Author: Ignas Source: X, @DefiIgn as Translation: Shan Ouba, Jinse Finance
This was a brutal wake-up call for those who were bullish on Altcoin after Bitcoin’s March highs. I was also overly optimistic, expecting a general transfer from Bitcoin to Ethereum, followed by a surge in Altcoin.
But that was not the case. Ethereum lagged behind, and most Altcoin fell sharply after only a brief rally.
My speculative strategy is fairly conservative and focused on staking L1 tokens as a “productive asset” — you can stake and use them to farm ecosystem airdrop tokens.
The strategy is to sell the airdropped tokens back into L1 tokens, which should drive the L1 token price up (similar to how dollar printing drives major stock prices up).
I believe Ethereum will outperform due to its position as the most productive asset in crypto, especially with high-yield airdrops available via re-staking.
In fact, multi-million dollar airdrops of tokens like ETHFI and REZ have already been issued, with EIGEN and other LRT governance tokens coming soon.
Despite these high-yield opportunities, Ethereum has failed to generate FOMO.
Everyone may have been overexposed, hoarding large amounts of Ethereum and Bitcoin during the bear market.
Still, everyone actively mining ETH is likely doing much better than ETH spot would suggest.
As $EIGEN unlocks, more money will come in. I have no regrets about this.
Solana Ecosystem Performance
The Solana ecosystem initially performed well with $JTO and $JUP. Their success really drove the price of $SOL up as FOMO kicked in.
Then there was the $W airdrop which performed well, but each subsequent airdrop reward dropped dramatically ($TNSR, $PRCL, $DRIFT), and $CLOUD was the most disappointing (relative to expectations).
Right now, Solana is an Altcoin playground, but innovative DePin and DeFi protocols are waiting for their chance after the Altcoin craze dies down.
BTC
The Bitcoin ecosystem, thanks to BRC20 and NFTs, was doing well initially — we got multiple airdrops just by holding “blue chip” NFTs. But then Runes came online and everything plummeted.
I believe Runes will rebound once the infrastructure, especially DEX, improves.
Other L1/L2 ecosystems perform even worse
Injective dApps lack quality and airdrops are negligible. Starknet’s $STRK airdrop failed to trigger a “wealth effect” in the ecosystem. Despite the generous DeFi Spring rewards, the protocol airdrops were disappointing. SEI initially performed well with NFTs, but DeFi dApps and airdrops were insufficient. The SUI ecosystem has high-quality dApps, but they are not generous with airdrops, and the unlocking of SUI has a large impact on price. The Cosmos ecosystem is plagued by infighting, airdrops have dried up, and they must recover from recent vulnerabilities. Arweave’s community expected to hold $AR to receive a higher $AO quota, but only received 36%.
What's next?
Stacks delayed Nakamoto upgrade to end of August, hoping multiple airdrops and faster block times can create some FOMO. Still waiting for $EIGEN trading launch, second airdrop and Swell, Kelp, Puffer token launch. Multiple Eigenlayer AVS are being built and ready for token launch (hopefully with generous airdrops for re-stakers). Symbiotic and Karak are challenging Eigenlayer and may rush EIGEN launch if market conditions improve. Fantom migration to Sonic will test whether “re-branding” new tokens can bring excitement to “old” tokens. Will DeFi OG tokens rebound when the Altcoin craze fades and people get tired of low float, high FDV tokens?
Ultimately, these internal catalysts depend on favorable macro conditions and ETF inflows - our casinos are not attractive enough to attract a new wave of retail speculators.
But if the market rebounds, the DeFi speculators’ playbook will need to be re-evaluated, focusing on the most innovative ecosystems that continue to build and generously reward their users.
Which ecosystem do you think is promising?
