Author: Anil Lulla, Founding Partner and CEO of Delphi Digital
Compiled by: Luffy, Foresight News
People often say that crypto projects lack PMF (Product-Market Fit), but in my view, this only shows their cynicism and unwillingness to explore the applications constantly being developed by global developers.
I want to highlight some of my favorite crypto applications that I've been using this year, and hopefully inspire some of you to try out a few of them. These teams have worked hard to create useful products, and we can at least take the time to test their efforts.
Before diving in, there are some disclaimers and disclosures. I have exposures to some of these tokens, whether through Delphi Ventures investments, angel investments, or just personal buys, and I'll mark them with *. The content here is not financial advice, just my thoughts on the projects I've enjoyed this year.
HyperLiquid
HyperLiquid is great. You may have read over 1,000 tweets about it in the past month, so I'll just briefly share my thoughts. Anyone who uses HyperLiquid regularly will love it, and I rarely hear complaints, which is quite different from most applications.
I usually avoid leverage, so I'm not HyperLiquid's target user. In fact, when it launched, I first used the application to buy HYPE*. It didn't take long for me to see the things its fans have been raving about for the past year. It's not just the UI/UX that's very CEX-like (I know it only has four validators now), but the speed at which the team responds to criticism, concerns, and feedback from users in their discord is also encouraging.
Since its inception in 2023, HyperLiquid has amassed a cult-like community with over 200,000 users and nearly $450 billion in cumulative trading volume. The platform currently has over $2.5 billion in open interest contracts. It's been incredibly successful, now accounting for over 60% of all USDC trading volume on Arbitrum. The hype around HYPE since its launch is not just due to its sleek UI/UX as a perpetual contract exchange. It promises to launch its own L1, and while still in the early stages, there's an undeniable ecosystem forming around it.
Polymarket
Prediction markets have been an exciting use case for me since I entered the crypto space in 2017, and I thought they would be the first to truly take off. Clearly, that was not the case. It took nearly 7 years, but 2024 is officially the year prediction markets go mainstream, thanks to the success of Polymarket. It ran flawlessly on election night and called the winner of what I believe is the most important election of our generation before the Associated Press did, processing $3.6 billion in election bets.
Polymarket has created a new media format and provided the world with a valuable data source for predicting future events. Many thought Polymarket would gradually fade away after the elections, but it's actually been performing quite well, pulling back from its November highs but still above mid-October levels. I still visit it regularly to see which markets are active, and it seems the sports markets have gained a decent share.
Additionally, Fun.xyz built a great Checkout product for Polymarket, allowing users to deposit using tokens from any chain or CEX (Binance, Coinbase, etc.). Even my non-crypto friends have used it without any complaints. Crypto user experience is not as bad as people say!
Farcaster
Honestly, while I was using Warpcast daily in the first half of the year, I've only checked it a few times a week at most since then. One thing I want to do in 2025 is change that.
Earlier this year, I attended FarCon in Los Angeles, where I spoke with mostly Farcaster builders. This was a very bullish signal. While still early, many builders are focused on creating some cool/niche things that could delight Farcaster's focused and adventurous community. I think we'll see a lot of weird toys built around this social graph in 2025.
I also believe Dan Romero and the Farcaster team will continue to innovate rapidly. They're focused on purposeful features that help strengthen the core users and enable them to expand the social graph and reputation, providing a great sandbox for developers to create new experiences. Features like channels, frameworks, and DEGEN tips have already explored new ways to coordinate social interactions. Games like Clankermon and Stokefire have shown me some interesting and unique early signs. While they're down about 50% from their peak, they're still doing quite well in retaining users overall.
Ethena*
Delphi has had high expectations for Ethena, and it has still exceeded them. Ethena's synthetic dollar USDe has grown to nearly $6 billion in the past year, becoming the third-largest stablecoin after Tether and USDC.
I'm particularly impressed by Ethena's recent collaboration with BlackRock to launch USDtb, a new dollar stablecoin backed by BlackRock's BUIDL fund. Like USDC, USDtb is supported by cash and cash equivalent reserve assets. In the short term, USDe's yields may remain elevated due to funding rate reasons. However, Ethena can now flexibly redirect Treasury yields as a supplement. This effectively sets a 'floor' APY around T-bill rates, allowing Ethena to further scale.
Like most, I'm bullish on stablecoin growth in 2025. The current stablecoin market cap is around $200 billion, and I think it will break $300 billion, with a good chance of exceeding $400 billion next year. I believe Ethena, with its clever product and continued focus on product integrations, will play a key role in attracting significant on-chain capital. We've seen other decentralized stablecoins or synthetic dollars integrate into DeFi in various ways, and Ethena's USDe seems to be the first to make progress through CEX and TradFi integrations. This has helped them establish a strong moat early on.
Gunzilla*
Delphi's enthusiasm for the crypto gaming space is well known. Through early collaborations and investments with teams like Axie Infinity, Yield Guild, and Immutable, we've been seeking to bring games to market and expose the masses to crypto. Gunzilla Games has done just that, with no friction for users due to its crypto components.
Off the Grid is a cyberpunk-themed battle royale game, the first crypto game to launch on Playstation and Xbox, and has already attracted over 12 million wallets and 230 million transactions. Players have streamed over 4 million hours of the game on platforms like Twitch, and it has twice been a top 3 streamed game. It utilizes Avalanche to power its in-game mechanics, putting into practice the widely discussed benefits of crypto for gaming: digital ownership can enhance player engagement.
I strongly recommend listening to the conversation Piers Kicks had with the Gunzilla founders on the Delphi Podcast last month. The team's unparalleled attention to detail and commitment to delivering what players truly want is evident. They're currently in internal testing of their own product, aiming to become the infrastructure for more mainstream 3A games. I'm really excited to see how Gunzilla continues to evolve and shape the future of crypto gaming.
Lighthouse.One
Over the years, Delphi has invested in multiple portfolio trackers (Zapper, Debank) and wallet viewers, which we believed had the potential to become the front page of crypto. They, along with Nansen, have become my primary tools for managing my wallets and monitoring others. That said, I still used spreadsheets and other apps to manually track my portfolio... until a few weeks ago.
Will Price casually mentioned Lighthouse.One to me in a conversation, and I've been hooked ever since. It's the best all-in-one portfolio tracker I've used so far. EVM, Solana, Cosmos, Aptos, Sui, CEXs, HyperLiquid, dYdX; it's all-encompassing. Within days of trying the app, I spoke with the Lighthouse.One team, and their focus on privacy is unparalleled.
Foresight News In the applications I mentioned in this article, I guess many people are hearing about it for the first time. I'm impressed by it, and it's effortless to try. For years I've been looking for such a product, and I'm glad I finally found it. Although I begged the team to let me invest, I currently have no financial interest associated with Lighthouse. I'm just a very happy user of their product. Pump.Fun* This year, Pump.Fun successfully converted attention into liquidity. I think this mechanism hasn't received enough praise, as it's a simple but necessary solution with a powerful and immediate PMF. It lowers the barrier while promoting fairer issuance, and its bonding mechanism mitigates rug pulls. Within a year, Pump.Fun has generated over $300 million in fee revenue and helped issue over 5 million tokens. While everyone hoped the team would vertically expand by launching a DEX, they chose to pursue horizontal growth by exploring new ways to attract attention. In my view, the live streaming feature seems like an unexpected direction. It ultimately spiraled out of control, but mainly because it was so successful. It's really cool, and I genuinely think this feature needs better moderation. Like it or not, everything that can be financialized will inevitably be financialized. Pump.Fun has the potential to build a preferred social app around speculation, so it can't be ignored. By the way, I made an angel investment in Pump.Fun, not through Delphi Ventures. Betting on the founders was an easy decision, and I'm still amazed by their performance this year. Truth Terminal and GOAT* One of the most exciting moments in the crypto space this year may be finding a sandbox to experiment with Crypto x AI: Twitter and wallets. The Delphi team has been outspoken about our excitement and curiosity in this intersection. We were in the midst of Crypto x AI research when GOAT launched and captured the attention of the crypto community. Witnessing the Turing test unfold live was an incredible experience as crypto Twitter (CT) questioned which bots were AI and which were human. While still in its early stages, I believe GOAT is one of the most important things that happened this year, as it helps provide a tangible way for us to think about how Crypto x AI intersects. Since then, we've witnessed a surge of AI agents, with teams constantly innovating to stand out and capture attention. The coolest part is the interoperability of these upgrades, where each developer's efforts can be maximized by being applied to other people's agents. While some of these bots can be annoying, I believe the influx of these agents will bring truly interesting and peculiar internet spaces next year. VIRTUAL I won't write too much about Virtuals, as it's one of the new projects I've been researching. I just find it interesting as the "pickaxe and shovel" for AI agents. So far, over 12,000 agents have been launched on Virtuals. Don't get me wrong, most of these agents are still terrible, at best just being annoying responders. However, I expect significant improvements in the coming months. aixbt* is a particularly notable account worth keeping an eye on. The data doesn't lie - it's capturing crypto's attention, simply posting alpha tweets, but it's backed by years of work from rxbt, who took the time to aggregate a wealth of crypto data and curate a smart CT social graph, giving aixbt a "personality." While many crypto KOLs often discuss the same projects in the CT echo chamber, aixbt consistently showcases fresh alpha and stands out in my feed. This is a project I want to follow more closely. MetaDAO and MetaLeX* Few people know that Delphi was one of the first companies to be compensated from a DAO (Synthetix) back in 2019. Since then, we've been actively involved in dozens of governance processes, even helping to design governance systems and projects in the crypto space, like Gitcoin. Initially, DAOs were one of the most exciting aspects of this space for me. However, as we've dealt with the complexities of working with them, my enthusiasm has waned. Most DAOs are founded to achieve some grandiose vision, but then end up spending all their time figuring out how to "DAO." This year, two projects stood out for their practical approaches to addressing these challenges: MetaDAO and MetaLeX (though both are called Meta, these two projects are unrelated). MetaDAO has sparked many interesting discussions within Delphi (largely thanks to the META enthusiast mrink 0). While some criticize Solana for lacking innovation, MetaDAO is the world's first project to implement futurism. I have to mention it here because it's one of the coolest on-chain experiments I've seen this year. MetaDAO doesn't use traditional voting but instead uses the market to predict and decide the DAO's optimal outcomes. It's interesting to see different protocols integrating it into their decision-making processes. For example, Drift uses MetaDAO for market-based token listings on their exchange. As we approach 2025, I'm closely watching MetaDAO, hoping it can increase crypto voter engagement and diversify the electorate. On the other hand, MetaLeX is a concept that lex_node and Delphi Labs have been refining for years. This year, it finally launched, moving towards a future where DAOs can focus on their mission without getting bogged down in governance challenges. Through BORG, MetaLeX enables DAOs to connect with the real world while maintaining crypto-native properties. This is the culmination of Gabe's years of experience in traditional and crypto legal work. He's been Delphi Labs' general counsel for years, and I have a lot of respect for him. Delphi Labs didn't hesitate to help realize this goal because no one else in the world could build it the right way. MetaLeX uses law to fill in the gaps in code and code to fill in the gaps in law. Their BORG can execute mutually, multilateral, trusted commitments and reduce all counterparty trust assumptions. MetaLeX has already helped teams like Lido, Curve, and ZKSync transition to BORG. They've been developing a comprehensive suite of tools to achieve trust-minimized governance. I believe that by 2025, we'll start to see their work impact the DAOs that integrate these tools. Sandwich This is a product launched by one of my friends. Sandwich is a private trading tool for CEX order execution (as well as HyperLiquid). It allows you to access institutional-level algorithms, which can help save on fees and slippage, and gives you access to multiple tools and exchanges from a unified UI. Given that I primarily buy and hold assets and don't use leverage often, I'm not the target user for this product. That said, every trading friend who's seen it has become a power user. A Mac app is coming soon, so if you have a desktop, you might want to give it a try. 9 dcc I believe gmoney is exploring one of the coolest things happening in the crypto space - 9 dcc. He's successfully combined passion and carved out his own path, giving crypto another outlet into the mainstream. Fundamentally, crypto is an incredibly powerful coordination tool. Gamifying universal things like fashion and in-person social interactions is a stroke of genius, and it's still an underexplored avenue. gmoney is still immersed in it, so he's able to connect the cutting-edge on-chain ideas happening and translate them into the real world. Personally, my favorite piece so far has been the Bird Shit Hat (IYKYK), but I've seen the beginnings of what's to come. I have no doubt that 9 dcc will gain recognition outside the crypto world by 2025. DeBridge Over the years, I've tried many cross-chain bridges, but DeBridge is the one I've used the most this year. Not only is the experience seamless, but their team is always one of the fastest to integrate new chains. Regardless of where your assets are or where you want them to go, you can use DeBridge.Foresight News They use cross-chain intent to connect DeFi in real-time, making the cross-chain experience almost completely hidden. DeBridge co-founder deAlex said they have processed over 4 million intents and over $6 billion in transaction volume. This is the first cross-chain bridge I can recommend to ordinary friends without any issues. This alone is impressive, and I am grateful for the team's work. Echo and Legion* 2024 is the year of the ICO comeback. I really like the approach taken by Cobie's Echo. It seems to have a perfect product-market fit with the crypto Twitter audience. Being able to support people you trust and let them curate and directly bring you interesting deal flow is a win-win. Echo has already helped facilitate over 150 deals and raised over $55 million from nearly 6,000 users for projects. On the other hand, Legion takes a bottom-up approach, putting project tokens into the hands of more consistent community members. They've developed the Legion Score, which currently primarily considers three factors: (1) on-chain activity, (2) social influence, and (3) development experience. This score will evolve over time, allowing projects to better understand who they are letting into their equity structure. Legion is an incubated project of Delphi Labs, and we've been working on it for over a year, with the first deal just going live on their platform a month ago. The numbers speak for themselves: over $5 million raised, with nearly 100,000 users already registered for the Legion Score. I think we'll see more projects leverage platforms like these to help with token issuance in 2025. The timing with the new government couldn't be better. I strongly recommend everyone register and check these platforms weekly. There may be many attractive opportunities, as these platforms will do their best to curate high-quality projects for their members. Kaito Kaito has quickly become a powerful tool that crypto users love this year. In some ways, Kaito and Delphi Research aim to solve similar problems: helping users cut through the noise in the market to find alpha and valuable insights. Our research team does this by spending hundreds of hours researching, then distilling all the necessary and relevant information down to around 30 minutes of reading. In the process, our analysts take the time to think through and filter out most of the noise, simply analyzing the key things that need to be understood and summarized for any particular protocol or industry. Where Kaito excels is in using clever algorithms to unearth gems from all the noise on crypto Twitter. When I search for a specific project or ticker, it helps me skip past a lot of the noise, which I find impressive. I understand how useful and indispensable a tool it is for all traders. However, I also use it to find talent. Often, some of the most articulate people in any given domain become potential candidates we recruit. In fact, we just sent an offer to someone I found through Kaito, and they'll be joining our team in January. I think Kaito has the potential to serve many different user groups with a single product. Grass* Grass allows users to earn rewards by sharing their excess internet bandwidth with the rest of the network. It's a simple plugin that I've had running in the background for most of the year. Our Ventures team has invested heavily in Crypto x AI projects, but Grass may be the one I'm personally most excited about (at least among the deals I can publicly discuss right now). Data is the next frontier for model development. We've seen AI labs try to strike deals with platforms like Reddit or StackOverflow to gain API key access to their data. Grass provides API keys for the entire internet. It can do this efficiently and at scale. They already have 2.5 million nodes on the supply side, providing uncensored data for training and AI response answers. There will be new ways to join the network in the future, such as people being able to subscribe and plug in their WiFi routers with mobile and hardware plugins. Grass co-founder Andrej says the network's inbound demand is already in the nine figures. Grass is a project that has helped traditional AI people take the Crypto x AI intersection seriously, and I'm bullish on them for 2025. Ostium Since our team worked with kain and the 2019 SNX, we've been eager to enable the on-chain world to access traditional assets. Ostium seems to be delivering on that promise. Ostium's kaledora has explicitly stated that she is passionate about making Ostium a universal marketplace. Currently, they provide users with long or short perpetual contracts on forex, commodities, cryptocurrencies, and stock indices. So far, they've done over $166 million in trading volume. Some currency trading pairs have seen a surge in volume, which is cool. For example, the USD/JPY volume has reached $21 million since inception - much of it around the Japanese central bank rate decision (if you remember that 72-hour bear market). They've launched some elegant structured products on Polymarket. For example, once the Polymarket prediction of Trump winning reaches a certain percentage on election night, you can have Ostium 10x long BTC. You can set it and forget it, going to sleep while the rest of the world waits for the impending event, and wake up not missing the profit opportunity. With the new government no longer being anti-crypto, I sense this will allow Ostium to launch on-chain some things we couldn't have imagined in the past four years. Moonwalk Fitness* Moonwalk Fitness leverages the coordinating power of cryptocurrencies to build powerful accountability tools for fitness. Currently, Moonwalk's first version focuses on incentivizing daily step counts. You can create a group, set daily step goals, and deposit USDC/SOL/BONK. As long as you hit the target, you get at least your own money back. If other competitors in the challenge don't reach their goals, their money gets distributed to the winners. It's a simple but powerful tool to incentivize good behavior, and I'm excited to see their next iteration. The concept can be applied far beyond just running, such as weight lifting targets, daily sleep time, water intake, etc. While still early, they already have close to 100,000 users registered. They'll be launching a mobile app soon, which may be the first crypto app my parents can use weekly. Summary That's my list. These are just the products I enjoy, and I want to thank their teams for their hard work. Unfortunately, I obviously can't list all the teams I think have done a great job this year. Some other things that quickly come to mind are Morpho, Jito, Cowswap, Jupiter, Pendle, and wallets like Phantom/Rabby.
