Author: Anil Lulla, CEO of Delphi Digital; Translator: Golden Finance Xiaozou

People love to say that cryptocurrencies have no PMF (product-market fit), but from my perspective, such statements indicate that they are a group of cynics who haven't taken the time to explore the various applications that developers around the world are constantly launching.

I want to highlight some of my favorite crypto applications I've used in 2024, hoping to inspire some of you to try these applications. These teams are working hard to create useful products, and we can at least take the time to test their efforts.

Before we dive deep into the discussion, I want to make some disclaimers and disclosures. I have personally interacted with these products and/or their tokens in various ways. I use * to denote any projects I have interacted with in some way. None of this constitutes financial advice—just my reflections on the projects I liked throughout the year. The order in which projects appear in this article does not represent their importance.

1. HyperLiquid

To stand out, HyperliquidX has performed exceptionally well. In the past month, you might have read thousands of tweets about it, so I will keep my thoughts brief. Everyone who regularly uses the product has fallen in love with it without exception. In fact, I haven't heard many complaints so far—we can't say the same for many crypto applications.

I try not to use leverage frequently anymore, so I am not the target user for HyperLiquid. In fact, I first used the application when it launched to buy HYPE* tokens. Soon, I saw why its fans had been crazy about it all year long. Not only is the UI/UX quite CEX-like (yes, I know it only has four validators), but seeing how quickly the team responds to user criticism, concerns, and feedback in their discord is also heartwarming.

Since its founding in 2023, HyperLiquid has built a passionate community of over 200,000 users, with a cumulative trading volume approaching $450 billion. The platform currently has over $2.5 billion in open positions. It has been very successful, currently holding over 60% of all USDC on Arbitrum.

Since HYPE launched, interest in it has not just been due to its clean UI/UX as a trading platform. Although it is still in the early stages, it has already formed an impressive ecosystem. The project not only promises an exciting future but has also realized an ambitious vision.

2. Polymarket

Since entering the crypto space in 2017, prediction markets have been one use case I've been excited about, and I thought it would be the first to truly take off, like early projects such as Augur. Clearly, that hasn't been the case. Nearly seven years have passed, and thanks to Polymarket, prediction markets have officially become mainstream in 2024. It performed perfectly on U.S. presidential election night, announcing what I believe to be the most important election winner of our generation six hours ahead of the Associated Press. To give some background, Polymarket handled $3.6 billion in election bets and predicted Trump's victory ahead of the AP by six hours.

It has created a new form of media and provided the world with other data points for people to reference while being informed of future situations by other potentially biased sources. Many have called for its abolition after the elections, but to be honest, it has performed well. Below the peak in November, but still above mid-October levels. I still frequently use it to see which markets are active, and it seems that the sports sector is starting to gain more share on it.

Additionally, we should give credit where it's due. Fun.xyz built a great checkout product for Polymarket, allowing users to deposit any token on any chain, card, or CEX (Binance, Coinbase, etc.). Some of my ordinary friends are even using it, and they have no complaints. The crypto user experience is not as bad as everyone says!

3. Farcaster

To be honest, while I was a daily user of Warpcast in the first half of 2024, I only opened it once or twice a week in the second half. One thing I want to do as we enter 2025 is to change that.

At the beginning of 2024, I attended the FarCon conference in Los Angeles, where most of the people I spoke with were builders of Farcaster. This is indeed a bullish signal. Although it is early days, many builders are focused on creating some very cool niche things, allowing Farcaster to attract communities that are focused and adventurous. I think you will see a lot of strange things emerging around this social graph by 2025.

I also believe that Dan Romero and his team will continue to innovate rapidly. They focus on helping core users expand their social graphs and reputations, which will create a great sandbox for builders to create new experiences. Features like channels, frameworks, and tipping tokens (like DEGEN) have already developed new ways to coordinate social interactions. Games like Clankermon and Stokefire have shown me some interesting and unique content.

Although it has dropped 50% from its peak, it still performs excellently in terms of user retention.

4. Ethena

At Delphi, we had high expectations for the launch of Ethena, but somehow it exceeded our expectations. Over the past year, Ethena's synthetic dollar USDe has grown to nearly $6 billion. Among stablecoins, it is now second only to Tether and USDC.

What particularly impressed me is that Ethena recently partnered with Blackrock to launch a new dollar stablecoin USDtb, supported by Blackrock's BUIDL fund. Like USDC, USDtb is backed by cash and cash-equivalent reserve assets. In the short term, the yield on USDe may remain high due to financing issues. However, Ethena can now flexibly adjust the treasury yields to supplement USDe. This effectively creates an APY 'floor' around treasury bond rates, allowing Ethena to scale further.

Like most people, I am optimistic about the growth of stablecoins in 2025. The current market cap is around $200 billion, and I feel it has the potential to exceed $300 billion, aiming for over $400 billion next year. I believe Ethena, with its smart products and continuous focus on integration, will play a crucial role in attracting substantial on-chain capital. We have already seen other decentralized stablecoins or synthetic dollars incorporated into DeFi in various ways, and Ethena's USDe seems to be the first to perform well in terms of integration with CEXs (centralized exchanges) and TradFi. This helps them build a strong moat early on while chasing the largest crypto markets.

5. Gunzilla

As we all know, Delphi is passionate about the crypto gaming industry. Through our early work and investments in teams like Axie Infinity, Yield Guild, and Immutable, we have been working to help bring games to market and bring the masses into the crypto world. Gunzilla Games has done just that—users have not encountered any friction from the crypto components.

Off the Grid, a cyberpunk-themed battle royale game, is the first crypto game released on PlayStation and Xbox, attracting over 12 million wallets and 230 million transactions. Players have already streamed over 4 million hours of gameplay on platforms like Twitch, and the game has ranked in the top three of live games twice. It employs Avalanche's play-to-own mechanism, putting the widely discussed benefits of cryptocurrencies for gaming into action: digital ownership can enhance player retention.

I highly recommend listening to the conversation between Piers Kicks and the founder of Gunzilla on the Delphi podcast last month. The team's unparalleled attention to detail and commitment to delivering what players truly want is evident. Currently, they are developing their own product as they strive to become the infrastructure that allows more mainstream AAA games to launch within their ecosystem. I am genuinely excited to see how Gunzilla continues to evolve and shape the future of crypto gaming.

6. Lighthouse

Over the years, Delphi has invested in several portfolio trackers (Zapper, Debank) and wallet observers, which we believe have the potential to become mainstream tools in the crypto world. Tools like these, along with Nansen, have become my main tools for managing wallets and observing others. Until a few weeks ago, I was still manually using spreadsheets and other applications to track my total portfolio.

Will Price casually mentioned Lighthouse to me, and I have been fascinated ever since. It is the best and most comprehensive portfolio tracker I have used to date. EVM, Solana, Cosmos, Aptos, Sui, CEX, Hyperliquid, DyDx; they can track everything. During the days I tested this app, I spoke with the team, and they are extremely privacy-conscious.

Among all the applications I mentioned in this article, I guess this is a product that many people have just heard about. I am very impressed with it, and I think it is a wise attempt. I have been looking for such products for years, and I am glad to have finally found it. I have no financial ties to Lighthouse, although I did request the Lighthouse team to allow me to invest. I am just a very satisfied user of their product.

7. Pump.fun

This year, pump.fun turned attention into liquidity. I don't think the mechanism has received enough due praise—it is a simple yet necessary solution with strong and direct PMF (product-market fit). It lowers the barrier while promoting fairer distributions, and its bonding mechanism mitigates the risk of rug pulls.

In a year, pump.fun has already generated over $300 million in fees and helped issue over 5 million tokens. While everyone in this space hopes the team will vertically expand by launching a DEX (decentralized exchange), they have chosen to grow horizontally by exploring new ways to attract attention. In my conversations, live streaming initially seemed like an unexpected direction. It ultimately spiraled out of control, but mainly because it was too successful.

Like it or not, anything that can be financialized will inevitably be financialized. Pump.fun has the potential to create a social application around speculation, so it must be mentioned here. By the way, my investment in pump.fun was made through a small angel investment, not through Delphi Ventures. Betting on the founders was an easy decision, but I am still amazed by their execution.

8. GOAT

My favorite crypto moment this year might be that the Crypto x AI field found a testing ground—Twitter and wallets. Our Delphi team has been outspoken about our excitement and curiosity about this crossover field. Just as we were conducting research on Crypto x AI, GOAT was released and captured all the attention in the crypto space.

Witnessing the Turing test come to life is an incredible experience, as people on Crypto Twitter are questioning which bots are AI and which are real humans. No matter how early it seems now, I believe GOAT is one of the most significant events of 2024 because it offers a tangible way to think about the interaction possibilities of cryptocurrencies and AI in this important crossover field. Since then, we have witnessed a surge of these agents, seeing teams innovate, stand out, and attract attention. The coolest thing is the high interoperability of all these upgrades, maximizing the efforts of each developer through applications to other agents. While some of these bots are indeed annoying, I genuinely believe that by 2025, these agents will bring truly interesting and even quirky things in droves to the internet.

9. VIRTUAL ecosystem

I don't intend to write too much about Virtuals right now as this is one of the new projects I have been researching. I just feel that for AI agents, it's a 'pickaxe and shovel' strategy. So far, they have released over 12,000 agents. Don't get me wrong, most agents are still pretty bad, and at times, they are merely annoying responders at best. However, I expect exponential improvements in the coming months, making this project worth watching.

Aixbt* is a particularly compelling account worth following and observing. The data doesn't lie; it occupies a share of crypto minds for good reason. It simply posts alpha on Twitter—but it is supported by years of research from 0rxbt, who has taken the time to gather a vast amount of crypto data and curate an intelligent Crypto Twitter social graph, giving aixbt 'personality'. While many crypto celebrities often talk about the same projects in the echo chamber of Crypto Twitter, aixbt consistently presents fresh alpha, primarily featuring projects I haven't seen anywhere else.

10 and 11: MetaDAO and MetaLeX

Few people know/remember this, but Delphi was one of the first companies to earn DAO rewards (Synthetix) in 2019. Since then, we have been active in dozens of governance processes and even helped design governance systems and projects for cryptocurrencies like Gitcoin. Initially, DAOs were the most exciting aspect of this field for me. However, my enthusiasm waned as we faced the complexities of working with DAOs. Most DAOs were formed to realize some ambitious vision, but they spent all their time figuring out how to 'DAO'. This year, two projects stood out for their practical approaches to tackling these challenges: MetaDAO and MetaLeX (though both have 'Meta' in their names, the two projects are unrelated).

MetaDAO has sparked many interesting discussions within Delphi (largely thanks to our META maxi mrink0). While some criticize Solana for a lack of innovation, MetaDAO is the world's first project to deploy futarchy. I have to mention it here because it is one of the coolest on-chain experiments I've seen in 2024.

Unlike traditional voting methods, MetaDAO uses the market to predict and determine the best outcomes for the DAO. It is interesting to see different protocols integrating it into their decision-making processes. For instance, Drift utilizes MetaDAO for market-based token listings on its exchange. As we approach 2025, I am closely watching MetaDAO, hoping it can increase voter participation in cryptocurrencies and improve voter diversity.

On the other hand, MetaLeX is a concept that Lex node and Delphi Labs have been honing for years. It finally launched in 2024, building a future where DAOs can focus on their tasks without getting bogged down in governance challenges. Through BORGs, MetaLeX enables DAOs to connect with the real world while maintaining cryptonative characteristics.

This is the culmination of Gabe's experiences in both the traditional and crypto worlds over the years. He has been the technical director at Delphi Labs for many years, and honestly, I have a lot of respect for him. For Delphi Labs, making this concept a reality is a no-brainer, as no one else in the world can build it the right way. MetaLeX fills the legal gaps with code and the code gaps with legal frameworks. Their BORGs can mutually execute multi-party trusted commitments and reduce trust assumptions for all counterparties.

MetaLeX has helped teams like Lido, Curve, and ZKSync transition to BORGs. They have been developing a comprehensive set of tools for governance that minimizes trust, and I believe that in 2025 we will start to see the impact of their work on integrating their DAOs.

12. Sandwich

This is a product created by a friend of mine. Sandwich is a private trading tool for executing CEX orders (as well as HyperLiquid orders). It allows you to access institutional-level algorithms that help save on fees, reduce slippage, and gives you access to various tools and multiple exchanges through a unified user interface.

Given that I primarily buy and hold tokens and do not often use leverage, I am not the target user in this regard. That said, every trader friend who has seen it has become a super user. A Mac application is on the way, but if you have a desktop, I encourage you to give it a try.

13. 9dcc

I think what Gmoney and 9dcc are doing is the coolest thing in the crypto space right now. He has successfully combined his passion and carved out his path, creating another mainstream attempt for cryptocurrencies.

Essentially, cryptocurrency is a very powerful coordination tool. Gamifying universally present things like fashion and interpersonal interactions is a genius move—it's surprising that this is still an underexplored area. Gmoney is still deep in this field, allowing him to connect cutting-edge on-chain ideas and bring them into the real world.

14. DeBridge

Over the years, I've tried many bridging tools, but DeBridge is the one I've used the most this year. Not only is the experience seamless, but their team has been one of the fastest to integrate new chains. No matter where your assets are or where you want them to go, the experience is the same.

They utilize cross-chain intents to connect DeFi in real-time, making the bridging experience feel almost magical. According to deAlex, they have settled over 4 million intents, with a trading volume exceeding $6 billion.

This is the first bridge I recommend to my ordinary friends that doesn't require answering any questions about how to use it. That alone is impressive, and I thank the team for their work.

15 and 16: Echo and Legion

2024 is the year of the ICO comeback. I am a big fan of Cobie's approach to Echo—it seems to fit very well with Crypto Twitter users, having product-market fit. Supporting people you trust and letting them bring you interesting deal flow directly is a win-win. Echo has facilitated over 150 transactions, raising over $55 million for projects from nearly 6,000 users.

On the other hand, Legion takes a more bottom-up approach, distributing project tokens to more consistent community members. They have developed a Legion Score, which currently includes three main variables: (1) on-chain activity, (2) social influence, (3) development experience. This score will change over time, giving projects a better understanding of who they are letting into their capital structure.

Legion is a project that we at Delphi Labs have been incubating for over a year, and just a month ago, its platform saw its first trades. The numbers speak for themselves: raising over $5 million, with nearly 100,000 users already registered for Legion Score.

I think by 2025, we will see more projects utilizing platforms like this to help distribute tokens. The timing of the new US government coming to power couldn't be better. I strongly recommend everyone to register on both platforms and check them once a week. While these platforms strive to curate high-quality projects for their members, there may be many attractive opportunities.

17. Kaito

In 2024, Kaito has quickly become a very powerful tool for cryptocurrency users. In a way, Kaito and Delphi Research aim to solve a similar problem: helping crypto members cut through all the noise in the crypto world to find alpha and valuable insights. To this end, our research team spends hundreds of hours researching and then distilling all the necessary and relevant information into about 30 minutes of reading, focusing on areas we believe will yield alpha. In this process, our analysts take time to think through and filter out most of the noise, only to analyze the understanding and conclusions that are important for any particular protocol or segment. Kaito excels in using its smart algorithms to help extract nuggets of gold from all the noise on Crypto Twitter. In fact, when I search for a particular project or token, it helps me skip so much noise that I am genuinely amazed.

I can see it being a very useful and necessary tool for all traders. However, I have been using it to find talent. Typically, in any given field, some of the most vocal individuals become potential recruits for our Delphi team. In fact, we just sent an offer to a talent I discovered through Kaito, who will be joining our team in January.

I believe Kaito has the potential to serve many different user groups through a product, given how many cryptocurrencies remain active on Twitter.

18. Grass

Grass allows users to earn rewards by sharing excess internet bandwidth with the rest of the network. It is a simple plugin, and I have been running Grass in the background for most of 2024. Our venture team has invested heavily in Crypto x AI projects, but Grass may be the one I am personally most excited about (at least among the projects I can publicly discuss now).

Data is the next frontier in model development. We have seen AI labs trying to partner with platforms like Reddit or StackOverflow to gain API key access to their data. Grass provides an API key for the entire internet.

It can do this efficiently and at scale. They already have 2.5 million nodes on the supply side providing unfiltered data for training and AI responses. There will also be new ways to join the network, such as people plugging mobile and hardware into their WiFi routers. According to research by 0xdrej, the demand for entry into this network is already in the nine-digit range.

The Grass project is already helping traditional AI people take the Crypto X AI crossover seriously, and I am optimistic about their prospects for development in 2025.

19. Ostium

Since our team worked with Kain and the SNX family in 2019, we have been excited to connect the on-chain world with traditional assets. Ostium seems to be delivering on that promise.

Kaledora has made it clear that she is keen on making Ostium an all-encompassing market. Currently, Ostium offers users long or short perpetual trading on forex, commodities, cryptocurrencies, and stock indices. So far, they have completed over $166 million in trades. What's cool is when trading volumes for certain pairs soar. For example, the USD/JPY pair has seen $21 million in trading volume since its inception, most of which occurred during the Japanese central bank interest rate decision (not sure if you remember the 72-hour short-term bear market).

They have launched some sleek structured products based on Polymarket. For example, once the Polymarket odds for Trump winning the presidential election night reach a certain percentage, you can let Ostium 10x long Bitcoin. You can set it up this way, and while the rest of the world stays up late to see what happens, you can go to sleep and wake up very happily (and well-rested).

With the new U.S. government no longer opposing cryptocurrency, I believe it will allow Ostium to launch some things on-chain that we could not have imagined over the past four years. (When I publish this article, Ostium has actually launched SPX Perps!)

20. Moonwalk Fitness

Moonwalk Fitness uses the coordination capabilities of cryptocurrency to create a powerful accountability tool for fitness.

Currently, the main purpose of the first version of Moonwalk is to incentivize people to walk daily. You can create a group, set daily step goals, and deposit USDC/SOL/BONK tokens. As long as you meet your set goal, at the very least, you will get your money back. If others do not meet their goals, their money will be distributed to the winners. This is a simple yet powerful tool for incentivizing good behavior, and I'm excited to see what its next iteration will look like. You can see that this concept is not limited to step incentives: setting goals for daily sleep time, water intake, etc. In terms of rewards, I am curious to know which projects sponsor competitions to help different people enter this space.

Although it is still early days, they already have nearly 100,000 registered users; over 500,000 locked up to take responsibility. They will soon release a mobile app, which I have been nagging the team about for quite some time. This may be the first crypto application that my parents will use weekly.

So, this is my list of favorite projects for 2024. These are just a few products I like, and I want to thank their teams for their hard work. Unfortunately, I clearly cannot exhaustively list all the teams I think did well in 2024. Other projects that quickly come to mind include wallets like Morpho, Jito, Cowswap, Jupiter, Pendle, and Phantom/Rabby.

I am curious—what is your favorite project of 2024?