The on-chain frenzy is rising, can exchange tokens keep up?

Recently, the cryptocurrency market has shown a trend of diversification, with Bitcoin's market share dropping from 60% to 55%, marking the arrival of the altcoin season. Market hotspots have emerged, showcasing a variety of projects: AI Agent-related projects have performed outstandingly, with a certain protocol's market cap once exceeding $300 million; the AI project of a certain ecosystem also surpassed $1 billion in market cap; and the price of a certain ecological coin increased by more than 10 times. In terms of trading, the open interest has repeatedly reached new highs, breaking through $4.3 billion. Even the NFT sector, which was once neglected by the market, has become active again, with several well-known projects issuing tokens in succession, driving up the prices of many blue-chip NFT projects.

From these hotspots, it can be seen that the market's attention is mainly focused on on-chain projects. So, have the tokens of centralized exchanges really been overlooked by the market?

This is not the case. One potential factor in this bull market that cannot be ignored is the possibility of Trump being elected. This possibility means that cryptocurrency will further enter the public eye. The improvement of regulations and the relaxation of supervision are both favorable for attracting external funds into the crypto market. The continuous net inflow of funds into Bitcoin and Ethereum spot ETFs is a clear evidence of this. Financial projects related to the Trump family have also supported this with actual actions, purchasing a large amount of DeFi-related tokens within a month, including ETH, CBBTC, AAVE, LINK, ENA, and ONDO.

So, how do the purchased Tokens perform? What common characteristics do they have? What other related concept coins are worth paying attention to? Let's analyze them together.

Purchase Record Overview

Starting from November 30, a certain financial institution invested a total of 44.75 million dollars to purchase cryptocurrencies. As of December 18, all the coins held are in a profitable state.

Interestingly, unlike traditional institutions that prefer Bitcoin, the amount of ETH held by this institution far exceeds that of Bitcoin, which may suggest that they are more optimistic about the future trend of Ethereum.

As a leader in the lending market, AAVE ranks first in TVL, with a deposit scale nearing $40 billion, setting a historical high. In the past seven days, the price of AAVE has increased by 35%. Additionally, a financial institution's community has proposed a collaboration with AAVE, which is currently undergoing a temporary review phase at AaveDAO. If the proposal is ultimately approved, it will bring new users and more real benefits to AAVE.

LINK is a well-known oracle project. On November 14th, a financial institution announced it would adopt Chainlink as the standard for on-chain data and cross-chain connectivity, thereby promoting the large-scale adoption of DeFi.

The development of ENA is closely related to the current bull market. As its revenue comes from arbitrage between futures and spot, the more positive the market sentiment, the higher the funding rate for Ethereum, and Ethena can gain more profits. Recently, its TVL has exceeded $6 billion, setting a new historical high. In terms of products, they have also collaborated with an asset management company to launch an RWA stablecoin based on government bond yields, which has alleviated concerns in the market about the potential negative funding rate leading to a death spiral for the protocol.

ONDO is a leader in the current RWA sector. After a certain asset management company announced the launch of an innovative fund, Ondo Finance invested over $95 million, becoming the largest holder. In terms of compliance, legitimacy, fund scale, and market recognition, ONDO is the best choice in the RWA sector.

In addition to these held coins, COW is also worth mentioning. When purchasing the above coins, a certain financial institution only used Cow Protocol for trading, so COW is also regarded as a related concept token.

Potential Coins to Focus on in the Future

Based on the investment model of a certain financial institution, we can speculate on the targets they may focus on next.

First of all, the most ideal tokens are those that have a partnership with the institution, such as AAVE and LINK. The second category includes projects that have a "clear business model" and "stable actual returns." AAVE, LINK, ENA, ONDO, and others all have clear product positioning, a large ecosystem of users, and actual revenue models. This indicates that they are more inclined to invest in protocols that can bring long-term value rather than blindly pursuing "novelty" or "pure concept" tokens.

LDO: Given that the institution's holdings of ETH are far higher than those of BTC, it is clear that they are very optimistic about Ethereum's long-term potential. With the maturity of the Ethereum staking mechanism, along with the possibility that ETFs could introduce Ethereum staking yields, the leading protocol LIDO has become the preferred choice. It is the largest liquid staking protocol in the Ethereum ecosystem, with a TVL of $37 billion, accounting for 30% of the entire Ethereum staking market.

Pendle: Focused on the yield splitting market, allowing users to trade future yield rights. With the rise in Ethereum staking rates and the yields of certain protocols, the demand for yield trading has continued to increase, making Pendle highly regarded in this bull market. Recently, Pendle's TVL has surpassed $5 billion and has established partnerships with several mainstream DeFi protocols.

UNI: As the pioneer of DeFi Summer and the most commonly used decentralized exchange by current users, UNI is the leader in this sector. Recently, they launched a new chain, and although the market reaction has been tepid, this does not affect users' reliance on their products.

Conclusion: Blue-chip projects lead the market

Regarding a financial institution's large-scale purchase of cryptocurrencies, an analyst stated to the media: "This purchasing behavior may be aimed at gaining more trust, or to promote the development of its own projects by drawing attention to these assets. Because if these assets perform well, the institution may also benefit from it."

A certain financial institution is actively laying out blue-chip projects, which not only boosts the market's confidence in mainstream DeFi protocols but also injects more institutional funds into the crypto market. This flow of funds further stabilizes the market and drives mainstream projects towards higher market capitalization and development potential.