Original text from Bankless
Translation｜Odaily Planet Daily Golem (@web3golem)_
The trend of the crypto market still depends on which way Trump's "butt leans." Last night, Trump posted on social media stating that he would promote a strategic reserve of cryptocurrencies including XRP, SOL, and ADA, leading to a V-shaped reversal in the long-dormant altcoin market today. According to Quantify Crypto data, among the top 200 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization in the past 24 hours, only 10 tokens showed a downward trend, while the remaining 190 tokens experienced varying degrees of increase.
Could Trump single-handedly bring about an altcoin bull market? Some players jokingly refer to cryptocurrencies as the "political economy" studied around the Trump family, suggesting that it might be easier to mindlessly follow and buy American coins than to diligently research and invest in value coins. However, considering the time dimension, the strategic reserve of cryptocurrencies is still unlikely to materialize in the short term. Once the FOMO triggered by short-term positive news ends, the ultimate value of altcoins will return to fundamentals, and this altcoin surge may just be the last "resurrection" before the "great retreat" of the bull market.
So, which altcoins are worth paying attention to from a fundamental perspective? The Bankless analyst team has been predicting the price trends of altcoins based on fundamentals. Odaily Planet Daily will summarize the recent specific trend predictions and reasons for eight altcoins from the Bankless analyst team in this article, along with a summary of their win rates for token predictions due in February 2025 for readers' reference.
February Prediction Win Rate: 50%
Excluding neutral tokens, there are 12 tokens predicted by the Bankless analyst team that will expire in February, with the following results:
Predicted bullish but declined: Aave (AAVE) down 12.72%; anoncast (ANON) down 95.54%; Near (NEAR) down 32.31%; Solana (SOL) down 9.15%; Helium Network (HNT) down 34.62%;
Predicted bearish but increased: anoncast (ANON) up 41.54%;
Predicted consistent with actual: Instadapp (INST) up 8.04%; Ethereum Name Service (ENS) down 21.68%; Drift (DRIFT) down 53.45%; Jito (JTO) up 35.81%; Toncoin (TON) down 6.48%; XRP down 2.53%.
The most significant discrepancies were seen with anoncast (ANON) and anoncast (ANON), while the most accurate prediction was for Drift (DRIFT), which saw a decline of 53.45% by the time the prediction expired. However, the overall win rate for tokens predicted to expire in February remains at 50%.
Bullish Tokens Overview
Sui (SUI)
Track: L1
Reason: Positive fundamentals, increasing application revenue and stablecoin market capitalization
Prediction period: February 25, 2025, to May 25, 2025
Price at prediction: $2.8
Price performance to date: up 5.71%
In the past three months, new chains like Berachain, Unichain, and Ink have launched, intensifying competition between L1 and L2. Nevertheless, Sui continues to attract users and capital, with a net inflow of over $570 million in the past three months.
From October 2024 to January, Sui's monthly application revenue grew from $2.24 million to $5.44 million, a growth that may attract more ecosystem builders looking to leverage this momentum. Since November 2024, Sui's total stablecoin market capitalization has increased by 58%, indicating that more users are being attracted to the chain. Additionally, since November 2024, Sui's LST market capitalization has grown by 246%. This not only enhances network security but also demonstrates users' long-term confidence.
Berachain (BERA)
Track: L1
Reason: Airdrop selling pressure has eased, novel token incentive model
Prediction period: February 11, 2025, to May 11, 2025
Price at prediction: $5.51
Price performance to date: up 42.11%
Since the airdrop on February 6, Berachain's BERA has plummeted over 60%, and its valuation has dropped to a reasonable level. The advantage of Berachain lies in its novel PoL incentive measures that define the issuance of BGT, which can be converted 1:1 into BERA, enhancing yields to attract money-oriented DeFi participants. At the same time, user groups wishing to participate in Berachain governance must accumulate voting rights in BGT, which may also alleviate selling pressure.
Compared to other mainstream L1s, Berachain's valuation is relatively low, providing ample room for BERA to rise, and the initial airdrop selling pressure may have already dissipated.
Therefore, the Bankless analyst team is bullish on BERA's subsequent performance, cautiously optimistic that its novel incentive structure may trigger a positive deposit flywheel, where initial inflows improve the network's fundamentals, thereby increasing the value of BGT incentives and attracting more deposits. However, for BERA to be sustainable, Berachain must provide a reason for people to genuinely use the network beyond Ponzi economics.
Pendle Finance (PENDLE)
Track: DeFi
Reason: TVL growth, potential for significant capital inflow into the protocol in 2025
Prediction period: February 10, 2025, to May 10, 2025
Price at prediction: $3.47
Price performance to date: down 17.87%
On November 8, 2024, the Bankless analyst team expressed a bullish outlook on PENDLE's subsequent performance due to its native yield swap being an innovative financial tool in the market. If the crypto market takes off, Pendle could achieve rapid growth.
In the past three months, significant capital has flowed into Pendle, with TVL increasing from $2.964 billion to $5.11 billion, a growth of over 70%. Additionally, PENDLE can be staked to earn platform fees. Pendle recently released an update on its 2025 roadmap, indicating plans to expand into non-EVM ecosystems like Solana and Hyperliquid, create financial tools suitable for TradFi use, and provide services compliant with Islamic principles to enter the approximately $3.9 trillion Islamic finance sector.
Uniswap (UNI)
Track: DeFi
Reason: Uniswap V4 will change the fundamentals of Uniswap
Prediction period: February 1, 2025, to May 1, 2025
Price at prediction: $12.32
Price performance to date: down 35.55%
On January 31, Uniswap Labs announced the deployment of Uniswap V4, which makes the Uniswap protocol an open development platform through hooks. Hooks are a new smart contract primitive that allows anyone to customize the interaction of pools, swaps, fees, and LP positions.
Although UNI has been the best-performing crypto asset since Trump's election in November 2024, it ultimately plummeted nearly 50% as traders rushed to seize the regulatory advantages. With the token price declining, Uniswap has faced controversy over the downward trend in TVL and protocol fees since early December 2024. However, with the launch of Uniswap V4 and increased flexibility for smart contract developers, many new third-party applications are entering the market. Any of these could potentially reignite platform activity, which may improve Uniswap's fundamental situation and drive the token price up.
Bearish Tokens Overview
Sky (SKY)
Track: DeFi
Reason: Although the supply of stablecoins has expanded, it may face income issues
Prediction period: February 21, 2025, to May 21, 2025
Price at prediction: $1447.95
Price performance to date: up 2.63%
SKY/MKR has been rising for most of February, while the circulating supply of its USDS/DAI stablecoin has increased by 33%. However, to retain depositors, a recent Sky governance proposal urged representatives to consider lowering the stability fees for several major vaults—interest charged to stablecoin borrowers. If passed, the governance proposal would also reduce the yields of sDAI and sUSDS from the current levels of 7.25% and 8.75% to 4.75% and 6.50%, respectively (roughly equivalent to the rates offered by short-term U.S. Treasury bonds), to offset declining income. While the above-market yields allowed Sky to expand its USDS/DAI supply in February, this expansion was backed by low-yield stablecoins and RWA assets, leading the protocol to operate at a net loss throughout the month.
As a result, the Bankless analyst team is not optimistic about the future performance of SKY/MKR, expecting the protocol to encounter income issues in the near future as it seeks to balance declining cryptocurrency rates with profitable business operations. For this to be achieved, there must be an intrinsic demand for cryptocurrency leverage, and borrowers must be willing to pay higher interest rates.
Velodrome (VELO)
Track: DEX
Reason: Declining liquidity and fees, with VELO lock-up volume also decreasing
Prediction period: February 21, 2025, to May 21, 2025
Price at prediction: $0.07
Price performance to date: down 10.13%
Previously, Velodrome launched an update called Slipstream V2, which allows mining pools to dynamically set fees based on market fluctuations, helping to maximize returns for liquidity providers and veVELO lockers. However, VELO still experienced a sharp decline.
In the past 30 days, Velodrome's net deposits have decreased by 28%, indicating that LPs are shifting their liquidity to other dApps for better returns. During the same period, the platform's fees dropped by 26%, suggesting that users hoping to swap tokens are taking their business elsewhere. Although VELO's total supply is increasing weekly due to the issuance plan, the percentage of locked VELO has fallen from 64% to 55% over the past year. This indicates that users believe holding and later selling tokens may yield better returns than locking tokens for LP rewards.
Lido (LDO)
Track: LST
Reason: Overall decline in ETH staking services
Prediction period: February 14, 2025, to May 14, 2025
Price at prediction: $1.86
Price performance to date: down 29.57%
On November 7, 2024, the Bankless analyst team was bullish on Lido's future performance, rationally believing that Trump's election would spark investor optimism in the crypto space. Although Trump appointed some pro-crypto politicians, there has been little progress on key issues.
While Lido holds a significant share of the ETH staking market, its holdings have changed dramatically, with over 200,000 ETH withdrawn from the platform. Lido is not the only staking service experiencing a decline; since mid-November, over 1 million ETH have been unstaked, marking the most aggressive shrinkage of ETH since the merge.
Therefore, the Bankless analyst team is bearish on Lido's future performance, as ETH is flowing out not only from Lido but also from other staking protocols.
Ethena (ENA)
Track: Stablecoin
Reason: Declining funding rates may lead to withdrawals by depositors
Prediction period: January 21, 2025, to April 21, 2025
Price at prediction: $0.96
Price performance to date: down 55.42%
The Bankless analyst team was previously bullish on ENA on October 18, 2024, optimistically believing that if the crypto bull market continued, the rising funding rates would catalyze Ethena's profitability and explosive asset management expansion. ENA rose over 200% within three months of this rating.
On January 20, the same day Trump was inaugurated, his eldest son announced that the Trump family's World Liberty Financial project had acquired over $11 million in crypto assets, including a purchase of $47,000 in ENA tokens. However, since December, the market bubble has significantly cooled, causing the perpetual swap funding rates (Ethena's main source of income) to reset to the "neutral" zone.
As a result, the Bankless analyst team has turned bearish on ENA's future performance, citing concerns that the stagnation in funding rates will force depositors to withdraw further from Ethena, similar to mid-2024 when ENA plummeted 85% from its post-launch peak.
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