The following is a guest position and an analysis by Shane Neagle, editor -in -chief of the tokenist.
Although the collapse of Terra (Luna) became the Crypto bubble in May 2022, it took the FTX exchange disaster to do so firmly at the end of the year. Since then, the story of the blockchain has been supplanted by the beaten of AI. In addition, during the Biden administration, the cryptographic space entered a vulnerable state of constant harassment and speech.
It was at a time when digital active ingredients were to consolidate, evolve and recover from the busty busty chain in 2022. Fortunately, the friendly Trump administration of cryptocurrencies now presents a real path to recovery – to a decentralized finance based on blockchain (DEFI). This is already obvious by the increase in capital through the DAPPs.
Now, at 156 billion dollars, a total locked value (TVL), this marks a return to the first half of 2022. Likewise, the Ethereum (ETH) price radically surpassed Bitcoin (BTC) during the last month, at + 53% against -1%, respectively. It is a clear sign that an Altcoin season increases – but what primary layer 1 should they consider crypto enthusiasts for long -term exposure?
Ethereum (ETH)
As a second largest Blockchain and Defi Vanguard network, Ethereum is an obvious choice. However, it should not be overlooked simply for this reason, although in certain warnings. There are two key aspects in Ethereum which are attractive as the main exposure to the DEFI story.
Ethereum has the first advantage, which has generated the activity of the highest developers, the dynamics of the ecosystem and the scale through layers of layer 2 such as the base, the polygon, the unichain, optimism, arbitrum and others.
After introducing the tokest combustion mechanism with EIP 1559, the Ethereum inflation rate is equal with Bitcoin (after 4th in half) at approximately 0.75%. Although the Bitcoin inflation rate continues to drop with more successive halvations, the ETH could be considered solid money compared to the dollar with its target inflation rate by 2%.
In other words, despite an elastic token diet – generated by stimulum – compared to the fixed Bitcoin diet, it adapts to self -adjustment. As the DAPP activity increases on the Mainnet, more eTh are burned. And after the upgrading of Pectra, which made the L2 networks more effective with the Blob space, the burning rate has doubled.
With the abstraction of the accounts and the scaling of Ethereum with Sharding, Ethereum is the test of the future to manage the DEFI traffic while maintaining the transaction costs. In turn, this is linked to the push during Stablecoin with the act of genius.
Ethereum has the most diverse stablecoin ecosystem, holding $ 138.6 billion in stablecoins. These are half the total market capitalization of $ 272.6 billion, according to Defilma. As a bristing currency which brings the familiarity of the dollar in the form of tokenized, stablecoins are the first interaction for most people, leading to a larger exposure.
In addition, when Circle announced the launch of its Blockchain Arcchain for Stablecoin traffic, it should be noted that this is an EVM compatible L1 network.
Superficially, it may seem to be a bearish for Ethereum because stablecoin transactions could move away from Ethereum. In reality, it is optimistic because it signals the integration of Ethereum in the liquidity of business quality by the crossed chains and the L2 ecosystem of Ethereum.
All these factors now increase the accumulation of ether on treasury bills. According to the Strategic ETH Reserve Tracker, they accumulated 3.57 million ETH worth around 16.58 billion dollars. Indeed, treasury bills are likely to have the same effect on the price of ETH as the FNB Bitcoin negotiated on the clock had on the price of the BTC.
But does that mean that investors should do everything on ETH? For existing ETH holders, they should consider locking the profits in the following few months. Historically, when the market value ratio of Ethereum / Value achieved (MVRV) is greater than 3.0, it signals a peak before a sale.
After the drop in the likely interest rate of the Fed in September, the Ethereum MVRV ratio should start to reach this level. Following the market correction, it is at this time that new investors should obtain exposure to ETH. According to a recent Fundstrat forecast, Eth Price is expected to reach $ 10,000 by the end of the year.
Avalanche (Avx)
Since its launch in 2020, this L1 network has attracted attention with its new approach to the architecture design of the blockchain. Namely, Avalanche divides the workload via the X chain for the exchange of assets, the C chain to execute EVM compatible intelligent contracts and the P chain to manage subnets, validators and stake.
The involvement of this design results in an effortless export of Ethereum Dapps in addition to personalized subnets. If an organization appreciates financial privacy, it could create unique governance and consensus rules for its subnet. This opens the door to a wide range of use cases in banks, health care, supply chains and private funds.
Example, FIFA chose Avalanche in May for its NFT deployment. More recently, the Avalanche Foundation has launched its $ 50 million accelerator program to finance blockchain games.
In terms of Tokenomics, 90% of the AVAX tokens supply is unlocked with a total offer of 458.1 million, compared to the initial extraction of 360 million Avx. In T2 2025, the annualized inflation rate remained 3.8%, following a dynamic calendar driven by the amount of milestone from Avx and the implementation period.
Although it makes Avox inflationist compared to Ethereum or Bitcoin, the Avx token still has a hard ceiling of 720 million.
The price of the AVAX token should increase as more services are launched. To name only a few: the Euler Finance loan service, Nexpace (Maplery N), the Vneck Vbill Treasury Fund, the trading of Watr’s raw materials and the tokenized titles of Dinari.
This explosion of activity has increased the average active daily addresses by 210% on a quarterly basis, according to Messari data. During the last month, AVAX increased by 18%, currently at a price of $ 25 per token. The potential of earnings is high, because Avx reached several $ 50 peaks in 2024. Reminder: It was still during the crypto-hostile Biden administration.
Cardano (ADA)
Following an academic approach to the development of blockchain, Cardano is closely linked to the origins of Ethereum, because his co-founder Charles Hoskinson founded Cardano because of differences in the way Ethereum should be in place organizational. Over the years, Cardano has acquired a perception as a “left-she” chain, Solana (soil) winning in importance as a competitor of Ethereum.
Nevertheless, the Cardano roadmap is progressing and its ecosystem accumulates slowly. At the beginning of 2024, Cardano won his own stablecoin USDM, issued by Moneta fully in line, even filling the Strict Mica Standard from Europe. Likewise, the Norwegian Block Exchange (NBX) on USDM.
In the scaling department, Cardano has advanced the layer 2 hydra-2 scale for transactions outside the chain and launched Mithril for the synchronization of the light nodes. At the end of the year, Ouroboros Peras should considerably reduce transaction settlement times. With Ouroboros Leios, Cardano is probably as efficient in the flow of transactions as Solana.
Intelligent Zero-Knowledge (ZK) intelligent contracts are also defined for the launch of Mainnet at the end of 2025, providing confidentiality, scalability and interoperability to the Cardano table. In addition to the midnight project focused on privacy, Cardano is surrounded by positive stories.
Another positive story from a healthy point of view in terms of money is that the cardano inflation rate is tied with Ethereum. In the first quarter, it was 0.7% per year, while downward trend due to the interaction between expansion eras from 5 days to 0.3%, the hard ceiling of 45 billion ADA, transaction costs and stake.
An updated year, ADA increased by 2.5%, still under the dollar per token. In September 2021, ADA reached its high price of $ 3.10. This makes it one of the cheapest blockchain exhibitions. And because Cardano has been rejected so many times, his increase potential is amplified if his roadmap offers as expected. On the stock market, dividend growth investment follows a similar principle of patience and aggravated yields.
