Tokens On Our Radar

Note: This is a longform piece and is best viewed on our website or our app

Here’s a list of upcoming or live protocols we’re closely tracking. As investors who also produce content, we aim to be transparent about the teams we’ve invested in or the tokens we hold. While we’d like to believe we’re unbiased, some bias is inevitable. That said, as investors, we often get a behind-the-scenes look at these teams and their innovative ideas, which naturally fuels our enthusiasm for the projects we back or know well. Still, we didn’t want to exclude them from this list simply because of our investments.

Before we get started, this is never a recommendation or endorsement to buy any token(s) mentioned, and here’s a few risks to consider:

• Smart contract risk in any underlying protocols

• Front-end spoof attack on an app frontend

• An economic design exploit

• Colluding signers on any multisig

• Systemic risk across DeFi, including stablecoin depegs

Summary

• Unlaunched Tokens

  • InfiniFi

  • Yield Basis

  • Cap Labs

  • GTE

  • GAIB

  • Kinetiq

  • Felix

• Liquid Tokens

  • Fluid 

  • Hyperliquid

  • GammaSwap 

  • Maple

  • Ether.Fi

  • Pendle

  • Bonus 👀 

Unlaunched Tokens

InfiniFi (invested)

InfiniFi are calling themselves the first onchain fractional reserve system. That is a bit of a mouthful, but basically they will be able to take any asset, add a duration to it and achieve a higher yield. This can work with any onchain asset. Essentially, any asset that can be tokenized can work with InfiniFi.

Why We’re Bullish:

InfiniFi is highly composable with other protocols. They will be able to take any yield and make it higher by adding duration. DeFi operates as a meritocracy, where the highest risk-adjusted yields typically prevail. If InfiniFi executes its vision effectively, it could become a powerful magnet for assets.

InfiniFi's positive-sum integration with other protocols is a key strength. For instance, Ethena would likely welcome users locking sUSDe for 10–12 weeks with InfiniFi. They’re fostering lots of strong behind-the-scenes partnerships like this Ethena example above (maybe even with Ethena 👀). Also, I’ve seen the looping assumptions spreadsheet and they are some of the highest I’ve ever seen in DeFi (a fixed rate collateral with high yield is a looping dream).

Helpful Resources:

Referral code: https://infinifi.xyz?ref=DEFIDAD

(This one is actually useful, as the InfiniFi waitlist is invite only and likely to remain that way after launch)

Link to Litepaper

More links to audio pod here

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Yield Basis (not invested)

Curve founder Michael Egorov has found a way to isolate incredible single sided Bitcoin yield with no IL.

We were lucky enough to have the Yield Basis pitch presented to us by Michael himself and if it works as designed on paper (and via simulations), its groundbreaking for DeFi yields. We will likely have an Edge Podcast coming up on this soon.

Why We’re Bullish:

Michael is a proven builder and to us its obvious that the market would greatly value real yield on Bitcoin. Some of the simulations they’ve ran show that upwards of ~20% APY is very attainable with more in bull conditions and less in other bear conditions.

There’s another component with the tokenomics design that I really like that I might not be able to share yet, but I think its really compelling. Without giving it away, there’s lots of optionality on how you can receive your yield.

Helpful Resources:

Yield Basis: Real Yield On Bitcoin

Yield Basis: the next BTC Liquidity Blackhole

Cap Labs (invested)

Cap is introducing a novel mechanism to attract yield coordination that ultimately benefits their cUSD yield bearing stablecoin. They are calling it a stablecoin protocol with credible financial guarantees. The protocol leverages shared security protocols like Eigenlayer and others like Symbiotic.

With this setup they can attract a near limitless number of offchain or onchain yield strategies. There’s a great writeup in their docs on where the yield sources come from.

Why We’re Bullish:

We love to see experimentation in DeFi and to see ambitious founders push the space forward. While that of course comes with risks, its needed to find PMF and to further adoption. Their mechanism expands the pool of contributors to yield sourcing, effectively crowdsourcing from top-tier operators in both DeFi and TradFi. This creates one of the most dynamic and versatile platforms for yield generation in DeFi.

Lastly, the team is stacked with DeFi OG builders. On paper, Cap checks almost every box for me, but time will tell.

Helpful Resources:

Standford Blockchain Review - Type III Stablecoins

More links to audio pod here

GTE (not invested)

GTE stands for Global Token Exchange. GTE is going after CEX level performance but with the security, transparence and compossibility of being fully onchain. They’re touting themselves as fully vertically integrated with the ability to handle asset creation, spot and leverage.

Why We’re Bullish:

GTE wasn’t really on my radar (or even MegaETH) until our podcast and Enzo sort of blew me away with their vision. I ended up getting red pilled on MegaETH and GTE all in the same ~ hour long podcast (quick aside - this is sometimes how we diligence teams ourselves, we learn a lot by doing a podcast).

With the success of Hyperliquid, the space is starting to get crowded by new entrants, but I think the GTE team/vision has all the ingredients to carve out their own niche in the space.

Helpful Resources:

More links to audio pod here

GAIB (invested)

At the center of GAIB is AID, which is a synthetic dollar. Under the hood, GAIB is providing financial infrastructure for AI, starting with a new financial primitive for AI compute. GAIB tokenizes GPUs and their cash flows to create a new type of asset, and builds a DeFi ecosystem on top. This approach accelerates the expansion of cloud and data centers by facilitating funding, but also offers investors direct exposure to compute assets and their products, democratizing access to the AI space. By staking AID (sAID) holders will be exposed to these tokenized revenue streams from GPUs.

Why We’re Bullish:

I’m bullish on bringing new yields to DeFi, whether that be through a breakthrough in mechanism design or finding external yields and bringing them onchain. With GAIB, it’s a bit of both.

Below is an excerpt from the docs on the three main models for where the yield comes from:

Some of the yields they are projecting are pretty incredible and if they can execute, I see it garnering a lot of mindshare in DeFi.

Like anything new and ambitious, its worth it to think through all the scenarios where this can break down. We had a lot of calls with the team and talked through a lot of “what if” scenarios, but again, with anything new and novel, there’s always added risk.

Helpful Resources:

GAIB Docs

This was a panel hosted by GAIB that myself and DeFi Dad were on

Kinetiq (invested)

Kinetiq will be powering liquid staking on Hyperliquid (kHYPE).

Why We’re Bullish:

Kinetiq is positioning itself as the native LST for Hyperliquid. They aren’t venturing into other ecosystems like some of their competitors, they’re just hyper focused on winning the Hyperliquid market.

The founding team is made up of many HYPE whales who had high conviction in Hyperliquid from very early on. They’re also connected to the entire Hyperliquid whale community and it seems obvious to me this will be the LST of choice for this ecosystem. They’ve taken their time with audits instead of rushing to launch on day 1 of HyperEVM. They’re now almost through their fourth audit and should be going live soon (Some of the best in class auditors).

Their roadmap and strategy are very reminiscent to what Jito did with Solana. They have a lot on the roadmap to come with how they’re positioning for MEV in the Hyperliquid ecosystem. We have a podcast coming out soon as well.

Helpful Resources:

Excited for this vault Collaboration With Veda

Felix (not invested)

Felix is a Liquity V2 CDP fork and one of the first money markets on HyperEVM.

Why We’re Bullish:

Like Kinetiq, Felix also shares a lot of the same roots in the Hyperliquid genesis story. Both projects have been incubated from early Hyperliquid community members and are positioned to be native winners of the ecosystem. Also, I’ve had a lot of interactions with their founding team and they are very strong.

There’s other money markets live on HyperEVM, but my hunch has been that Felix will attract a lot of the early whale TVL. It has already attracted ~$170M in TVL and its only been live for a few weeks. I think this ramps up even more once Kinetiq goes live as both protocols are extremely synergistic to one another. Many whales are waiting to unstake from Hyperliquid validators once kHYPE is live. Once live, users will be able to use kHYPE on Felix and borrow feUSD to perform all sorts of other DeFi activities.

Helpful Resources:

We Explored Hyperliquid DeFi With The Felix Team

Our podcast with Liquity V2 and their forks (Felix)

Liquid Tokens

Fluid (holding)

We’ve been close with the Fluid team (formerly Instadapp) for years. I had the honor of looking at the early designs of Fluid’s smart debt and smart collateral innovations a long time ago and even though I didn’t fully grasp every nuance at the time, it was obvious this was a net new design for the lending/DEX space.

Why We’re Bullish:

As I type this, Fluid’s DEX v2 announcement is about to go live (I’ve had an early look at it). This new version builds on smart debt and smart collateral and makes the whole arrangement even more modular. It’s the final piece of the puzzle to make Fluid a one-stop onchain hub for all your DeFi needs.

On top of this, the brother founding team of Samyak and Sowmay Jain are some of the best builders in all of crypto. They are in it for all the right reasons and playing the long game. Another great hire was bringing on DMH as their COO, who’s absolutely crushed it.

Lastly, I think the profile of a money market + DEX has the ability to generate a lot of revenue as users/volume scale up. In talking to the team, the plan was to enable buybacks once the revenue reached >$10m annualized. They touched this in January but its since gone a bit lower. That said, with DEX v2 coming online, they think they hit $50M in annualized revenue before the end of the year.

Here’s what their numbers look like right now (this is straight from the team):

They’ve used almost no incentives to grow their TVL and all of the activity is generated by having a sticky product with incredible mechanism design and PMF. These are the types of team/product combinations I’m willing to bet on (and I have).

Helpful Resources:

Link to stats page shown above

Intro To Fluid Dex Thread

Fluid in action (below)

Hyperliquid (holding)

I don’t think I need to spend too much time on this one. Hyperliquid has been as close to an immaculate conception in crypto I’ve seen since Bitcoin.

Why We’re Bullish:

The team is on another level and seem motivated to build for all the best reasons. They’ve nailed every single major milestone to date.

They’ve created a rabid community, much like the Link Marines and I only see this growing. Since the HYPE token went live, the Hyperliquid Assistance Fund has bought back ~$392.56M of its own token with fees generated by the protocol. Hyperliquid is in its own stratosphere of revenue generating protocols (on pace for ~$500M annualized). Even without the HyperEVM fully online it sits just behind Ethereum and Solana for highest revenue generating chains in crypto. When pre-compiles go live and more of the mature DeFi apps launch, I think HyperEVM starts to garner a lot of mindshare as well (It’s already closing on $400M TVL).

Lastly, I think the Hyperliquid Exchange + EVM opens new synergies and DeFi primitives that haven’t been able to exist or at least executed with this level of capital efficiency. I think we’re going to see some clever new designs developed with this arrangement.

Helpful Resources:

This is one of the coolest dashboards in all of crypto

This thread + writeup by Syncracy is one of my favorites to highlight the opportunity for Hyperliquid:

GammaSwap (not holding)

GammaSwap has built the tooling for users to get leverage on any token and trade perpetual options.

Why We’re Bullish:

I’ve followed the GammaSwap team for a long time even before they were live and just writing some research papers/threads. Their current positioning reminds me a bit of the spot Pendle was in before they broke through with major PMF. I say this as they are on the verge of a major release that I think the DeFi market will really enjoy. In a nutshell, they are tokenizing concentrated liquidity positions:

I mention Ethena in the post above as they really showcased the appetite for simplifying complex strategies into one-click solutions. I think the yields that these tokenized positions will provide could be very attractive. There’s probably some crossover here with Yield Basis with what they’re doing for BTC yields.

This has been in the works for a long time and I feel like the GS token has priced a lot of this in as the token currently sits at ~$112M FDV while only $9.6M of TVL and $3.2M of Open Interest.

This is a case of where I’m quite bullish on the protocol going forward, but more of a wait and see on the token. If they can pull in some serious TVL with this new innovation and generate nice revenue it would start to look appealing. The best way for me to assess this will simply be to try out the product when it goes live. If the yield is good and frictions of holding and getting into position are minimal, than I think it can do well.

Helpful Resources:

Really good article that breaks this all down:

Maple (not holding)

Maple offers secured/curated lending opportunities for KYC’d institutional lenders while also hosting a robust DeFi suite. They have a bit of something for all user types.

Why We’re Bullish:

Grit.

This team is extremely intelligent/competent - they’ve been through DeFi hell and have come out stronger on the other side.

They’re products are able to serve two key segments of the crypto market of: institutional investors and onchain DeFi users. They’ve shown an ability to repeatably source industry competitive and scalable yields.

This is a team I’m paying close attention to going forward. I don’t own the token yet, but if their growth keeps up and they can generate meaningful revenue, I think it begins to get very interesting. On the revenue side, you can see that things have been trending up and to the right:

Helpful Resources:

Team Dune Dashboard

Ether.Fi (holding)

EtherFi has vertically integrated itself into a staking protocol, a yield app and a cash app.

Why We’re Bullish:

This team, helmed by Mike Sialagadze and Rok Kopp, is exceptional. They’re never satisfied and always grinding and improving. 

Their very recent news brings the entire vision together. If you have the time, you should read their longform announcement here (link below too).

If you put all of this together, its clear to see that EtherFi is positioning itself as a new type of onchain Neobank. Their new credit card is one of the first attempts (of many) I’ve seen in crypto that actually looks like its going to be a major upgrade. 

I think my friend and colleague Keegan Selby summed it up best:

Lastly, on the token side, EtherFi has amassed ~$5B in TVL and has been profitable from day one. Check this excerpt out from Blockworks:

Right now, the ETHFI token trades at ~$600M FDV. When you start to comp it to other things in the industry, many have less traction, TVL, revenue and expansion plans. If these credit cards take off, it could really become a value. One thing to consider is, there are a lot of investor unlocks starting very soon. However, I’m personally of the belief that ETH the asset is in the midst of a turnaround and we could be on the verge of an upswing. If that plays out it will be a boon for ETHFI as it is sensitive to ETH price (positive and negative), which could negate a lot of that sell pressure.

Helpful Resources:

Pendle (not holding)

Pendle is a permissionless yield-trading protocol where users can execute various yield-management strategies. The rise of the “points” meta in crypto really kicked-off a lot of demand for the platform and was highly synergistic to their fixed yield side (PTs).

Why We’re Bullish:

The Pendle team are on a very shortlist for being one of the best teams in DeFi (if not the best). Myself and DeFi Dad feel lucky that we get to chat with them almost daily in telegram and showcase their platform via our podcast + this newsletter. I open Pendle more than almost any other app in DeFi and I notice changes and optimizations weekly. It’s just always getting better.

The fixed-term market in tradFi is massive, but it hasn’t converted to DeFi just yet. However, Pendle is one of the first teams to really find PMF here and they are expanding their reach into the institutional arena with “Citadels” (article below). I think the timing here is perfect and the yields of 10% - 20% on yield bearing stablecoin PTs are highly enticing. Especially with TradFi becoming more and more comfortable with DeFi by the day (great deep dive on this here)

Lastly, I’m personally quite bullish on Boros. We wrote about it a bit here, but its also linked below. With Boros, users will be able to trade all sorts of different offchain and onchain yields. One early usecase will be the ability to hedge and leverage funding rates. This will be highly beneficial for teams like Ethena who are heavily reliant on funding rates.

One the best decisions Pendle made was not launching another token for all of this. Many teams have or would have in their position, but the value flows from Citadels and Boros will flow back to vePENDLE holders. The way things should be 🤝 

Speaking of vePENDLE, from April 2024 through April 2025, Pendle distributed around ~$25M in vePENDLE + Airdrops

vePENDLE has some incredible utility if you actually use the protocol. I personally didn’t realize the extent of boost LPs get for holding vePENDLE. From the Pendle docs:

Helpful Resources:

Pendle fee dashboard

V2, Citadels and Boros

Really hard to fade this tweet below:

Bonus

Euler (not holding)

A lot of my thinking on Euler mirrors my thoughts with Maple. They’ve lived through somewhat similar DeFi life cycles.

They’ve built a very modular/flexible substrate and we’re starting to see all the expressivity of their design come to life. Not only have they executed with their mechanism design, but their clever use of incentives rEUL have really helped them grow their TVL. It will be key to see how they grow without incentives going forward and if they can sustain this growth.

Another incredible DeFi comeback arc that’s playing out before our eyes. Love to see it!

That’s all for now, thanks for checking it out!

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