Editor's note: At the beginning of each quarter, Grayscale selects the top 20 tokens with the most growth potential from hundreds of digital assets. In the Q2 quarter of 2025, Grayscale focuses on RWA, DePIN and IP tokenization, so three new tokens have been added to the Top 20, namely IP, SYRUP and GEOD, and in this article, Grayscale reviews the overall performance of the crypto market in Q1 2025.
To help readers better understand the performance of the "Grayscale Select" tokens, Odaily has compiled the performance of six new tokens added by Grayscale in Q1 2025 in this article. The results indicate that, likely due to the overall market downturn in Q1, the prices of all six newly added tokens by Grayscale have declined since January 1, 2025, with VIRTUAL dropping by more than 80%. For the complete content, see below.
Summary:
Crypto valuations retreated in the first quarter of 2025, as measured by the FTSE/Grayscale Crypto Sectors Index, along with tech stocks and other risky assets.
The indicators of Bitcoin network activity in the first quarter performed well overall. In contrast, as trading of Meme coins on Solana slowed down, the usage rate of smart contract platforms also decreased. The application-related category of crypto assets occupies three out of the five crypto markets delineated by Grayscale, generating over 2 billion dollars in revenue in the first quarter.
At the same time, Grayscale has updated the Top 20 potential tokens in Grayscale Research. The Top 20 represents a diversified set of assets in the cryptocurrency space, and Grayscale believes these assets have high potential in the upcoming quarter. The three newly added assets this quarter are Maple (SYRUP), Geodnet (GEOD), and Story Protocol (IP). All assets in the Top 20 list exhibit high price volatility and should be considered high-risk assets.
Today, the entire digital asset industry has over 40 million tokens (excluding NFTs). To track them, Grayscale Research has divided them into five different cryptocurrency markets based on the actual usage of the underlying software. Investors can monitor the performance of each segment through Grayscale's Crypto Sectors tool. As of the latest data, the Crypto Sectors framework now covers 227 different assets, with a total market capitalization of $2.6 trillion, accounting for approximately 85-90% of the total cryptocurrency market capitalization.
Crypto Sectors divides digital assets into five segments.
Q1 2025 Summary: Cryptocurrency Valuation Decline Across the Board
Cryptocurrency valuations are expected to decline comprehensively in the first quarter of 2025, similar to tech stocks and other risk assets. In this quarter (as of Friday, March 21), the market-cap-weighted cryptocurrency price index fell by 18%, but Bitcoin and some other cryptocurrencies experienced smaller declines or even price increases (e.g., XRP). The weakest submarket this quarter is consumer and culture, mainly due to the drop in prices of DOGE and other meme coins.
The valuation of cryptocurrencies will decline in the first quarter of 2025.
In the first quarter, the indicators of Bitcoin network activity performed well overall. For example, the number of addresses with a balance greater than or equal to $1 reached a new high of 48 million. In contrast, the number of monthly active on-chain users remained basically flat compared to the previous quarter, at 11 million. The widening gap between these two metrics suggests that recent demand for Bitcoin may come from users interested in its function as a "store of value" rather than as a "medium of exchange." Bitcoin's hash rate increased to nearly 800 exahash (EH/s) in the first quarter, indicating that a network of 5-6 million Bitcoin mining machines worldwide is attempting to solve the proof-of-work algorithm at around 800 trillion hashes per second.
The steady increase in the number of Bitcoin "hodlers"
At the beginning of 2025, there was a general decline in fundamental metrics in the smart contract platform space, mainly due to a pullback in meme coin trading activity on the Solana blockchain. Although the meme coin does not offer real-world utility and can pose a particularly high risk to investors, the interest in trading the meme coin may have brought many new users to the Solana ecosystem.
According to data from Token Terminal, Solana's monthly active users reached 140 million by the end of the fourth quarter of 2024, with an average of nearly 90 million in the first quarter of 2025. Even in the case of a slowdown in Meme coin trading, Solana still generated approximately $390 million in fees in the first quarter, accounting for about half of the estimated total fees of smart contract platforms.
Solana's monthly active users peaked at ~140 million
The Grayscale Crypto Sectors framework includes three application-related crypto asset classes: Finance, Consumer and Culture, and Utilities and Services. These segments include all components of on-chain economic activity, including user-facing applications, associated application infrastructure (such as oracles and cross-chain bridges), and dedicated blockchains. As a result, the category is highly diverse, and Grayscale believes that it is best to evaluate them based on similar assets that focus on specific areas. That being said, for the assets in the crypto category related to these three apps, we estimate the total fees to be around $2.6 billion, a 99% increase from the first quarter of 2024.
Blockchain applications generate over $2 billion in quarterly fees.
The image below provides some key basic statistics for various parts of the digital asset market. Overall, these indicators show steady growth compared to the same period last year, but the changes are mixed compared to the previous quarter.
Grayscale Research Top 20 Token List
Each quarter, the Grayscale Research team analyzes hundreds of digital assets to inform the reevaluation process of the FTSE/Grayscale Crypto Sectors Index. After this process, Grayscale Research generates a list of the top 20 assets in Crypto Sectors. The top 20 represent the crypto industry's diversified assets, which Grayscale believes have high potential in the coming quarter, with an assessment that combines a range of factors, including network growth/adoption, upcoming catalysts, fundamental sustainability, token valuation, token supply inflation, and potential tail risk.
2025 Q1 New Token Performance
In the past quarter, Grayscale Research has been inspired by emerging assets in the blockchain application layer (rather than the infrastructure layer). The newly added assets in the Q1 2025 Grayscale Top 20 list include HYPE, ENA, VIRTUAL, JUP, JTO, and GRASS*.*
According to CoinGecko data, these six newly added tokens have performed as follows since the Grayscale disclosure (January 1, 2025):
Hyperliquid (HYPE): The price on January 1, 2025, is $24, down 33% to date; the price reached a high of $27.94 in Q1 2025, with a relative increase of 16%; the price dropped to a low of $12.15 in Q1 2025, with a relative decrease of 49.37%, and the lowest price has increased by 33% to date.
Ethena (ENA):The price was $0.91 on January 1, 2025, down 53% so far; In 2025, the Q1 price will reach a maximum of $1.27, a relative increase of 39.5%; In 2025, the lowest price in Q1 will reach $0.33, a relative decrease of 63%, and the lowest price has increased by 30% so far.
Virtual Protocol (VIRTUAL): The price on January 1, 2025, was $4, which has since dropped by 80%; the price in Q1 2025 peaked at $4.99, a relative increase of 24%; the price in Q1 2025 fell to a low of $0.53, a relative decrease of 86%, with the lowest price having increased by 52% since then.
Jupiter (JUP): The price on January 1, 2025, was $0.82, down 30% to date; the price in Q1 2025 peaked at $1.26, with a relative increase of 53%; the price in Q1 2025 dropped to a low of $0.46, with a relative decrease of 43%, resulting in a 23% increase from the lowest price to date.
Jito (JTO): Price on January 1, 2025, is $3.2, down 22% to date; the highest price in Q1 2025 reached $3.5, a relative increase of 9.3%; the lowest price in Q1 2025 fell to $2.1, a relative decrease of 34%, and the lowest price has increased by 19% to date.
Grass (GRASS): The price on January 1, 2025, was $2.6, down 38% to date; the price in Q1 2025 reached a high of $3.4, a relative increase of 30%; the price in Q1 2025 dropped to a low of $0.9, a relative decrease of 65%, with the lowest price having increased by 77% to date.
In summary, since Grayscale's disclosure, the prices of these 6 tokens have all experienced significant pullbacks in Q1 2025. If one had held these tokens since Q1, without exception, they would all be at a loss, without making a single dime. However, if one could identify the bottom range and buy in until now, there would have been a decent increase.
New Tokens Added in Q2 2025
This quarter, Grayscale will focus on tokens that reflect the non-speculative applications of blockchain technology in the real world, which are divided into the following three categories: RWA (Real World Assets), DePIN (Decentralized Physical Infrastructure), and IP (Intellectual Property Tokenization).
Based on the above theme, the following three assets have been added to the Top 20 list for the second quarter of 2025:
Maple (SYRUP): Maple is a decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol focused on institutional lending through its two core platforms: Maple Institutional (for qualified investors) and Syrup.fi (for DeFi native users). The protocol's total locked value (TVL) has grown to over 600 million dollars and has generated 20 million dollars in annualized network fee revenue over the past 30 days. It also seeks to establish Maple Institutional as a trusted institutional loan originator through partnerships with traditional financial institutions.
Geodnet (GEOD): Geodnet is a DePIN project for collecting real-time positioning data. As the world's largest provider of real-time dynamic positioning (RTK), Geodnet offers geospatial data with an accuracy of up to 1 centimeter, providing cost-effective solutions for users like farmers. In the future, Geodnet may provide value for autonomous vehicles and robots. The network has expanded to over 14,000 devices in 130 countries/regions, and the annualized network fee revenue over the past 30 days has grown to over $3 million (approximately a 500% year-on-year increase). It is worth noting that compared to other assets in the top 20, GEOD has a lower market capitalization and fewer listed exchanges, making it a potentially riskier investment.
Story (IP): The Story Protocol is attempting to tokenize the $70 trillion intellectual property (IP) market. In the AI era, proprietary IP is being used to train AI models, leading to copyright infringement claims and large-scale lawsuits, such as the previous litigation dispute between The New York Times and OpenAI. By bringing IP on-chain, Story will enable companies to use their IP for AI model training while allowing individuals to invest in, trade, and earn IP royalties. Story has already brought songs by Justin Bieber and BTS on-chain and launched an IP-centric blockchain and token in February.
Top 20 List for Q2 2025
In addition to the new themes mentioned above, Grayscale remains optimistic about themes from the previous few quarters, such as Ethereum scaling solutions, the intersection of blockchain and AI development, as well as DeFi and staking solutions. These themes are represented in the Top 20, including Optimism, Bittensor, and Lido DAO.
This quarter, Akash, Arweave, and Jupiter have been removed from the Top 20. However, Grayscale Research still recognizes the value of these projects, as they remain important components of the cryptocurrency ecosystem. Nevertheless, the new Top 20 list may offer more attractive risk-return opportunities for the next quarter.
Investing in crypto assets involves risks, some of which are unique to the crypto asset class, including smart contract vulnerabilities and regulatory uncertainty. In addition, all of the top 20 assets are highly volatile and should be considered high-risk, making them not suitable for all investors. Given the risk of the asset class, any investment in digital assets should be considered in the context of the portfolio and taking into account the investor's financial well-being objectives.
The content is for reference only, not a solicitation or offer. No investment, tax, or legal advice provided. See Disclaimer for more risks disclosure.
Grayscale's latest report: Q1 list performance was poor, Q2 will focus on RWA, DePIN, and IP tokenization.
The original text is from Grayscale Research
Compiled by Odaily Planet Daily Golem
Editor's note: At the beginning of each quarter, Grayscale selects the top 20 tokens with the most growth potential from hundreds of digital assets. In the Q2 quarter of 2025, Grayscale focuses on RWA, DePIN and IP tokenization, so three new tokens have been added to the Top 20, namely IP, SYRUP and GEOD, and in this article, Grayscale reviews the overall performance of the crypto market in Q1 2025.
To help readers better understand the performance of the "Grayscale Select" tokens, Odaily has compiled the performance of six new tokens added by Grayscale in Q1 2025 in this article. The results indicate that, likely due to the overall market downturn in Q1, the prices of all six newly added tokens by Grayscale have declined since January 1, 2025, with VIRTUAL dropping by more than 80%. For the complete content, see below.
Summary:
Today, the entire digital asset industry has over 40 million tokens (excluding NFTs). To track them, Grayscale Research has divided them into five different cryptocurrency markets based on the actual usage of the underlying software. Investors can monitor the performance of each segment through Grayscale's Crypto Sectors tool. As of the latest data, the Crypto Sectors framework now covers 227 different assets, with a total market capitalization of $2.6 trillion, accounting for approximately 85-90% of the total cryptocurrency market capitalization.
Q1 2025 Summary: Cryptocurrency Valuation Decline Across the Board
Cryptocurrency valuations are expected to decline comprehensively in the first quarter of 2025, similar to tech stocks and other risk assets. In this quarter (as of Friday, March 21), the market-cap-weighted cryptocurrency price index fell by 18%, but Bitcoin and some other cryptocurrencies experienced smaller declines or even price increases (e.g., XRP). The weakest submarket this quarter is consumer and culture, mainly due to the drop in prices of DOGE and other meme coins.
In the first quarter, the indicators of Bitcoin network activity performed well overall. For example, the number of addresses with a balance greater than or equal to $1 reached a new high of 48 million. In contrast, the number of monthly active on-chain users remained basically flat compared to the previous quarter, at 11 million. The widening gap between these two metrics suggests that recent demand for Bitcoin may come from users interested in its function as a "store of value" rather than as a "medium of exchange." Bitcoin's hash rate increased to nearly 800 exahash (EH/s) in the first quarter, indicating that a network of 5-6 million Bitcoin mining machines worldwide is attempting to solve the proof-of-work algorithm at around 800 trillion hashes per second.
At the beginning of 2025, there was a general decline in fundamental metrics in the smart contract platform space, mainly due to a pullback in meme coin trading activity on the Solana blockchain. Although the meme coin does not offer real-world utility and can pose a particularly high risk to investors, the interest in trading the meme coin may have brought many new users to the Solana ecosystem.
According to data from Token Terminal, Solana's monthly active users reached 140 million by the end of the fourth quarter of 2024, with an average of nearly 90 million in the first quarter of 2025. Even in the case of a slowdown in Meme coin trading, Solana still generated approximately $390 million in fees in the first quarter, accounting for about half of the estimated total fees of smart contract platforms.
! Grayscale Strict Selection Latest Report: Q1 List Underperforms, Q2 Focuses on RWA, DePIN and IP Tokenization
The Grayscale Crypto Sectors framework includes three application-related crypto asset classes: Finance, Consumer and Culture, and Utilities and Services. These segments include all components of on-chain economic activity, including user-facing applications, associated application infrastructure (such as oracles and cross-chain bridges), and dedicated blockchains. As a result, the category is highly diverse, and Grayscale believes that it is best to evaluate them based on similar assets that focus on specific areas. That being said, for the assets in the crypto category related to these three apps, we estimate the total fees to be around $2.6 billion, a 99% increase from the first quarter of 2024.
The image below provides some key basic statistics for various parts of the digital asset market. Overall, these indicators show steady growth compared to the same period last year, but the changes are mixed compared to the previous quarter.
Grayscale Research Top 20 Token List
Each quarter, the Grayscale Research team analyzes hundreds of digital assets to inform the reevaluation process of the FTSE/Grayscale Crypto Sectors Index. After this process, Grayscale Research generates a list of the top 20 assets in Crypto Sectors. The top 20 represent the crypto industry's diversified assets, which Grayscale believes have high potential in the coming quarter, with an assessment that combines a range of factors, including network growth/adoption, upcoming catalysts, fundamental sustainability, token valuation, token supply inflation, and potential tail risk.
2025 Q1 New Token Performance
In the past quarter, Grayscale Research has been inspired by emerging assets in the blockchain application layer (rather than the infrastructure layer). The newly added assets in the Q1 2025 Grayscale Top 20 list include HYPE, ENA, VIRTUAL, JUP, JTO, and GRASS*.*
According to CoinGecko data, these six newly added tokens have performed as follows since the Grayscale disclosure (January 1, 2025):
In summary, since Grayscale's disclosure, the prices of these 6 tokens have all experienced significant pullbacks in Q1 2025. If one had held these tokens since Q1, without exception, they would all be at a loss, without making a single dime. However, if one could identify the bottom range and buy in until now, there would have been a decent increase.
New Tokens Added in Q2 2025
This quarter, Grayscale will focus on tokens that reflect the non-speculative applications of blockchain technology in the real world, which are divided into the following three categories: RWA (Real World Assets), DePIN (Decentralized Physical Infrastructure), and IP (Intellectual Property Tokenization).
Based on the above theme, the following three assets have been added to the Top 20 list for the second quarter of 2025:
In addition to the new themes mentioned above, Grayscale remains optimistic about themes from the previous few quarters, such as Ethereum scaling solutions, the intersection of blockchain and AI development, as well as DeFi and staking solutions. These themes are represented in the Top 20, including Optimism, Bittensor, and Lido DAO.
This quarter, Akash, Arweave, and Jupiter have been removed from the Top 20. However, Grayscale Research still recognizes the value of these projects, as they remain important components of the cryptocurrency ecosystem. Nevertheless, the new Top 20 list may offer more attractive risk-return opportunities for the next quarter.
Investing in crypto assets involves risks, some of which are unique to the crypto asset class, including smart contract vulnerabilities and regulatory uncertainty. In addition, all of the top 20 assets are highly volatile and should be considered high-risk, making them not suitable for all investors. Given the risk of the asset class, any investment in digital assets should be considered in the context of the portfolio and taking into account the investor's financial well-being objectives.