The crypto market sentiment is already bullish, fueled by the approval of the Bitcoin ETF and declining inflation rates in the U.S. And now with the very pro-crypto Donald Trump about to officially return to the Presidency of the United States on January 20th, the bull run may even go into hyperspeed. However, the price action has still been mostly focused on Bitcoin, with the alt season not having started yet. So what are some of the most promising altcoins ready to surge in 2025?
Early indications point not to memecoins or NFT plays but to good old DeFi. Already, The Block’s DeFi Infrastructure index is approaching 2021 highs. It has gone up by over 100%, far outpacing both Bitcoin and Ethereum, and led by Curve Finance’s CRV token.
EYWA
As it happens, EYWA is closely associated with Curve, being backed by its founder, Michael Egorov. Other investors include both founders of 1inch and some of the top crypto VCs, including Fenbushi, GBV Capital, and Kenetic. EYWA has raised over $8.5M and its DAO governance token is getting listed on exchange after exchange.
To understand such strong backing for EYWA, one only needs to look at its first product — CrossCurve DEX, which is taking on the massive liquidity fragmentation problem in DeFi by building unified crosschain liquidity pools on top of Curve pools. This allows projects to list on just one chain and instantly get liquidity pairs on many others. Instead of the expensive seeding and incentivizing of liquidity on each chain, CrossCurve allows projects to seed just the CrossCurve pool and to offer better incentives for liquidity providers. And the end users get quick, secure trades with low slippage.
While the $EYWA token has already doubled in price from its listing, it’s still in the very early stages of price discovery.
Usual
Usual is a decentralized protocol behind the $USD0 stablecoin tied to the US dollar and backed by real assets, such as US Treasury Bonds (the most trusted financial instrument in the world). Users can stake $USD0 as $USD0++ to get rewarded in $USUAL — which in turn gives governance rights and a share in the protocol’s profits. Usual is trying to create a more transparent stablecoin in contrast to the likes of USDC and USDT. Overall, stablecoins are a booming business that will only grow as the crypto market grows with new funds and users streaming in. If $USD0 can take away market share from the more centralized stablecoins, it could see major growth in 2025.
Resolv
Resolv is another promising stablecoin play. It’s a decentralized protocol supporting the $USR stablecoin backed by Ethereum and tied to the US dollar. If Ethereum continues appreciating in value, Resolv’s capitalization ratio will only improve, adding stability and supporting the scaling of $USR. $USR is designed to be delta-neutral to ensure price stability. Meanwhile, their innovative insurance pool (RLP) provides additional security and redundancy. Resolv aims to reward holders for stabilizing DeFi and supporting its growth, which is a very logical value proposition in this bull part of the cycle.
Supra
Like EYWA, Supra is making the backbone of DeFi work better. It is a crosschain oracle, which allows faster and more accurate transfer of data between various blockchains. This allows DeFi projects to rely on a decentralized flow of prices as well as verifiable randomization for dApps, games, and other use cases where randomization is key. Supra also automates crediting and liquidity governance — making complex DeFi process simple. From Chainlink to Graph, projects relied upon for making the DeFi infrastructure run smoothly have traditionally done well during bullish sentiment periods.
Conclusion
Whether for a short bump after January 20th or for a longer run during this bull market, altcoins are poised to explode in 2025. And the above 4 each play an important role in shaping DeFi’s future, which could bode very well for their individual tokens, especially given the recent success of Curve and the projects integrated with it.
