Can Centralized Exchange Tokens Rise Under the On-Chain Craze?

Recently, the market has seen a significant shift, with Bitcoin's market share dropping from 60% to 55%, marking the start of a bull run for altcoins. Various sectors have been experiencing hot spots, showing a flourish of opportunities. Artificial intelligence has taken the lead in igniting the market, with a certain protocol's market cap briefly surpassing $300 million. An AI project within a public chain ecosystem has also previously exceeded a market cap of $1 billion. Another exchange's native coin has surged by more than 10 times. On the product front, the exchange's open interest has repeatedly reached new highs, breaking through $4.3 billion. Even the NFT sector, once overlooked by the market, has become active again, with several well-known projects issuing tokens, driving up the prices of blue-chip NFTs on Ethereum and Solana.

Looking at the current trends, it is not difficult to find that most are concentrated on on-chain projects. So, have the tokens of Centralized Exchanges really been forgotten by the market?

This is not the case. There is another narrative in this round of bull market that cannot be ignored: Trump may be elected. This means that cryptocurrency will further enter the public eye. The improvement of regulations and the relaxation of supervision are both conducive to external funds entering the cryptocurrency market. The continued net inflow of funds into Bitcoin and Ethereum spot ETFs can confirm this. The Trump family's cryptocurrency project has also set an example by purchasing a large amount of DeFi-related tokens within a month, including ETH, CBBTC, AAVE, LINK, ENA, and ONDO.

So, how do these tokens perform after being purchased? What common characteristics do they share? Are there any potential concept coins worth paying attention to? Let's explore together.

Purchase Record Overview

Starting from November 30, the Trump family project has invested 44.75 million dollars in purchasing cryptocurrency. As of December 18, all held coins are in profit.

It is worth noting that, unlike traditional institutions that focus more on Bitcoin, the project holds significantly more ETH than Bitcoin, which may indicate their more optimistic outlook on the future price trends of Ethereum.

As the leader in lending across the entire market, AAVE ranks first in TVL, with deposits nearing $40 billion, reaching an all-time high. In the past 7 days, the coin price has risen by 35%. The project's community has also passed a proposal to collaborate with AAVE, which is currently undergoing a temporary review at AaveDAO. If the proposal is approved, it will bring new users and more real benefits to AAVE.

LINK is a well-known oracle project. On November 14, the Trump family project announced that it will use Chainlink as the standard for on-chain data and cross-chain connections to safely promote the large-scale application of DeFi.

The development of ENA is closely related to the current bull market. As its revenue comes from arbitrage between futures and spot, the higher the market sentiment, the higher the funding rate for Ethereum, allowing Ethena to benefit from it. Recently, the TVL has surpassed 6 billion USD, setting a new historical high. They have also partnered with a major asset management firm to launch a RWA stablecoin based on government bond yields, alleviating market concerns that a negative funding rate could lead the protocol into a death spiral.

ONDO is currently the leading project in the RWA sector. After a major asset management giant announced the launch of a crypto fund, Ondo Finance invested over $95 million, becoming the largest holder. In terms of compliance, legitimacy, fund size, and market recognition, ONDO performs the best in the RWA sector.

In addition to the aforementioned coins, COW is also worth paying attention to. The Trump family project only used Cow Protocol when purchasing these coins, so COW is also regarded as a related concept token.

Tokens to Watch in the Future

Based on the investment logic of the Trump family projects, we can speculate on the targets they may focus on in the future.

The first choice is tokens that have a partnership with the project, such as AAVE and LINK. The second choice is projects with a "clear business model" and "stable real returns." AAVE, LINK, ENA, ONDO, etc. all have clear product positioning, a large ecosystem of users, and actual revenue models. This indicates that they are more inclined to invest in protocols that can bring long-term value, rather than pursuing "novelty" or "pure concept" tokens.

LDO: Considering the Trump family's significant holdings in ETH, they seem very optimistic about Ethereum's long-term potential. As the Ethereum staking mechanism matures, along with the possibility of ETFs introducing Ethereum staking rates, the leading protocol LIDO has become the preferred choice. It is the largest liquid staking protocol in the Ethereum ecosystem, with a TVL of $37 billion, accounting for 30% of the entire Ethereum staking market.

Pendle: Focused on the yield splitting market, allowing users to trade future income rights. With the rise in Ethereum staking rates and the yields of certain protocols, the demand for yield trading markets continues to increase, making Pendle a focal point in this bull market. Recently, Pendle's TVL has exceeded $5 billion and has established partnerships with multiple mainstream DeFi protocols.

UNI: A certain DEX is the origin of DeFi Summer and is currently the most commonly used Centralized Exchange by users, being a leader in this sector. Recently, they launched a new project, and although the market response has been lukewarm, it does not affect users' reliance on their products.

Summary: Blue-chip projects become the focus

Regarding the Trump family's large-scale purchase of cryptocurrency, an analyst from a certain analysis platform stated to a media outlet: "This purchase behavior may be to gain more trust, or to promote the development of its own projects by drawing attention to these assets. Because if these assets perform well, the Trump family project may also benefit from it."

The Trump family's projects are actively laying out blue-chip projects, which not only enhances market confidence in mainstream DeFi protocols but also injects more institutional funds into the crypto market. Such capital flow further stabilizes the market and drives mainstream projects toward higher market value and development potential.