Delphi Digital CEO: My 20 Favorite Encryption Projects for 2024

Author Anil Lulla, CEO of Delphi Digital; Translated by Jinse Caijing Xiaozou

People like to say that cryptocurrencies lack PMF (Product-Market Fit), but from my perspective, such statements indicate that they are a group of cynics who have not taken the time to explore the various applications being continuously launched by developers around the world.

I want to highlight some of my favorite crypto applications that I used in 2024, hoping to inspire some of you to give these apps a try. These teams work hard to create useful products, and we can at least take the time to test their efforts.

Before we dive deeper into the discussion, I need to make some disclaimers and disclosures. I have personally encountered these products and/or their tokens in various ways. I use * to indicate any projects I have encountered in any way. None of this constitutes financial advice—it's just a summary of my thoughts on the projects I liked over the past year. The order in which the projects appear in this article does not represent their importance.

1**、**HyperLiquid

To stand out, HyperliquidX has performed exceptionally well. Over the past month, you may have read thousands of tweets about it, so I will briefly share my thoughts. Everyone who regularly uses the product loves it without exception. In fact, I haven't heard many complaints so far — we can't say that about many crypto applications.

I try not to use leverage often, so I'm not the target user of HyperLiquid. In fact, I first used this app when it launched to buy HYPE* tokens. Soon, I saw the reason why its fans were crazy about it for a whole year. Not only is the UI/UX quite CEX (centralized exchange) style (yes, I know it only has four validators), but it is also encouraging to see how quickly the team responds to user criticism, concerns, and feedback in their Discord.

Since its establishment in 2023, HyperLiquid has built a passionate community with over 200,000 users and a cumulative trading volume of nearly $450 billion. The platform currently has over $2.5 billion in open positions. It is very successful, currently holding more than 60% of all USDC on Arbitrum.

Since the launch of HYPE, people's interest in it is not solely due to its clean UI/UX as a trading platform. Although it is still in its early stages, it has already formed an impressive ecosystem. The project not only promises an exciting future but has also realized an ambitious vision.

2**、**Polymarket

Since entering the crypto space in 2017, the prediction market has been a use case that I'm excited about, and I think it's going to be the first use case to really take off, such as early-stage projects like Augur. Obviously, this is not the case. Almost 7 years have passed, and thanks to Polymarket, the prediction market in 2024 has officially become mainstream. It worked perfectly on U.S. presidential election night, announcing what I consider to be the most important election winner of our generation. As a background here, Polymarket processed $3.6 billion in election bets and predicted Trump's victory six hours ahead of the Associated Press.

It has created a new form of media and provided the world with other data points for people to reference when informed about future situations by other potentially biased sources. Many called for its abolition after the election, but to be honest, it has performed well. Below the highs of November, but still above the levels of mid-October. I still frequently use it to see which markets are active, and it seems the sports sector has started to gain more and more share on it.

In addition, we should give praise where it is due. Fun.xyz has built a great checkout product for Polymarket that allows users to deposit any token on any chain, card, or CEX (like Binance, Coinbase, etc.). Some of my regular friends are even using it and have no complaints about it. The crypto user experience is not as bad as everyone says!

3**、**Farcaster

To be honest, although I was a regular user of Warpcast in the first half of 2024, I only opened it once or twice a week at most in the second half. One thing I want to do as we enter 2025 is to change this situation.

At the beginning of 2024, I attended the FarCon conference held in Los Angeles, where most of the people I spoke to were builders of Farcaster. This is indeed a bullish signal. Although it is still early, many builders are focused on creating some very cool niche things, which gives Farcaster the opportunity to attract the awe of communities that are focused and adventurous. I think you will see a lot of strange things emerging around this social graph in 2025.

I also believe that Dan Romero and his team will continue to innovate rapidly. They focus on helping core users expand their social graph and reputation features, which will create a great sandbox for builders to create new experiences. Features like channels, frameworks, and tip tokens (such as DEGEN) have developed new ways to coordinate social interactions. Games like Clankermon and Stokefire have shown me some interesting and unique content.

Although it has decreased by 50% compared to its peak, it still performs excellently in terms of user retention.

4**,**Ethena

At Delphi, we have high expectations for the launch of Ethena, but somehow, it has exceeded our expectations. Over the past year, Ethena's synthetic dollar, USDe, has grown to nearly $6 billion. Among stablecoins, it is now second only to Tether and USDC.

What impressed me particularly is that Ethena recently partnered with Blackrock to launch a new dollar stablecoin, USDtb, supported by Blackrock's BUIDL fund. Like USDC, USDtb is backed by a reserve of cash and cash equivalents. In the short term, due to financing issues, the yield on USDe may remain high. However, Ethena can now flexibly adjust the treasury yield to supplement USDe. This effectively creates an "APY floor" around treasury bill rates, allowing Ethena to further scale.

Like most people, I am bullish on stablecoin growth in 2025. The current market capitalization is about $200 billion, and I think it is expected to exceed $300 billion, and it is expected to reach more than $400 billion next year. I think Ethena, with its smart product and continued focus on integration, will play an important role in helping to attract a lot of capital on-chain. We've seen other decentralized stablecoins or synthetic dollars incorporated into DeFi in various ways, and Ethena's USDe seems to be the first to do a good job of integrating with CEXs (centralized exchanges) and TradFi. This helps them build a strong moat in the early days while chasing the biggest crypto market.

5**、**Gunzilla

As we all know, Delphi is passionate about the crypto gaming industry. Through our early work and investments in teams like Axie Infinity, Yield Guild, and Immutable, we have been working hard to help bring games to market and bring the masses into the crypto world. Gunzilla Games has achieved this—users have not encountered any friction from crypto components.

Off the Grid, a cyberpunk-themed battle royale game, is the first crypto game released on Playstation and Xbox, attracting over 12 million wallets and 230 million transactions. Players have streamed over 4 million hours of gameplay on platforms like Twitch, and the game has ranked in the top three live games twice. It utilizes Avalanche's play-to-own mechanism, putting the widely discussed benefits of cryptocurrency in gaming into action: digital ownership can enhance player retention.

I strongly recommend you listen to the conversation between Piers Kicks and the founder of Gunzilla on the Delphi podcast last month. The team's unparalleled attention to detail and commitment to providing what players truly want is evident. Currently, they are developing their own product as they strive to become the infrastructure that enables more mainstream AAA games to launch within their ecosystem. I am really excited to see how Gunzilla continues to evolve and shape the future of crypto gaming.

6**、**Lighthouse

For many years, Delphi has invested in multiple portfolio trackers (Zapper, Debank) and wallet observers, and we believe these tools have the potential to become mainstream tools in the crypto world. Tools like these, as well as Nansen, have become my main tools for managing my wallet and observing others. Until a few weeks ago, I would still manually use spreadsheets and other applications to track my total portfolio.

Will Price casually mentioned Lighthouse to me, and I've been fascinated by it ever since. It is the best and most comprehensive portfolio tracker I have used so far. EVM, Solana, Cosmos, Aptos, Sui, CEX, Hyperliquid, DyDx; they can track everything. During the few days I tried this app, I spoke with the team, and they are extremely focused on privacy protection.

Among all the applications I mentioned in this article, I guess this is a product that many people have just heard about. I am very impressed with it, and I think it's a wise attempt. I have been looking for such products for several years, and I am very glad to have finally found it. I have no financial ties with Lighthouse, although I have indeed requested the Lighthouse team to allow me to invest. I am just a user who is very satisfied with their product.

7**、**Pump.fun

This year, pump.fun has turned attention into liquidity. I don't think this mechanism has received the recognition it deserves—it's a simple yet necessary solution with a strong and direct PMF (Product-Market Fit). It lowers the barriers while promoting a fairer distribution, and its bonding mechanism mitigates the risk of rug pulls.

In one year, pump.fun has already generated over $300 million in fees and helped issue more than 5 million tokens. While everyone in this field hopes the team will vertically expand by launching a DEX (decentralized exchange), they chose to grow horizontally by exploring new ways to attract attention. In my conversation, live streaming initially seemed like an unexpected direction. It ultimately spiraled out of control, but mainly because it was too successful.

Regardless of whether you like it or not, anything that can be financialized will inevitably be financialized. Pump.fun has the potential to create a social application around speculation, so it cannot be ignored here. By the way, my investment in pump.fun was through a small angel investment, not through Delphi Ventures. Betting on the founders is an easy decision, but I am still amazed by their execution.

8**,**GOAT

My favorite crypto moment this year might be when the Crypto x AI field found a testing sandbox—Twitter and wallets. Our Delphi team has been outspoken about our excitement and curiosity for this cross-disciplinary area. Just as we were conducting our Crypto x AI research, GOAT was launched and captured all the attention in the crypto space.

Witnessing the Turing test become a reality is an incredible experience, as people on Crypto Twitter are questioning which bots are AI and which are real humans. No matter how early it may seem, I believe GOAT is one of the most significant events of 2024 because it provides a tangible way to think about the interactions and possibilities in this important intersection of cryptocurrency and artificial intelligence. Since then, we have witnessed a surge of these agents, seen teams innovate, stand out, and attract attention. The coolest part is the high interoperability of all these upgrades, maximizing each developer's efforts through the ability to be applied to other agents. While some of these bots can be annoying, I truly believe that by 2025, these agents will be bringing genuinely interesting and even quirky things in droves to the internet.

9**、VIRTUAL Ecosystem**

I'm not going to write too much about Virtuals right now, as this is one of the new projects I've been working on. I just think it's a "pick-and-shovel" strategy for AI agents. So far, they have released more than 12000 proxies. Don't get me wrong, most agents are still terrible and sometimes annoying responders at best. However, I expect exponential improvements in the coming months, making this project worth paying attention to.

Aixbt* is a particularly striking account that deserves attention and observation. The data doesn't lie; it occupies a significant share of the cryptocurrency mindset for good reason. It simply posts alpha on Twitter—but it is backed by years of research from 0rxbt, who has taken the time to collect a vast amount of crypto data and curated a smart Crypto Twitter social graph that gives aixbt its "personality." While many crypto celebrities often discuss the same projects in the echo chamber of Crypto Twitter, aixbt consistently presents fresh alpha, primarily consisting of projects I haven't seen anywhere else.

10and11:MetaDAOand****MetaLeX

Few people know or remember this, but Delphi was one of the first companies to receive DAO rewards (Synthetix) in 2019. Since then, we have been active in dozens of governance processes and even helped design governance systems and projects for cryptocurrencies such as Gitcoin. Initially, DAOs were the most exciting aspect of this field for me. However, as we faced the complexities of working with DAOs, my enthusiasm waned. Most DAOs are established to achieve some ambitious vision, but they spend 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 (despite both having Meta in their names, the two projects are unrelated).

MetaDAO has sparked many interesting discussions within Delphi (largely thanks to our META maxi mrink0). While some criticize Solana for lacking innovation, MetaDAO is the world's first project to deploy futarchy. I have to mention it here because it is one of the coolest on-chain experiments I've seen in 2024.

Unlike traditional voting methods, MetaDAO uses markets to predict and determine the best outcomes for the DAO. It is interesting to see different protocols integrate it into their decision-making processes. For example, Drift utilizes MetaDAO for market-based token listings on its exchange. As we approach 2025, I am closely watching MetaDAO, hoping it can increase voter participation in cryptocurrency and improve voter diversity.

On the other hand, MetaLeX is a concept that Lex node and Delphi Labs have been refining for years. In 2024, it finally launched, building a future where DAOs can focus on their tasks without getting bogged down in governance challenges. Through BORGs, MetaLeX enables DAOs to connect with the real world while maintaining their crypto-native qualities.

This is the culmination of Gabe's years of experience accumulated from the traditional world and the crypto world. He has served as the Technical Director at Delphi Labs for many years, and honestly, I have a lot of respect for him. For Delphi Labs, making this concept a reality is a no-brainer, as there is no one else in the world who can build it the right way. MetaLeX fills the legal gaps with code and the code gaps with law. Their BORGs can mutually execute multi-party trusted commitments and reduce the trust assumptions on all counterparties.

MetaLeX has already helped teams like Lido, Curve, and ZKSync transition to BORGs. They have been developing a comprehensive set of tools for minimizing trust in governance, and I believe that by 2025, we will start to see the impact of their work on the integration of their DAOs.

12**、**Sandwich

This is a product created by one of my friends. Sandwich is a private placement trading tool used for executing CEX orders (as well as HyperLiquid orders). It allows you to access institutional-level algorithms, which help save on fees and reduce slippage, and lets you access multiple tools and trade across various exchanges through a unified user interface.

Considering that I mainly buy and hold tokens and don't often use leverage, I'm not the target user for this. That being said, every trader friend who sees it has become a super user. The Mac application is coming soon, but if you have a desktop, I encourage you to give it a try.

13**、**9dcc

I think what Gmoney and 9dcc are doing is the coolest thing in the crypto space right now. He has successfully combined his passion, carved out his own path, and provided another mainstream attempt for cryptocurrency.

Essentially, cryptocurrency is a very powerful coordination tool. Utilizing it to gamify universally present things like fashion and interpersonal interaction is a genius move—surprisingly, this is still an underexplored area. Gmoney continues to delve into this field, so he is able to connect cutting-edge on-chain ideas and bring them into the real world.

14**,**DeBridge

Over the years, I have tried many bridging tools, but DeBridge has been the one I have used the most this year. Not only is the experience seamless, but their team has also been one of the fastest in integrating new chains. No matter where your assets are or where you want them to go, the experience is the same.

They leverage cross-chain intents to connect DeFi in real time, making the bridging experience feel almost magical. According to deAlex, they have settled over 4 million intents, with a trading volume exceeding 6 billion USD.

This is the first bridge I recommend to my ordinary friends that does not require answering any questions about how to use it. Just this point is impressive, and for this, I thank the team's efforts.

15and16:Echoand****Legion

2024 is the year of the ICO comeback. I am a loyal fan of the approach Cobie has taken with Echo - it seems to fit very well with Crypto Twitter users and has product-market fit. Supporting those you trust and allowing them to bring interesting deal flow directly to you is a win-win. Echo has already facilitated over 150 deals and raised over $55 million for projects from nearly 6,000 users.

Legion, on the other hand, takes a more bottom-up approach, putting project tokens in the hands of more consistent community members. They have developed a Legion Score that currently contains three main variables: (1) on-chain activity, (2) social impact, (3) development experience. This score will change over time, giving projects a better idea of who they let into their capital structure table.

Legion is a project that has been incubated by our Delphi Labs for over a year, and just a month ago, its platform saw the first batch of transactions. The numbers speak for themselves: over $5 million has been raised, and nearly 100,000 users have already registered for Legion Score.

I believe that by 2025, we will see more projects utilizing such platforms to help distribute tokens. The timing of the new U.S. government taking office couldn't be better. I strongly recommend everyone register on both platforms and check them weekly. While these platforms strive to curate high-quality projects for their members, there may be many attractive opportunities.

17**、**Kaito

In 2024, Kaito has quickly become a very powerful tool for cryptocurrency users. In a way, Kaito and Delphi Research's goal is to solve a similar problem: to help crypto members cut past all the noise in the crypto world and find alpha and valuable insights. To do this, our research team spends hundreds of hours researching and then condenses all the necessary and relevant information into about 30 minutes of reading, focusing on where we think alpha will appear. In the process, our analysts take the time to think and sift through most of the noise, just to analyze the understandings and conclusions that are important to any particular protocol or segment, where Kaito does a great job of using its clever algorithms to help mine gold nuggets from all the noise on CryptoTwitter. In fact, when I searched for a particular project or token, I was amazed at how much noise it could help me jump through.

I can see that it is a very useful and necessary tool for all traders. However, I have been using it to look for talent. Usually, in any specific field, some of the most vocal individuals tend to become potential recruits for our Delphi team. In fact, we just sent an offer to a talent discovered through Kaito, and they will be joining our team in January.

I believe Kaito has the potential to serve many different user groups through a product, given how many cryptocurrencies continue to be active on Twitter.

18**、**Grass

Grass allows users to earn rewards by sharing excess internet bandwidth with the rest of the network. It's a simple plugin and I'll be running Grass in the background for most of 2024. Our VC team has invested in a number of Crypto x AI projects, but Grass is probably the one I'm personally most excited about (at least in the projects I can talk about openly right now).

Data is the next frontier in model development. We have seen AI labs scrambling to partner with platforms like Reddit or StackOverflow to gain API key access to their data. Grass provides an API key for the entire internet.

It can efficiently and on a large scale do this. They already have 2.5 million nodes on the supply side, providing unfiltered data for training and AI responses. There will also be new ways to join the network, such as people being able to plug in mobile and hardware plugins into their WiFi routers. According to research by 0xdrej, the current demand for onboarding to this network is already in the nine-digit range.

The Grass project has been helping traditional AI professionals take the Crypto X AI crossover field seriously, and I am optimistic about their development prospects in 2025.

19**、**Ostium

Since our team collaborated with Kain and the SNX family in 2019, we are excited to bring traditional assets to the on-chain world. Ostium seems to be fulfilling this promise.

Kaledora has made it clear that she is keen on making Ostium an all-encompassing marketplace. Currently, Ostium offers users long-term or short-term perpetual trading in forex, commodities, cryptocurrencies, and stock indices. So far, they have completed over $166 million in trades. What's cool is that trading volumes for certain pairs have skyrocketed. For example, the USD/JPY trading pair has seen a trading volume of $21 million since its creation, most of which occurred during the Japanese bank's interest rate decision period (not sure if you remember the 72-hour short-term bear market).

They have launched some streamlined structured products based on Polymarket. For example, once the Polymarket odds for Trump winning on election night reach a certain percentage, you can let Ostium go long on Bitcoin at 10x. You can set it up this way, and while everyone else in the world is staying up late to see what happens, you go to sleep and wake up very happily (and well-rested).

With the new US government no longer opposing cryptocurrencies, I believe it will allow Ostium to launch some things on-chain that we couldn't have imagined in the past four years. (As I publish this article, Ostium has actually launched SPX Perps!)

20**、**Moonwalk Fitness

Moonwalk Fitness leverages the coordination capabilities of cryptocurrency to create a powerful accountability tool for fitness.

Currently, the main purpose of the first version of Moonwalk is to encourage people to walk daily. You can create a group, set daily step goals, and deposit USDC/SOL/BONK tokens. As long as you meet your set goal, at the very least, you will get your money back. If others do not reach their goals, their money will be distributed to the winners. This is a simple yet powerful tool to incentivize good behavior, and I am excited to see what its next iteration will look like. You can see that this concept is not just applicable to step incentives: setting goals for daily sleep time, water intake, etc. Regarding rewards, I am curious about which projects sponsor competitions to help different people enter this space.

Although it is still early days, they already have nearly 100,000 registered users; they have locked in over 500,000 people to take responsibility. They will soon be releasing a mobile application, and I have been bothering the team about this for quite some time. This could be the first crypto application that my parents use every week.

Alright, this is my list of favorite projects for 2024. These are just a few products I like, and I want to thank the teams for their hard work. Unfortunately, I obviously cannot exhaustively list all the teams that I think did well in 2024. Other projects that quickly come to mind include wallets like Morpho, Jito, Cowswap, Jupiter, Pendle, and Phantom/Rabby.

I'm curious—what's your favorite project for 2024?