q1 2025," the study says, underlining each project's significant connection with one or more of the abovementioned themes.

Best (New) Crypto Assets For Q1 2025

Hyperliquid (HYPE): Hyperliquid is a Layer 1 blockchain focused on on-chain financial applications, with its flagship product being a decentralized exchange (DEX) for perpetual futures. Built on a fully on-chain order book, HYPE aims to meet the growing need for advanced derivatives trading in a decentralized setting. HYPE has skyrocketed in recent weeks, ranking #19 on the list of the top cryptocurrencies by market capitalization.

Ethena (ENA): The Ethena protocol has launched a new stablecoin, USDe, backed by hedged holdings in Bitcoin and Ethereum. Grayscale puts it this way: "Specifically, the protocol holds long positions in Bitcoin and Ether and short positions in perpetual futures contracts on the same assets." A staked version of the token takes advantage of the price difference between the spot and futures markets, potentially providing participants with a unique yield profile.

Virtual Protocol (VIRTUAL): Operating on Base, an Ethereum Layer 2 network, Virtual Protocol allows the creation of AI bots that may function autonomously. "These AI agents are designed to perform tasks autonomously, mimicking human decision-making," Grayscale said. The technology also enables the co-ownership of these agents through tokenization, which connects AI capabilities to blockchain infrastructure.

Jupiter (JUP): Jupiter has emerged as the leading DEX aggregator on Solana, with the most significant total value locked (TVL) among all Solana applications. With Solana's user base expanding and speculation escalating around meme coins and AI agent tokens, "we believe Jupiter is well positioned to capitalize on this growing market activity," according to the research.

Jito (JTO):  Jito is a liquid staking mechanism on Solana that has seen widespread acceptance in the last year. Notably, Grayscale emphasizes the project's significant earnings: "Jito has experienced substantial growth in adoption over the past year and offers one of the best financial profiles in all of crypto, generating over $550mn in 2024 fee revenue."

Grass (GRASS): Grass rewards users for sharing idle internet bandwidth using a Chrome plugin. "This bandwidth is used to scrape online data, which is then sold to AI companies and developers for training machine learning models," Grayscale informs me. The project monetizes web scraping by spreading prizes to users with idle bandwidth.

Furthermore, Grayscale states that it remains "excited about themes from previous quarters such as Ethereum scaling solutions, tokenization, and decentralized physical infrastructure (DePIN)." Examples of established themes include Optimism, Chainlink, and Helium, which are still in the Top 20 due to their alignment with scaling, tokenization, and DePIN use cases.

Notably, six assets—NEAR, Stacks, Maker CELO, UMA, and TON—have been removed from the Top 20 list this quarter. "Grayscale Research continues to see value in each of these projects, and they remain critical components of the cryptocurrency ecosystem. However, we expect that the revised Top 20 list will provide more enticing risk-adjusted returns in the coming quarter," Grayscale writes.

At press time, HYPE traded at $29.45.