DeFi Research | Ignas

New blog post: Tokenized Stock Boom: Time to Get Rich Read it here ↓ https://www.ignasdefi.com/p/tokenized-stock-boom-time-to-get

New blog post: The DeFi Degen’s Playbook for MegaETH Ecosystem - Two Forces for Mega - Why $MEGA? - What others are saying - Apps to try out Read it here: https://www.ignasdefi.com/p/the-defi-degens-playbook-for-megaeth

Polymarket's referral program is a tough one: 30% of fees generated as rewards is juicy... I want to shill it but most of my followers already use Polymarket. The real dilemma is the airdrop. Referral programs are easy to promote when you're confident they lead to an airdrop. This was my entire meta in 2023/24. But Polymarket could go the equity route. If that happens, users who traded and paid fees get nothing. In any case, use my ref code "ignas" if you're trading anyway. Costs nothing extra. https://polymarket.com/?r=ignas

Anyone holding TRX? If, yes congratz. You are outperforming the market. But how come Tron is winning? A short blog post https://x.com/DefiIgnas/status/2035006647521677574

Two protocols generate 69% of all crypto holder revenue. The rest of the “investible” market is embarrassingly small. I put together a list of 132 tokens across 12 narratives that might survive the bear market. Read it here: https://www.ignasdefi.com/p/the-investible-crypto-tokens

I'm not trading right now. Here's what I'm doing instead: • AI vibe-exploring crypto via APIs • Checking out MegaETH ecosystem • Following & researching ICOs. Not necessarily investing! • Reading blogs instead of doom scroll on X. https://x.com/DefiIgnas/status/2020441832443011307

Current State of the Market & What's Next #8 • Developers are leaving 🙁 • Token launches... suck 🙁 • Layoffs increasing 🙁 • User activity? Increasing :))) And an airdrop shill! Read it here: https://www.ignasdefi.com/p/current-state-of-the-market-and-whats-bb3

Crypto Truths & Lies for the Year 2026: Instead of predictions, I share my truths and lies to spot the next big crypto trends. Read it here: https://www.ignasdefi.com/p/crypto-truths-and-lies-for-the-year-647

Nansen's wallet addition is a smart move: - Track 'smart money' and trade directly within the platform. - Monitor portfolio performance It may seem like a small add-on, but similar to Farcaster's pivot from social media to a wallet-first approach, this makes Nansen a big competitor to Axiom and other trading terminals. Many underestimate Nansen as just a 'data platform,' but it's much more. I wouldn't be surprised if they introduced AI trading in the future, allowing you to copy-trade smart money in one place. It's easy to shill, especially with the $NSN airdrop coming and points now live. Use my affiliate if you're interested to try: https://nsn.ai/ignas

Who Owns 'Aave': Aave Labs vs Aave DAO https://x.com/DefiIgnas/status/1999728596626342177

Airdrop shill: Prediction markets is top sector but many are sleeping on an obvious airdrop play. Connect the dots: - Coinbase → Kalshi (KYCed, regulated & rumors of Coinbase integrating Kalshi) - Hyperliquid → Polymarket (Open, global, decentralized) - Aster → ....? Like CZ/Binance pushed Aster to answer Hyperliquid, they are now backing their own prediction market. It's Opinion. Same backers as Aster (Binance/YZi Labs). Same BNB ecosystem push. It's relatively early but airdrop farmers are already here. Trading volumes already above Polymarket and Kalshi. Wash trading or not, the incentive design is working and CT is still quiet. Plus, even bear markets prediction markets will do well, as they are anti-cyclical. Points are simple: • Provide liquidity early and near the mid • Look for 🎁 markets with higher multipliers • Bigger trades earn more • Holding positions stacks points over time Referrals help too. Both sides may get bonuses according to their docs. Here’s my link with a 10% fee discount: https://app.opinion.trade?code=N02K85 Code: N02K85 Final tips: - Get $BNB for gas on @gasdotzip - Base currency is USDT

Seeing full capitulation on alts across CT and in my DMs. People skipped BTC early in the cycle expecting the old playbook to repeat. But new money didn’t touch the old, boring tokens. First, we got rekt on low-float, high-FDV tokens. Then on memecoins. DAT trades weren’t any better. Retail expected Saylor 2.0 companies, but instead we became exit liquidity for insiders. But as all looks lost, the altcoin playbook is changing: 5 of the top 10 lending apps are buying back their tokens. Uniswap and Lido also turning the fee switch on. Top protocols finally rewarding holders sends a clear signal to other teams to follow. But... ...it doesn't necessarily save alts for the time being: Most have no revenue to share and those that do, are still way overvalued relative to FDV. Thus alts continue repricing their speculative, "new thing" premium towards P/E or whatever ratios that make sense. Key catalyst to follow is the CLARITY act that will, well, give clarity on alts: Regulation won't mean green light to pump all alts. But like during all regime changes, there will be new winners and losers.

Perp DEXs are at the top of my airdrop opportunities right now. Hyperliquid, Lighter, and now Variational are my top picks. The best part? We are early: - It’s pre-points season - 50% of supply goes to airdrop - Raised $10.3M in seed funding in 2024 by Bain Capital Crypto, Coinbase Ventures, Dragonfly Capital etc. - TVL at $68m with 16k active addresses - Zero trading fees The app is in private beta. You’ll need a referral code to join. Start making early volume before the points system goes live. -> Go to Variational page here. -> Enter my code OMNIIGNAS to start 89 invites left (Sharing here first before posting on X)

The Great Rotation: BTC won. Where does it leave ETH, SOL and Alts? Following the retail, whale, and institutional flows. Read it here: https://www.ignasdefi.com/p/the-great-rotation-btc-won-what-happens

Lending market tokenomics shows how far DeFi has matured. 5 out of 10 top lending protocols now share revenue with holders: • Aave: Snapshot vote passed to enshrine $50M/yr in buybacks • Maple: 20–25% of revenue buys back and rewards stSYRUP stakers • Fluid: Began buybacks Oct 6 after $10M annual revenue, already 0.36% of supply bought back • Venus: 20% of revenue buys back $XVS and 25% of BNB Chain revenue burns $BNB • JustLend: 30% of revenue to quarterly JST burns, first $17.7M (5.66% supply) in Oct 2025 Spark and Kamino have point programs for airdrop. Morpho, Compound, and Euler remain governance only for now.

Must read explanation why BTC lags gold and equities in a risk-on environment. It's no surprise that clarity comes from a TradFi guy, while CT is lost: What's happening to BTC HAS NEVER happened in crypto but happens often in TradFi world: the winning. An IPO moment. Early BTC believers are realizing gains after Bitcoin won. They mined, held through FUD, and now finally have exit liquidity without crashing the market. This is not panic selling but the natural transition from concentrated to distributed ownership. I call it The Great Rotation. When a few thousand wallets hold most of the supply, one seller can move the market. As ownership spreads to millions of investors through ETFs, institutions, and retail, the same amount of BTC sold barely moves price. Selling gets absorbed across time and venues. That is how volatility fades and the asset becomes more stable. Like IPOs, this phase takes time. Early holders sell patiently while new institutional buyers accumulate. It lasts 6 to 18 months, but in Bitcoin time we might already be past the 6 months. This is why this time is different. BTC is not failing to rally because it is a bear market. It is not dumping because of fear. It is consolidating because Bitcoin already won. The market is simply digesting that success. Price moves sideways, sentiment looks dead, but structurally Bitcoin becomes stronger and more mature. OGs exiting is bullish because it means Bitcoin finally reached the scale where large exits no longer break the market. The longer Bitcoin consolidates, the more distributed and resilient it becomes. What feels boring now is how real store of value assets are born. ------ While he doesn't cover alts, I believe ETH, SOL, and other alts lag not only because they follow BTC but because they have not yet won. Bitcoin completed its proof phase and is transitioning from speculation to institution. ETH is still between being considered infra (for general public) and a store of value (for true believers). Ethereum hasn't won the 'default infra' game and core believers still need to convince the market ETH is SoV. BTC is in its maturation phase. ETH and SOL are still fighting to earn that status. https://x.com/jvisserlabs/status/1984578105713770823

$ETH potential to pump is capped by its failure to be a store of value. To buy and hold $ETH now you need to believe in its ability to become a store of value asset. Yes, $ETH can run to 10k with no fundamental change, but the current narrative of tokenization and RWAs is not enough to push it much higher without the SoV premium. This narrative can even backfire as new chains ALREADY compete for RWAs and stablecoin adoption with better features like privacy, speed, and low fees. Yet none of them have the potential to be SoV the way $ETH does. Alt L1s will not be neutral or decentralized like Ethereum. Some already treat $ETH as SoV, mostly hardcore DeFi users who use it as yield-bearing collateral. But $ETH needs to push into BTC territory to be accepted by passive institutional and retail holders as well. It has potential because $ETH : - has native yield and - smart contract utility for usage within DeFi. I believe the missing piece is deflationary supply. If Ethereum can burn more $ETH than it issues, then $ETH becomes the superior SoV to BTC, which has long term security issues from shrinking miner subsidies and weak fee revenue. The Ultrasound Money 1.0 narrative is dormant. But not dead. So if you buy and hold $ETH now, you should believe that Ethereum will find a way to tax the L2s and adoption will grow enough to burn supply. As Ray Dalio said on BTC, money must be both a medium of exchange and a storehold of wealth. The latter is more important.

The Changing Crypto Order In my new blog post I cover: • ETFs and the Great Rotation • Why not all tokens pump anymore • Stablecoins, DATs and RWAs • The end of 4-year cycle? Read it here: https://www.ignasdefi.com/p/the-changing-crypto-order

$BASE would likely trade $3.9B - $7.3B FDV if valued at $ARB, $OP or $LINEA FDV/TVL multiples. That puts it far below $AVAX (~$14B), Hedera (~$12B), BCH (~$11B), $IP, $ENA, $UNI and others. Even with Base posting the highest L2 chain revenue ($5M last month vs $1.6M for Arbitrum), it’s not enough to command a big premium. If Base was an L1, valuation would be way higher. But they’ve been clear: Ethereum alignment is their priority. Clearly, L2 tokens are cooked. Where Base can stand out is the ecosystem moat: • Coinbase funnel → Base DEXs integrated in CEX app, staking + compliance premium • Wrappers → cbBTC today, potential wrapped XRP, LTC, etc. • Base Wallet + creator economy • Push into payments (could justify a premium if real volume comes) • Apps like Farcaster, Zora building natively But Linea is a lesson: Even with Metamask's (still) big adoption, Consensys support + mUSD stablecoin, it barely trades above $2B FDV. So Base’s mission isn’t just launching a token. It’s breaking the L2 token current valuation models and finding a fresh narrative that would lift all L2 tokens: $ARB, $OP (where it still shares fees as part of OP Stack), or $LINEA. Will be interesting to see if Base can spin a bullish story the market buys.

Native Markets wins the USDH ticker. - 50% of yield goes to HYPE buybacks. - 50% goes to ecosystem growth. That second half is basically a new HL airdrop farm. Who decides the 'growth' rules? Drop the token. This farm could be the catalyst for USDH adoption. Migrate from USDC or USDT into USDH and you’ll likely earn points. It also pushes HyperEVM DeFi since USDH will count for the airdrop. Feels like a vampire attack on USDC and USDT. Just like Sushi vs Uniswap back in the day. Smart. Hyperliquid is now an airdrop farmer’s heaven: • 2nd & 3rd $HYPE airdrop • $UNIT token • USDH play • Farm on Based for $BASED and ecosystem airdrops Start here: https://app.based.one/register?ref=IGNAS