Original author: WOO X Research
Reprinted: Luke, Mars Finance
Background: On-chain tokens are hot; can tokens within exchanges rise?
Recently, Bitcoin's market share dropped from 60% to 55%, indicating the start of an altcoin season. Recent hotspots are numerous, and it's safe to say that a hundred flowers are blooming: AI Agent leading the charge, Virtuals Protocol has reached a market value of over $300 million; the ai16z in the Solana ecosystem has also surpassed a market cap of $1 billion, thanks to Hyperliquid's HYPE token which increased more than 10 times. In terms of products, the open interest within exchanges has repeatedly hit new highs, breaking through $4.3 billion. Even the NFT sector, which was almost forgotten by the market, is showing movement, with Magic Eden and Pudgy Penguins issuing tokens, driving many ETH/SOL blue-chip NFT projects up.
A simple review of the hotspots in various segments shows they are all centered around on-chain. So have the tokens within centralized exchanges really been forgotten by the market?
Not really, there is one narrative in this bull market cycle that cannot be overlooked: Trump's election.
Trump's election means that cryptocurrencies have officially entered the public eye. The improvement of regulations and the relaxation of supervision have helped external funds enter the cryptocurrency space, as evidenced by the continuous net inflow of funds into BTC and ETH spot ETFs. The Trump family's cryptocurrency project, World Liberty Financial, has also set an example by crazily purchasing DeFi-related tokens in one month, which are: ETH, CBBTC, AAVE, LINK, ENA, ONDO.
So how have the token prices performed after World Liberty Financial's purchases? What common characteristics do these tokens share? And what other conceptual tokens are there? Let's take a look with WOO X Research.
Purchase Record Summary
The above table summarizes the cryptocurrencies purchased by World Liberty Financial as of November 30, spending a total of $44.75 million. As of the writing on December 18, all cryptocurrencies held by World Liberty Financial are currently in a profit state.
Interestingly, traditional institutions have shown more interest in Bitcoin than Ethereum in the past, but in their investment portfolio, it can be seen that World Liberty Financial holds far more ETH than Bitcoin. This perhaps indicates that they have a more optimistic outlook on Ethereum’s price trend compared to Bitcoin.
AAVE is the leader in market lending and holds the number one spot in TVL among all protocols, with deposits close to $40 billion, a historic high, and the token price has risen 35% in seven days. Additionally, the community vote of World Liberty Financial to collaborate with AAVE has passed, and it is currently in the TEMP CHECK phase at AaveDAO. If the proposal passes, it will bring new users and more real profits to AAVE.
LINK is an established oracle project, and on November 14, World Liberty Financial announced it would adopt Chainlink as the standard for on-chain data and cross-chain connections, as a safe way to bring DeFi into the next stage of large-scale adoption.
The development of ENA is closely related to this round of bull market. Since the yield source of USDe is based on futures arbitrage, the more enthusiastic the market sentiment and the higher the Ethereum funding rate, the more Ethena can benefit. Recently, TVL also broke through $6 billion, reaching a historic high. In terms of products, they have recently collaborated with BlackRock to launch the RWA stablecoin USDtb, the yield source of which is government bonds. This product's launch also alleviates market concerns about the negative funding rate leading to the overall protocol entering a death spiral.
ONDO is currently the leader in the RWA track. After BlackRock announced the launch of the BUIDL fund, Ondo Finance invested over $95 million, making it the largest holder. Whether in terms of compliance, legitimacy, capital volume, or market favorability, ONDO is the best choice in the current RWA track.
In addition to the aforementioned tokens, it is worth mentioning COW. When World Liberty Financial purchased the above tokens, they only used Cow Protocol for the purchase, so it is also regarded as a Trump conceptual token.
What tokens might be purchased next?
After understanding the investment context of World Liberty Financial, we speculate on the subjects they might focus on next.
First, from their holding layout, it can be seen that it is best if the token itself has a cooperative relationship with World Liberty Financial, such as AAVE m3.
LINK, and next are 'clear business models' and 'stable real yields'. 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 conceptual' tokens, but are more inclined to invest in protocols that can bring long-term value.
LDO: Given that World Liberty Financial's holdings in ETH far exceed those in BTC, it is evident that they are very optimistic about Ethereum's long-term potential. With the maturity of Ethereum's staking mechanism, coupled with the possibility of ETFs bringing in Ethereum staking rates, the leading protocol LIDO has become the current top choice.
It is the largest liquid staking protocol in the Ethereum ecosystem, with a TVL of up to $37 billion, accounting for 30% of the entire Ethereum staking market.
Pendle: Mainly focuses on the yield splitting market, allowing users to trade future rights to income. With the rise in Ethereum staking rates and the yields of protocols like USDe, the demand for yield trading markets continues to increase, causing Pendle to receive high market attention in this round of bull market. Recently, Pendle's TVL has surpassed $5 billion and established partnerships with several mainstream DeFi protocols.
UNI: Uniswap is the origin of DeFi Summer and is currently the most commonly used decentralized exchange, leading the sector. Recently, they also launched Unichain, but the market response has been tepid; however, this does not diminish users' reliance on Uniswap products.
Conclusion: Blue-chip projects = Presidential trading coin projects
Regarding World Liberty Financial's large-scale trading activities, Nansen analyst Nicolai Søndergaard told Bloomberg: 'World Liberty Financial's token purchase behavior may be aimed at gaining more trust, or by attracting attention to these assets to drive the development of their own project. Because if these assets perform well, World Liberty Financial may also benefit from it.'
World Liberty Financial is actively laying out blue-chip projects, which not only boosts market confidence in mainstream DeFi protocols but also injects more institutional funds into the crypto market. This flow of capital further stabilizes the market and propels mainstream projects towards higher market capitalization and development potential.
