The Bankless analysis team recently made predictions on the rise and fall of 16 tokens in the next three months, including mainstream tokens and popular tokens in the L1 track, L2 track, LSD track and other tracks. This article will organize the predictions and reasons of the Bankless analyst team for readers' reference.
L1 plate
Solana（SUN）
View: Bearish
Reason: Meme market is not good, selling pressure increases
Forecast period: June 21, 2024 to September 21, 2024
Predicted price: $132.79
Forecasted price performance to date: Up 5.88%
The Bankless analysis team expects that as the Meme coin craze further subsides, SOL's subsequent performance will be worse than ETH.
Despite SOL’s astounding performance between October 2023 and March 2024, with prices subsequently topping out at $200, the ecosystem’s novelty appears to have peaked, with key on-chain metrics (including daily active addresses and DEX volume) stagnating throughout June.
Solana has seized the opportunity of Meme coin issuance in this cycle with its two characteristics of low fees and unified global state, but the performance of Meme coins has been unsatisfactory in recent weeks.
Solana’s top native meme coins WIF and BONK have fallen more than 50% from their May highs, while other meme coins have performed even worse. Previously popular celebrity meme coins are mostly close to zero. Although there is a view that the fading meme craze indicates that Solana is moving healthily towards mass adoption, as Solana users become increasingly aware of the limited profits from on-chain meme coins, they may consider cashing out and exiting, leading to a deterioration in Solana’s fundamentals and increased selling pressure on SOL.
Polkadot（DOT）
View: Bearish
Reason: Huge improper spending plus increased token inflation
Forecast period: July 3, 2024 to October 3, 2024
Predicted price: $2.38
Forecasted price performance to date: down 7.98%
The Bankless analysis team believes that its foundation may go bankrupt earlier than expected as future spending and DOT inflation will further depress token prices.
On June 28, the Polkadot Web3 Foundation published its largest treasury report to date as part of its OpenGov initiative, which was implemented a year ago to give the community better visibility and control over the chain’s governance process.
In the first half of 2024, Polkadot's fiscal year net loss is approximately 17 million DOTs ($108 million). Assuming the price of DOT (96% of the treasury value) remains unchanged, at the current consumption rate, the funds can only sustain the project's operations for another two years.
The largest spending category was “Promotion,” totaling $37 million, which included such outrageous items as: $10 million on sports team sponsorships, $7.9 million on conference events, $478,000 on an animated logo for Coinmarketcap’s homepage, and $180,000 on promotional livery for a private jet.
While the Polkadot ecosystem has spent heavily in an effort to gain traction in 2024, its token fell more than 50% against Ethereum in the first six months of this year.
Toncoin（TON）
Opinion: Neutral
Reason: Potential for future growth, but overly dependent on Telegram
Forecast period: June 17, 2024 to September 17, 2024
Predicted price: $7.88
Forecasted price performance to date: Down 4.42%
The Bankless analysis team acknowledges the network’s potential for future growth, but also worries that at a fully diluted valuation of $40 billion, the investment value of a company-specific blockchain is unclear.
While the TON network has previously struggled to gain meaningful adoption, its growth has accelerated exponentially as its creator, Telegram, has brought increasing utility to the network.
Telegram launched a self-hosted crypto wallet last September, enabling users to easily access the TON network. In February, Telegram doubled down on its push for cryptocurrency adoption, announcing that it would allow advertisers to use TON to purchase channel promotions and share 50% of the fees with channel operators. Then in April, Telegram partnered with Tether to enable its wallet users to send USDT for free.
In 2024, the TVL of the TON network soared 4,200% to $610 million, while the number of daily active addresses also increased significantly.
The TON network appears to be in the early stages of building a unique and viable on-chain ecosystem; its native Notcoin meme coin has reached a $2 billion valuation, and over 150 million addresses are participating in Hamster Combat, a click-to-earn game that promises to airdrop tokens to participants.
While the TON network has certainly managed to gain a lot of growth to date, the future of TON remains somewhat uncertain. If Telegram's model of generating revenue through a proprietary blockchain proves successful, other companies may eventually launch their own networks to compete with the TON network. But it is undeniable that bringing in new users now will have a strong first-mover advantage, making the TON network a general-purpose blockchain solution for other companies looking to experiment on the chain.
Avalanche（AVAX）
View: Bullish
Reason: AVAX futures are expected to be listed, and there is little resistance to the approval of spot AVAX ETF
Forecast period: June 28, 2024 to September 28, 2024
Predicted price: $27.99
Forecasted price performance to date: Down 8.41%
The Bankless analytics team expects the token to outperform in the coming months as the market begins to digest the previously unexpected ETF approval narrative.
On June 28, Coinbase Derivatives, as a designated contract market (DCM) registered with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), submitted certification documents to its regulator to list SHIB, LINK, AVAX, XLM and DOT futures.
While the recently filed spot SOL ETF has fueled hopes that Solana will be the next crypto asset to be offered to traditional finance, the SEC’s insistence in multiple lawsuits against cryptocurrency exchanges that SOL is a security, coupled with the lack of a regulated futures market, makes its chances of approval slim.
In contrast to SOL, AVAX has not yet been designated as a security by the SEC; future CME futures approval clears the way for spot AVAX ETF approval, just like BTC and ETH.
Near（NEAR）
View: Bearish
Reason: Using AI for short-term hype, but no competitive advantage in the long run
Forecast period: June 25, 2024 to September 25, 2024
Predicted price: $5.5
Forecasted price performance to date: Down 5.48%
While Near has attempted to capitalize on the emerging (and as yet unproven) AI x Crypto hype from Nvidia’s March developer conference by positioning itself as a project in that space, the network currently has few noteworthy developments in AI development.
While Near founder Illia Polosukhin previously worked as an AI researcher, the reality is that any blockchain that can provide fast consensus can serve as the basis for AI development, and his project has no competitive advantage over other L1 projects with larger user bases and more TVL.
Despite NEAR’s strong short-term performance, without enough unique ecosystem applications to attract users and capital, the token is likely to underperform major competitors such as ETH and SOL again in the near future.
L2 Plate
Arbitration (ARB)
View: Bearish
Reason: L2 track is saturated, token unlocking brings selling pressure
Forecast period: June 27, 2024 to September 27, 2024
Predicted price: $0.82
Forecasted price performance to date: Down 5.26%
The Bankless analytics team expects ARB to outperform other L2s in the coming months, but overall industry value dilution and ARB unlocking should cause the token price to underperform ETH.
The Arbitrum DAO proposal aims to distribute 50% of the remaining sorter fees to ARB delegators on its Tally governance hub, paying stakers an annualized yield of approximately 7% in ETH. Staking rewards are not expected to be enabled until September, and support for ARB liquidity staking tokens will also be launched, enabling delegators to earn additional yield in DeFi.
While the addition of non-inflationary real returns to ARB creates additional economic value for holders, there is no guarantee that ARB tokens will outperform ETH. Each new L2 token launch and unlock of existing tokens creates selling pressure for investors, and as L2 technology becomes increasingly commoditized and decentralized, all L2 valuations will be diluted.
Arbitrum alone is unlocking 100 million tokens per month to its team and investors, while the Arbitrum DAO has 3.5 billion ARBs that it may distribute to the market and has already set aside 225 million ARBs for a controversial gaming incentive program over the next three years.
Blast（BLAST）
View: Bearish
Reason: Unsatisfactory valuation, high selling pressure after airdrop
Forecast period: June 26, 2024 to September 26, 2024
Predicted price: $0.02
Predicted price performance to date: Down 25.08%
The Bankless analysis team expects that future incentives will fail to excite users as much as in the past, leading to more and more holders beginning to realize the potential unsustainability of the network.
Shortly after BLAST was launched on June 26, its fully diluted valuation was approximately $2 billion, ranking eighth among Ethereum L2s, far below the top low-circulation L2s, and even behind L2s with lower adoption but higher circulation, such as Mantle and Immutable.
Throughout June, many Blast native ecosystem assets were sold off in large quantities. Although BLAST attempted to rebound after listing, it was unsuccessful, indicating that users are cashing out to look for other opportunities. The main motivation for users to deposit Blast is to win airdrops. BLAST's unexpectedly low valuation reduces the attractiveness of future incentives. As the on-chain fundamentals deteriorate in the coming months, BLAST will face huge selling pressure.
StarkNet（STRK）
View: Bearish
Reason: Intensified competition, no popular applications to support development
Forecast period: June 18, 2024 to September 18, 2024
Predicted price: $0.75
Forecasted price performance to date: down 0.07%
The Bankless analytics team expects the token to continue to underperform ETH without a sudden surge in Starknet ecosystem applications.
Although the STRK airdrop briefly brought on-chain activity in late February, the ecosystem’s glory days appear to be long gone. Several key metrics for Starknet, including daily transaction volume and active addresses, peaked in September 2023 and have since failed to re-reach those highs, even with airdrop incentives.
Competing zero-knowledge Rollup ZKsync announced that it would open ZK tokens for claiming on June 17. The launch of ZK caused the price of STRK to plummet by nearly 30% within a few hours of its release.
While Starknet implements the Cairo virtual machine, enabling developers to circumvent the technical limitations of the EVM chain, this approach makes it difficult for both users and developers to interact with the ecosystem. While there is a view that this is beneficial for certain areas such as full-chain gaming, the Starknet ecosystem has yet to see breakthrough applications that inspire use on persistent chains.
The launch of ZK provides investors with a liquid token that can be purchased with a zero-knowledge proof technology narrative, undermining the technology-centric narrative of STRK. At the same time, the large number of new L2 tokens and expected industry token unlocks represent future supply that must be absorbed, which will dilute the valuation of all Ethereum Rollups.
Optimism（OP）
View: Bearish
Reason: Low user perception of new features, dragged down by the overall environment
Forecast period: June 11, 2024 to September 11, 2024
Predicted price: $2.14
Predicted currency price performance so far: Down 16.84%
While the release of the Proof of Fault feature was an important step towards achieving a “superchain” on Optimism, enabling anyone to challenge incorrect information posted by the sorter and withdraw ETH/ERC 20 without permission, it failed to have a positive impact on the OP token price. Ironically, the OP token has actually slightly underperformed its competitors MATIC and ARB since the announcement of this major upgrade.
Crypto users have historically paid little attention to the security state of the L2s they transact on, with a large amount of TVL migrating to insecure “Stage 0” rollups (which are merely glorified multisigs). While Optimism now enjoys a similar “Stage 1” classification to Arbitrum One, that achievement is only a minimum requirement. Vitalik said in March that by the end of 2024, only Stage 1+ networks will be allowed to bear the title of “rollups.”
On the contrary, in the environment of new L2 token issuance and token unlocking, the future performance of OP tokens will be lower than that of ETH.
LSD Plate
ether.fi（ETHFI）
View: Bearish
Reason: Intensified competition, stagnant TVL
Forecast period: July 2, 2024 to October 2, 2024
Predicted price: $6.5
Forecasted price performance to date: Down 7.54%
The Bankless analysis team expects that a large portion of its funds will soon rotate to Symbiotic Retaking through Mellow Finance, thereby weakening the growth brought about by the high valuation and causing the token price to fall further.
The TVL of the top liquidity re-staking project ether.fi was basically stagnant in June, with a monthly growth rate of only 7%, the lowest growth rate since October 2023. Although ETHFI's pledge volume is less than 80%, its fully diluted valuation is still 40% higher than LDO. This mispricing is common among all LRT issuers due to the low circulation of their tokens and investors' optimism about the growth potential of the industry.
While ether.fi has attempted to expand beyond the re-staking protocol by creating a “Liquid” strategy vault and a proprietary credit card, the protocol’s EigenLayer-centric re-staking model faces stiff competition from other re-staking models.
Pendle Finance（PENDLE）
View: Bullish
Reason: Good fundamentals, potential airdrop
Forecast period: June 24, 2024 to September 24, 2024
Predicted price: $5.58
Forecasted price performance so far: down 1.81%
The Bankless analytics team expects the token to continue to outperform as the protocol is able to generate high yields and capitalize on potential airdrops.
In the first half of 2024, PENDLE was undoubtedly one of the best performing liquid crypto assets based on fundamentals (i.e. not a meme coin), with over 500% year-to-date gains at its peak in April and May.
While the arrival of Ethena and EigenLayer airdrops could have a bearish impact on Pendle, the fact is that the protocol’s TVL has increased by over 50% from its May lows and has exceeded $7 billion multiple times in June.
Lido（LDO）
View: Bullish
Reason: Pledge and re-pledge develop together, with huge potential in the future
Forecast period: June 12, 2024 to September 12, 2024
Predicted price: $1.88
Predicted price performance to date: down 7.98%
The Bankless analysis team expects the market to underestimate the powerful role stETH plays in re-staking.
Restaking has been a key narrative in the crypto industry in 2024, increasing returns with minimal additional risk by re-staking assets. LRT (Liquid Restaking Tokens) works similarly to Lido’s stETH, but with the added benefit of re-staking and airdrop incentives (from EigenLayer and LRT issuers).
To counter the competition, Lido has partnered with Mellow Finance to enable re-staking for its LST, an LRT platform that leverages Symbiotic, an EigenLayer competitor backed by Lido’s core employees and investors.
A large part of the users who deposited in the EigenLayer ecosystem were for airdrops, so it is easy for depositors to switch to Symbiotic because of airdrops.
Because Lido has invested in Symbiotic, they have an incentive to drive the growth of the Symbiotic ecosystem, which means these whales can deposit large amounts of stETH into Mellow’s vault to build the most liquid stETH re-staking protocol.
By offering both regular Ether staking products and slightly riskier liquid re-staking protocols, Lido positions itself as the ideal staking solution that can serve market participants with different risk preferences.
Other Sections
Worldcoin（WLD）
View: Bearish
Reason: Huge amount of unlocking, no key progress in the ecosystem
Forecast period: July 1, 2024 to October 1, 2024
Predicted price: $2.34
Predicted price performance to date: Down 7.26%
The Bankless analytics team expects the WLD token unlock to further depress prices, and this selling pressure will be more pronounced in the absence of key progress in the ecosystem.
Nvidia fueled enthusiasm for AI by posting a significant increase in its share price in the first three months of 2024. While WLD, an AI-related cryptocurrency, did not begin to perform until early February, its price has risen 440% in just one month.
Worldcoin is arguably one of the most notorious low-circulation, high-valuation tokens of this cycle, a feature that makes it easier to manipulate prices and attract investor interest. But internal unlocking starting on July 25 will increase selling pressure.
Although Worldcoin has stated future plans to create real-world utility for WLD and its identity authentication model, the project has made little significant progress in terms of actual adoption, and its core authentication process has faced significant questions due to the existence of a black market for trading user identities.
Velodrome（VELO）
View: Bullish
Reason: Good intellectual property rights guarantee brings long-term benefits to holders
Forecast period: June 20, 2024 to September 20, 2024
Predicted price: $0.11
Predicted price performance to date: Down 9.21%
Velodrome’s commercial license (BSL) restricts imitation and forking of the exchange, allowing only licensed participants to operate. This feature prompted the Base-native Aerodrome fork to distribute 40% of the initial AERO supply to veVELO lockers in return for obtaining the consent and approval of the DAO.
Coinbase listed VELO and AERO in February, and while both tokens have risen since then, AERO has performed far better than its predecessor due to the Base Season hype and direct endorsement from Coinbase through its Base Ecosystem Fund.
Although the AERO token has attracted many people due to its recent good performance, VELO holders will enjoy the benefits of BSL by locking their tokens and may obtain long-term benefits from forked projects that hope to use its codebase for deployment in the future.
Athena (ENA)
View: Bearish
Reason: Insufficient revenue generation and security
Forecast period: June 14, 2024 to September 14, 2024
Predicted price: $0.72
Predicted price performance to date: down 37.22%
The Bankless analysis team believes that Ethena's future revenue generation capabilities and security guarantees are insufficient.
Ethena deposits have risen in recent weeks as the company decided to reduce its share of revenue from its insurance fund to 20% from 50%, increasing returns for staked USDe holders.
Spot BTC ETFs have indeed seen significant institutional adoption, but this has primarily come from hedge funds, which may be employing the same yield-generating strategies as Ethena — increasing the competitiveness of these once lucrative trades.
With a spot ETH ETF expected to begin trading this summer, hedge funds will have a second crypto asset to arbitrage, and the basis that Ethena generates through its risk-free arbitrage strategy is likely to continue to compress.
In June, the returns generated by Ethena perpetual futures shorts fell significantly, and despite increasing the percentage of revenue paid to stakers, sUSDe's returns were only half of what they were in the period before these changes were implemented.
Ethena’s liabilities may have expanded to their highest levels ever, but the insurance fund used to cover losses in the event of negative interest rates or loss of user assets accounts for only 1% of this deposit base, making ENA’s situation perilous when worse times than negative interest rates emerge.
Curve Finance（CRV）
View: Bearish
Reason: The current token model is not sustainable
Forecast period: June 13, 2024 to September 13, 2024
Predicted price: $0.28
Forecasted price performance to date: down 3.24%
The Bankless analysis team said that although the founders were forced to stop losses, which triggered the decline, Curve’s high-inflation token model may not be sustainable.
Founder Michael Egorov previously had nearly $100 million in outstanding stablecoin loans, collateralized by 350 million CRV, spread across five different lending protocols. Subsequently, depositors in these protocols began to withdraw liquidity from the CRV market, either out of malice or fear of bad debts caused by liquidation, and the utilization rate and borrowing rates of CRV collateral soared, further squeezing Egorov.
While Egorov’s liquidation is now largely complete and the CRV oversupply issue has been resolved, this does not guarantee that the token price will only rise from now on. The project’s inflationary token model has put significant pressure on CRV since its existence, causing it to remain weak relative to Ethereum.
Curve incentivizes users to lock up CRV for a long time to earn more token issuance and platform fees. The protocol’s TVL has seen nearly $300 million in outflows in June. As the price of CRV drops, it reduces the value of rewards and has a negative impact on token fundamentals, potentially triggering a TVL death spiral.
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