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Every weekday, the Bankless Analyst Team assigns one popular crypto token with a bullish or bearish rating to indicate whether we believe its price will increase or decrease in the three months ahead.
Nearly 100 different tokens have made an appearance in our Citizen-only Bankless Token Hub, and today, we’re showcasing some of our most notable active ratings to dissect the recent predictions we nailed and reflect on the metas we missed.👇
🪙 Ethena
Date of Rating: October 18, 2024
Performance: +133%
Rating: Bullish 🐂
Ticker: ENA
Why We Gave This Rating:
Ethena was down 70% off its all-time high when the Bankless Analyst Team issued this bullish rating.
Beleaguered market conditions since initial BTC failures to break all-time highs in March had rendered Ethena’s basis trade significantly less profitable, but by the middle of October, many within the crypto industry began expressing confidence that markets were poised for an immediate breakout.
Although USDe circulating supply was shrinking prior to this analysis, we postulated that a true resumption of the crypto bull market would incite a vitreous cycle for Ethena, in which increased trader demand for long leverage would invariably cause funding rates to rise, turbocharging Ethena’s profitability and attracting new deposits!
How Our Rating Has Performed:
ENA prices persistently declined after the issuance of this rating until November 5, but has been virtually up-only since the election of Donald Trump. Despite the muted response in ENA price pre-election, USDe yields and supply were steadily increasing throughout the period.
While Ethena’s fundamentals stand much improved today, the Protocol remains highly reflexive to market conditions, and could dangerously decay if forced to realize losses of significance in a negative funding rate environment. USDe insurance reserves amount to less than 1% of outstanding stablecoin supply.
🦄 Uniswap
Date of Coverage: November 6, 2024
Performance: +88%
Rating: Bullish 🐂
Ticker: UNI
Why We Gave This Rating:
On November 6, the Bankless Analyst Team upgraded Uniswap to bullish on news that Donald Trump had handily secured both the popular and electoral college votes.
President-elect Trump had already launched his own WLFI token, but due to U.S. securities regulations, it was non-transferable and sale restricted to persons exempt from mandatory securities registration (i.e.; accredited U.S. and non-sanctioned international investors).
Although Trump had yet to provide specifics on policies that he believed would benefit crypto, the industry was exuberant that an incoming Trump Administration might offer regulatory clarity or create regulatory exemptions for crypto assets.
How Our Rating Has Performed:
Prospects for regulatory clarity have been reflected positively throughout the broader crypto market. As expected, UNI has been an outsized beneficiary thanks to hopes that it might finally enable the “fee switch” once fears of legal repercussions are assuaged under the Trump Administration.
🌊 Sui
Date of Coverage: November 4, 2024
Performance: +156%
Rating: Bearish 🐻
Ticker: SUI
Why We Gave This Rating:
On August 12, the Bankless Analyst Team first issued bearish coverage for SUI, in concern that coordinated influencer shill campaigns across multiple accounts in conjunction with a leverage-induced rally suggested that the token’s 100%+ one week pump off the monthly lows was inherently unsustainable in nature.
Despite the 30% drop in SUI price that followed this rating, the token regained momentum in early September as SUI-denominated TVL was testing all-time highs, and on September 19, we were forced to upgrade SUI to bullish following the restoration of the “Fed Put.”
Although SUI rallied 77% subsequent to the September rating, it topped out in mid-October. Alarmingly, SUI-denominated TVL had been down-only since September 5, the same day SUI’s token price uptrend to all-time highs was established. These factors compelled the issuance of a renewed bear rating on November 4.
How Our Rating Has Performed:
SUI’s positive price action following the election of Donald Trump was unsurprising, but it has been befuddling to see this token handily outperform competitive alt L1 investments amid continued declines in SUI-denominated TVL and persistent stagnation in onchain activity metrics. The Bankless Analyst Team reiterates its bear rating for SUI in light of these factors.
🤖 Virtuals
Date of Coverage: December 5, 2024
Performance: +44%
Rating: Bullish 🐂
Ticker: VIRTUAL
Why We Gave This Rating:
The sector-wide ascent of various AI agent tokens during the tail end of November legitimized Virtuals, a popular platform for launching tokenized AI agents on the Base network, and prompted our issuance of a bullish rating on December 5.
By purchasing agent tokens, like LUNA and VADER, users on the Virtuals platform gain governance rights over specific agents, enabling them to influence their development and potentially share in resulting profits.
Revenue earned by AI agents goes partially towards servicing the operational costs of providing the service, but the remainder is funneled into an onchain agent-associated treasury, which can be distributed back to token holders or levied to conduct token buyback-and-burn programs.
Additionally, VIRTUAL tokens must be locked as liquidity to create new tokenized agents on Virtuals, providing deflationary pressure on the token, and anyone seeking to purchase ownership in or interact with tokenized agents on the platform must use VIRTUAL as currency, creating innate utility.
How Our Rating Has Performed:
While VIRTUAL may be up 44% from our initiation of coverage, the Bankless Analyst Team was undeniably slow to cover agent-associated tokens due to concerns about the meta’s longevity. Going forward, we anticipate demand for AI agents on Virtuals will continue to be positively correlated with token price.
🐳 Orca
Date of Coverage: December 6, 2024
Performance: -30%
Rating: Bearish 🐻
Ticker: ORCA
Why We Gave This Rating:
On December 6, the Bankless Analyst Team issued bearish coverage for ORCA after the token doubled on news of its impending Binance listing.
While ORCA was among the longtail Solana DeFi assets that ripped in early November upon hopes for an easier regulatory environment catalyzed by the election of Donald Trump, prior to this analysis, the token had notably underperformed ecosystem rally leaders, including DRIFT and RAY.
Despite the swift 2x in ORCA price experienced on the day of this analysis, the underlying application had seen stagnation in dollar-denominated trading volumes leading up to November, and SOL-denominated total value locked (TVL) had declined by 30% since September.
Although Orca launched on SVM Eclipse L2 in October and controlled 80% of the Network’s total value locked at the time of this analysis, the Eclipse deployment experienced relatively modest swap volumes in comparison to Orca Solana.
How Our Rating Has Performed:
Centralized exchange listing-induced token pumps may be tempting to FOMO, but the Bankless Analyst Team shrewdly identified ORCA’s fundamentally detached rally as one to fade; token price plummeted 40% during the next four days.
