Author | Wenser, Odaily Planet Daily

On September 18, Bankless co-founder David Hoffmanmade a bold statement: "We have now entered the altcoin season, and the real market moment has come earlier than expected." In May this year, David Hoffman announced that he had officially liquidated his ETH holdings, subsequently reallocating to altcoins such as VVV, NEAR, ZEC, HYPE, and LIT, all of which have significantly outperformed ETH in terms of growth.

In addition to recent policy benefits provided by regulatory agencies like the SEC in the U.S., the market has surged: BTC broke $81,000 yesterday; ETH climbed above $2,600, UNI jumped nearly 35% in a single day, and second-tier tokens like ARB and NEAR followed with over 20% gains, leading to a revaluation of the DeFi sector.

Although the Federal Reserve's rate hikes have concluded, it appears that the engine for the crypto bull market is now in place, opening a window for market funds to rotate from BTC to altcoins. Odaily Planet Daily will compile an "Altcoin Potential List" based on market insights, track logic, and popular targets, giving a glimpse into the current market focus. (Note: The following content does not constitute investment advice and is for reference only).

HYPE: Current price around $92

As the absolute leader in the on-chain Perp DEX segment, Hyperliquid's business lines are flourishing. Aside from maintaining a consistent lead in on-chain trading volume, the market related to HIP-3 has significantly changed its share in the Hyperliquid ecosystem since the beginning of the year; relevant data shows that today, Hyperliquid's open contract volume reached $16.36 billion, setting a new historical high. According to statistics, Hyperliquid's HIP-3 based market is projected to account for nearly 50% of the platform's perpetual contract trading volume by summer 2026, up from about 2% at the start of the year, with the stock market of TradeXYZ dominating, including contracts for the Nasdaq 100 index and individual stocks.

Last night, HYPE tokens surged past $94, setting another all-time high, and this also led to PURR prices rising over 20% at one point; a month ago, HYPE was priced around $73.

Finally, the main driving force for HYPE tokens' rise is the ongoing buyback from the platform's ecosystem. According to HyperliquidNews monitoring, the cumulative scale for the Hyperliquid assistance fund used for native token buybacks and burns has exceeded $1.3 billion, making it the largest ecological buyback token in the crypto market.

Previously, former U.S. President Trump publicly named Hyperliquid, stating that the CFTC chairman is promoting its compliant entry into the U.S. market. The policy center of Hyperliquid and the official Hyperliquid team are also steadily pushing forward related activities to enter the U.S. stock market, and in the long term, institutional buying of HYPE will continue to expand.

LIT (Lighter): Current price about $5.2

As a rising star in the on-chain Perp DEX field, Lighter, which positions itself as a "U.S. compliant trading platform," has gradually grown into the second leader in this segment.

Back in July, Odaily Planet Daily had clearly explained the upward logic of LIT in an article titled “The Bottom Rebound Has Tripled, How Did Lighter Take Off?”, at that time its price was around $2.65, and it has since doubled.

As Lighter's platform token, the upward driving forces for LIT are also diverse; apart from a buyback mechanism similar to HYPE, its community distribution is also an important factor in its price increase. With a total of 1 billion tokens, 25% (250 million tokens) of which were allocated during the TGE with no lock-up, this distribution method, closely tied to the crypto community, allowed Lighter to capture a significant share of the market early on. The close association with Robinhood also granted Lighter a degree of leverage in the meme trading sector of the Robinhood Chain ecosystem, with several packaged assets launched on the related platform stemming from Lighter's derivative contracts.

Moreover, the pricing logic provided by the crypto market for LIT also incorporates its identity as a "shadow asset benchmarked against Hyperliquid." As the on-chain derivative contract realm continues to attract capital, based on its indifferent response to bull and bear markets, and the dual support from transaction volume and fees, LIT's potential for growth may even be more promising than HYPE.

As of now, LIT is currently priced slightly below $5.2.

UNI: Current price about $9

If the popularity of the Robinhood Chain ecosystem allowed Uniswap to start a prosperous phase, the recent innovative exemption policy from the SEC has directly placed it in the market spotlight.

With the opening of the stock tokenization window, licensed AMM and regulated TSVs models will directly benefit Uniswap's business growth. Previously, Uniswap v4 had launched the Permissioned Pools feature in July of this year, with partners including Superstate, Securitize, and Dowgo, and the technical architecture update has also aligned with regulatory frameworks, thus starting a continuous upward trend recently.

Combined with the deflationary expectations brought by the reactivation of the Uniswap fee switch, this latest surge in UNI is supported by both policy and fundamentals.

As of now, UNI is currently priced at around $9.

PUMP: Current price about $0.004

As the leading meme coin launch platform within the Solana ecosystem, PUMP tokens, like HYPE, are also representatives of "buyback-type tokens," and their buyback scale is second only to HYPE.

In past meme seasons, Pump.fun has been the first stop for market funds during the altcoin season, and it has recently launched a stock token issuance model, supporting coin-stock pairing memes, adding on the favorable policies released by the SEC, it is expected that the platform's trading volume and token issuance will further explode.

Currently, PUMP's price is still some distance from last year's historical high, currently around $0.004.

However, considering the influence of altcoin season sentiment on the meme coin sector, and the overall sluggish development of the Solana ecosystem, PUMP can be regarded as "the only money-making machine platform token in the Solana ecosystem."

MORPHO: Current price about $2.7

As a mature lending protocol in the market, positioned as "on-chain lending infrastructure," Morpho is also in a stage of rapid development. Following the recent booming on-chain market of the Robinhood Chain, Morpho has provided strong support and deepened ties in the lending sector of this ecosystem, demonstrating proactive engagement that is rare in the industry for expanding new ecosystems and business boundaries.

Furthermore, unlike traditional lending protocols, Morpho uses a hybrid model of "peer-to-peer matching + pooling," resulting in higher capital utilization rates and more competitive lending rates.

Another hidden benefit lies in the strong support from regulatory agencies for stablecoins and on-chain finance. With the gradual clarity of regulatory frameworks, Morpho, as a leading project in the DeFi lending sector, also holds deep potential for institutional buying.

ZEC: Current price about $1536

As the only privacy token to break the $1000 barrier in this cycle, ZEC's recent surge can be described as "the strongest altcoin," without any doubt.

Over the past year, ZEC has increased by more than 2500%, with a current peak price reported at $1595, nearing $1600, and its market capitalization has jumped to 8th place in the cryptocurrency market.

In the "post-BTC era," despite the frequent questioning of privacy features, the concept of ZEC as a "privacy token" remains highly sought after by the market, and institutional funds have been backing it with significant investments as a "compliant privacy token." It is worth mentioning that based on the current price, ZEC treasury listed companies and HYPE treasury listed companies may be the last two "profit models" left in the altcoin treasury.

Notably, Fortitude, a mining company focused on Zcash mining, has recently been advancing its listing initiatives, appointing former CEO of BTC mining company Hut 8, Jaime Leverton, as CEO, and plans to list on the Nasdaq stock exchange. Additionally, the NFT ecosystem and meme coin ecosystem linked to ZEC have also seen bright projects, indicating that privacy tokens still have a broad market in the long term.

Finally, the long-considered "biggest short of ZEC," "10·11 insider whale Garret Jin revealed today that he holds over $300 million, approximately 202,100 ZEC. Hence, the truth is revealed; his prior holdings of tens of millions of dollars in ZEC shorts may have been a hedge position, leaving the onlookers originally expecting entertainment in disbelief.

NEAR: Current price about $3.7

As an established project, Near Protocol's conceptual positioning has always been somewhat confusing. Previously, during the AI boom, Near's official team highlighted the founder's identity as an "expert in the AI field" to boost its profile and previously followed up on its appearance as a partner at the Nvidia conference. However, with the recent surge of ZEC and product updates from the official team, NEAR has transformed into a "privacy concept token."

On September 18, NEAR Protocol officially stated that perpetual contract trading now has privacy protection enabled by default. Users can open positions directly using existing accounts, and others cannot identify the ownership of positions; this feature is supported by Hyperliquid.

According to Bankless co-founder David Hoffman in a post, NEAR is a generalized version of ZEC. He believes ZEC encrypts funds while NEAR encrypts business activities; ZEC cannot cover other privacy needs in life, while NEAR can extend privacy capabilities to a broader range of scenarios.

Based on the above multiple factors, the crypto market's growth expectations for this public chain are rapidly recovering, and expectations for the price increase of NEAR tokens are therefore rising.

VVV: Current price about $27.5

As the AI privacy infrastructure project of the Base ecosystem, Venice AI is one of the few crypto projects in the market that is steadily advancing its establishment, and the main uses of its VVV token include network staking, governance, and payment for privacy computation resources. This project focuses on data privacy and model invocation scenarios in the AI era, precisely hitting the currently hottest AI + Crypto sector.

As the first altcoin purchased by David Hoffman after liquidating ETH, VVV's AI narrative and privacy computation concept stand out in the current market environment. The rising valuations of major AI firms like Anthropic and OpenAI have also somewhat propelled VVV's application scenarios and market expectations.

In Conclusion

With Bankless founder calling for altcoin season, BTC returning above $80,000, and the SEC's innovative exemptions being implemented, these three signals combined indicate that the atmosphere of altcoin season in the crypto market is indeed becoming denser. Data analysis platform glassnode has also recently stated that the leverage level of altcoins is still below the risk threshold. When the proportion of outstanding contracts in altcoins narrows to within a few percentage points of Bitcoin, the market is usually in a state of overheating; currently, this condition has not occurred.

In this light, the arrival of altcoins remains something to be anticipated. As a checklist, the above eight popular tokens cover various sectors including on-chain Perp DEXs, DEXs, privacy coins, lending, privacy + AI public chains, AI infrastructure, and meme coin launching pads, each with varying narratives and risk statuses, but all holding potential buying power in the long term.

Of course, even when altcoin season arrives as expected, the mythical stories of sudden wealth and severe losses play out continuously in the market; choosing the right assets is just the first step, while position management and risk control are far more important than merely selecting tokens.

免责声明：本文章仅代表作者个人观点，不代表本平台的立场和观点。本文章仅供信息分享，不构成对任何人的任何投资建议。用户与作者之间的任何争议，与本平台无关。如网页中刊载的文章或图片涉及侵权，请提供相关的权利证明和身份证明发送邮件到support@aicoin.com，本平台相关工作人员将会进行核查。