Grayscale Expands 'Top 20' Crypto List: AI and DeFi Tokens Take Center Stage for Q1 2025

Trump-Backed Platform's Pick, Year's Chart Topper: 6 New Cryptos Added To Grayscale's 'Top 20' List With Growth Potential In Q1 2025

Leading digital asset manager Grayscale Investments broadened its Top 20 list of cryptocurrencies on Monday by adding six new tokens with strong growth potential for the upcoming quarter. What Happened: Grayscale added Layer-1 blockchain token Hyperliquid (HYPE), decentralized stablecoin protocol Ethena ENA/USD, AI agent creator Virtuals Protocol (VIRTUAL), decentralized exchange Jupiter JUP/USD, liquid staking protocol Jito JTO/USD, and decentralized data network Grass (GRASS) to the list, which it publishes every quarter. Interestingly, VIRTUAL has been the market's best performer in 2024, with year-to-date gains of 26043%. Additionally, ENA has been heavily accumulated by President-elect Donald Trump-backed platform World Liberty Financial. The asset manager said it considered metrics like network adoption, upcoming catalysts, sustainability of fundamentals, token valuation, token supply inflation, and potential tail risks for the inclusion. Grayscale added that the focus was on assets that touched on themes like the U.S. election and its potential impact on cryptocurrency regulation, decentralized AI technology, and growth in the Solana SOL/USD ecosystem. See Also: Donald Trump's $9.9 Million Crypto Portfolio: Over 50% Growth Since September - How Many Cryptocurrencies Does Trump Own? The 'Top 20' list consisted of a diversified set of assets spanning different cryptocurrency sectors, including Bitcoin BTC/USD, Ethereum ETH/USD, Chainlink LINK/USD, and Uniswap UNI/USD. Why It Matters: This decision by Grayscale Research comes in the wake of a transformative forecast for the cryptocurrency industry in 2025. According to a study by Galaxy Research, the industry is set for significant advances in adoption, infrastructure, and regulatory clarity. The research predicted Bitcoin to surpass $150,000 in the first half of 2025, potentially reaching or exceeding $185,000 by the fourth quarter. The inclusion of these new tokens implied the growing potential of assets tied to decentralized finance and AI, as well as the weight attached to assets that provide utility. Price Action: At the time of writing, all of these new entrants to the 'Top 20' list were down in the 24-hour period, according to data from Benzinga Pro. Photo by Avi Rozen on Shutterstock Read Next: Bitcoin Up 1% To $94,000: 'Sweet' Setup Going Into 2025, But Beware A Drop Below $93,000, Experts Say $BTCBitcoin$92111.47-0.55%WatchlistOverview$ETHEthereum$3329.35-0.78%$JTOJito$3.21-2.37%$JUPJupiter$0.8030-1.06%$LINKChainlink$20.31-1.13%$SOLSolana$189.42-0.83%$UNIUniswap$13.20-0.73%Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs

Grayscale adds AI launchpads, Solana DeFi apps to Q1 2025 top tokens

Grayscale has added several artificial intelligence platforms and decentralized finance (DeFi) applications to its list of the top 20 tokens to watch in the first quarter of 2025, the asset manager said in a Dec. 30 research note. The Q1 2025 watch list, which Grayscale updates quarterly, now includes Hyperliquid (HYPE), Ethena ENA $0.9877 , Virtuals (VIRTUAL), Jupiter JUP $0.8211 , Jito JTO $3.46 , and Grass (GRASS). Each new addition benefits from one of three industry trends: a friendlier United States regulatory environment, breakthroughs in decentralized AI, or growth in the Solana ecosystem, Grayscale said. Virtuals and Grass are AI platforms, Hyperliquid is a high-performance layer-1 (L1) network, and Ethena, Jupiter, and Jito are DeFi apps. Jupiter and Jito are native to Solana. "In addition to the new themes [...] we continue to be excited about themes from previous quarters such as Ethereum scaling solutions, tokenization, and decentralized physical infrastructure (DePIN)," Grayscale said. Those themes are represented by Grayscale's continued inclusion of Optimism, Chainlink, and Helium, respectively, it said. Grayscale said smart contract platforms -- such as Ethereum, Solana, Avalanche, and Sui -- "may be the most competitive market segment in the digital assets industry." The proliferation of alternative L1 blockchain networks partially accounts for why ETH under-performed peers in 2024, Grayscale added. Related: Bitcoin yield opportunities are booming -- Here's what to watch for Industry trends Cryptocurrencies saw big gains after Donald Trump's election victory, as many say his win will benefit the industry, Cointelegraph Research said. Trump has promised to appoint industry-friendly leaders to key regulatory agencies and make the US "the world's crypto capital." DeFi will benefit, and staking, real-world asset (RWA) tokenization and agentic AI catalyze adoption, industry executives told Cointelegraph in December. "In the US, with [President-elect Donald] Trump's victory, I am aggressively bullish on the US becoming a global leader in the space by the end of the year," said Raj Brahmbhatt, CEO of Web3 settlement company Zeebu. This is particularly true for DeFi apps on Solana, which has seen total value locked (TVL) surge from around $1.5 billion in January to nearly $8.5 billion as of December, according to data from DefiLlama. Jito, a Solana staking pool, clocked monthly revenue from priority fees and tips of more than $100 million in November and December. Meanwhile, "AI agents are expected to take on a more prominent role within decentralized communities," J.D. Seraphine, CEO of Web3 AI developer at Raiinmaker, told Cointelegraph. Crypto staking and onchain trading will emerge as early AI use cases, the executives said.