Delphi Digital CEO: My 20 Favorite Encryption Projects for 2024

Author Anil Lulla, CEO of Delphi Digital; Translated by Jinse Finance 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 that developers around the world are continuously launching.

I would like to highlight some of my favorite crypto applications that I have 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 interacted with these products and/or their tokens through various means. 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. In 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 frequently anymore, so I’m not the target user of HyperLiquid. In fact, I first used this app when it was launched to buy HYPE* tokens. Soon, I saw the reason why its fans were crazy about it for the whole year. Not only is the UI/UX quite CEX (centralized exchange) in style (yes, I know it only has four validators), but also the speed at which the team responds to user criticisms, concerns, and feedback in their Discord is truly encouraging.

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 accounting for over 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 the 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, prediction markets have been one use case that excites me, and I believe it will be the first true use case to take off, like early projects such as Augur. Clearly, that hasn’t been the case. Nearly seven years have passed, and thanks to Polymarket, prediction markets officially became mainstream in 2024. It played perfectly on the night of the U.S. presidential election, announcing ahead of what I believe is the most important election winner of our generation. To provide some background, Polymarket handled $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 of information. Many have called for its abolition after the elections, but to be honest, it has been performing well. Below the highs of November, but still above the levels of mid-October. I still use it frequently to see which markets are active, and it seems that 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 (Binance, Coinbase, etc.). Some of my regular friends are even using it and have no complaints. 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 with were builders of Farcaster. This is indeed a bullish sign. Although it is still early, many builders are focused on creating some really cool niche things, thus having the opportunity to attract the admiration of communities that are focused and adventurous towards Farcaster. I think you will see a lot of strange things born 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 capabilities, 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. Similar to USDC, USDtb is backed by cash and cash equivalent reserve assets. In the short term, due to financing issues, the yield of USDe may remain high. However, Ethena can now flexibly adjust the treasury yield to supplement USDe. This effectively creates an APY “lower limit” around treasury bond rates, allowing Ethena to scale further.

Like most people, I am optimistic about the growth of stablecoins in 2025. The current market capitalization is around $200 billion, and I believe it has the potential to exceed $300 billion, with expectations of reaching over $400 billion next year. I think Ethena, with its smart products and continuous focus on integration, will play an important role in helping attract substantial capital on-chain. We have already seen other decentralized stablecoins or synthetic dollars being integrated into DeFi in various ways, and Ethena’s USDe seems to be the first to perform well in terms of integration with CEX (centralized exchanges) and TradFi. This helps them build a strong moat early on while chasing the largest 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 bring games to market and introduce the masses to the crypto world. Gunzilla Games has achieved this - users have not encountered any friction from the crypto components.

Off the Grid, a battle royale game themed around cyberpunk, is the first crypto game launched 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 into action the widely discussed benefits of cryptocurrency for gaming: digital ownership can enhance player engagement.

I strongly recommend you listen to the conversation between Piers Kicks and the founder of Gunzilla on the Delphi podcast last month. It is evident that the team has an unparalleled attention to detail and a commitment to providing what players truly want. Currently, they are developing their own products 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 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 primary 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 since then I’ve been captivated. It is by far the best and most comprehensive portfolio tracker I have used. 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 are hearing about for the first time. I am very impressed by it, and I think it is a wise attempt. I have been looking for such products for several years, and I am glad to have finally found one. I have no financial ties to Lighthouse, although I did request 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 praise it deserves - it is a simple yet necessary solution with a strong and direct PMF (Product-Market Fit). It lowers the barrier to entry while promoting a fairer distribution, and its bonding mechanism mitigates the risk of rug pulls.

Within a year, pump.fun has 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 have chosen to grow horizontally by exploring new ways to attract attention. In my talk, live streaming initially seemed like an unexpected direction. It ultimately got out of control, but mainly because it was too successful.

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 overlooked. By the way, my investment in pump.fun was through a small angel investment, not through Delphi Ventures. Betting on the founder is an easy decision, but I am still impressed by their execution.

8**,**GOAT

My favorite crypto moment this year may 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-domain. 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 robots are AI and which are real humans. No matter how early it may seem now, I believe GOAT is one of the most important events of 2024, as it provides a tangible way to consider the interactive 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 the efforts of every developer through applications that can be applied to other agents. While some of these robots can be annoying, I truly believe that by 2025, these agents will be flocking together to bring something genuinely interesting and even quirky to the internet.

9**、VIRTUAL ecosystem**

I don’t plan to write too much about Virtuals right now, as this is one of the new projects I’ve been researching. I just feel that it’s a “pickaxe and shovel” strategy for AI agents. So far, they have released over 12,000 agents. Don’t get me wrong, most agents are still quite bad, sometimes at best just annoying responders. However, I anticipate exponential improvements in the coming months that will make this project worth paying attention to.

Aixbt* is a particularly noteworthy account that deserves attention and observation. The data does not lie; it occupies a 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 gather a wealth of cryptocurrency data and curate an intelligent Crypto Twitter social graph that gives aixbt a “personality.” While many cryptocurrency celebrities often talk about the same projects in the echo chamber of Crypto Twitter, aixbt consistently manages to present fresh alpha, mostly featuring 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, even helping to design governance systems and projects for cryptocurrencies like Gitcoin. Initially, DAOs were the most exciting aspect of this field for me. However, when we faced the complexities of working with DAOs, my enthusiasm waned. Most DAOs are established to realize 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 not related).

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

Unlike traditional voting methods, MetaDAO uses the market to predict and determine the best outcomes for the DAO. It is interesting to see different protocols incorporating it into their decision-making processes. For example, Drift leverages MetaDAO for market-based token listings on its exchange. As we move into 2025, I am closely watching MetaDAO, hoping it can enhance 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 many years. In 2024, it finally went live, building a future where DAOs can focus on their tasks without getting bogged down by governance challenges. Through BORGs, MetaLeX enables DAOs to connect with the real world while maintaining their crypto-native essence.

This is the crystallization of Gabe’s years of experience accumulated from the traditional world and the crypto world. He served as the technical director at Delphi Labs for many years, and honestly, I have great respect for him. For Delphi Labs, making this concept a reality is a no-brainer because no one else in the world can build it the right way. MetaLeX fills the gaps in law with code and fills the gaps in code 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 trust-minimized 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 to execute 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 various tools and multiple exchanges through a unified user interface.

Considering that I mainly buy and hold tokens and do not frequently use leverage, I am not the target user in this regard. That said, every trader friend who sees it has become a super user. The Mac application is about to be launched, 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, paved his own way, and opened up another mainstream avenue for cryptocurrency.

Essentially, cryptocurrency is a very powerful coordination tool. Using it to gamify universally present things like fashion and interpersonal interactions is a genius move—surprisingly, this is still a largely unexplored area. Gmoney continues to delve into this field, allowing him 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 is 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 already settled over 4 million intents, with a transaction volume exceeding $6 billion.

This is the first bridge I recommend to my ordinary friends that doesn’t require answering any questions about how to use it. Just this alone is impressive, and for that, I thank the team’s efforts.

15and16:Echoand****Legion

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

On the other hand, Legion adopts a more bottom-up approach by handing project tokens to more consistent community members. They have developed a Legion Score, which currently consists of three main variables: ( on-chain activity, ) social influence, and ( development experience. This score will change over time, allowing projects to better understand who they are bringing into their capital structure.

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: it has raised over $5 million, and nearly 100,000 users have 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 coming into power couldn’t be better. I strongly recommend everyone to register on both of these 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 rapidly become a very powerful tool for cryptocurrency users. In a way, Kaito and Delphi Research aim to address a similar issue: helping crypto members cut through all the noise in the crypto world to find alpha and valuable insights. To this end, our research team spends hundreds of hours conducting research and then distilling all the necessary and relevant information into about 30 minutes of reading content, focusing on areas where we believe alpha will emerge. In this process, our analysts take time to think and filter out most of the noise, only analyzing the understandings and conclusions that are important to any specific protocol or niche. Where Kaito excels is in using its smart algorithms to help unearth nuggets of gold from all the noise on CryptoTwitter. In fact, when I search for a specific project or token, it helps me skip over so much noise, which genuinely amazes me.

I can see that it is a very useful and necessary tool for all traders. However, I have been using it to find talent. Usually, in any specific field, some of the most outspoken individuals become potential candidates for our Delphi team. In fact, we just sent an offer to a talent I 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 remain active on Twitter.

18**、**Grass

Grass allows users to earn rewards by sharing excess internet bandwidth with the rest of the network. This is a simple plugin that I have been running in the background for most of 2024. Our venture capital team has invested heavily in numerous Crypto x AI projects, but Grass is perhaps the one I am personally most excited about (at least among the projects I can publicly discuss 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 do this efficiently and on a large scale. 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 devices into their WiFi routers. According to research by 0xdrej, the current demand for joining the network is already in the nine-digit range.

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

19**、**Ostium

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

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

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

With the new U.S. 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 robust accountability tool for fitness.

Currently, the main purpose of the first version of Moonwalk is to motivate 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 meet their targets, their money will be distributed to the winners. This is a simple yet powerful tool for incentivizing 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 field.

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

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

I am curious—what is your favorite project for 2024?