At present, the enthusiasm for chasing new projects in the crypto market has reached its lowest point since 2018, with the majority of projects focusing on incremental optimization. This article shares 7 major tools and evaluation dimensions to help you capture the next Aave-level potential project from on-chain data and mindshare.
Is the enthusiasm for chasing hot new projects still high?
I have shared on the X platform that the motivation for chasing new projects has dropped to its lowest point since I entered the crypto space in 2018. Even during bear markets, the mindset was better than it is now.
New Protocols Abound, 7 Tools to Help You Find Alpha Projects
I wonder if I'm the only one feeling this way? Perhaps I've become lazy... or maybe just tired? But it doesn't seem to be entirely that.
Nowadays, I am more cautious than before and no longer invest a large proportion of my portfolio in new protocols.
In the past bull market, capital was more liquid, and it was easier to make money. However, the altcoin season hasn't arrived yet, and capital is relatively tight.
The risk-reward ratio has also changed: although the number of hacker attacks and protocol vulnerability incidents has decreased compared to the past, the airdrop returns of the vast majority of projects have significantly shrunk.
Funds are diluted across a large number of protocols, resulting in a lack of explosive projects.
More intuitively, many new projects at present are only at the level of incremental optimization, lacking breakthrough innovations from 0 to 1. This view is also recognized by Mike Dudas.
New Protocols Abound, 7 Tools to Help You Find Alpha Projects
This phenomenon is not only common in DeFi protocols but also prevalent in the fields of L1 blockchains and L2 scaling solutions.
Consider this: why should we pay attention to Kraken's Ink protocol? Or Soneium L2? If there is a lack of truly innovative designs that create incremental value... all that remains is a digital game of airdrop incentives and liquidity mining.
New Protocols Abound, 7 Tools to Help You Find Alpha Projects
In the current era of information overload, it is becoming increasingly difficult to filter out projects worth investing time in. If this mindset is widespread in the market, it certainly poses greater challenges for new projects, but it also creates more opportunities for crypto natives (degens) with a keen sense of smell.
However, we still need to continuously discover those potential projects that could become the next Aave, Ethena, or Pendle.
The key question is: how to determine which protocols are worth investing effort in? And where should we look for them? To this end, I will share a series of tools, methods, and information channels in this article to help you locate protocols that have already gained some initial momentum. The evaluation dimensions include:
Mindshare (referring to the degree of attention and influence that a certain protocol or project has in the perception of industry participants, such as investors, users, and developers).
On-chain adoption.
Coverage of smart account use cases.
In addition, I will list a few typical projects that I personally follow as reference cases, presented in the style of this quotation.
Risk Warning: The content of this article is for information sharing and knowledge popularization purposes only and does not constitute any investment advice. Please be sure to conduct your own due diligence and make decisions carefully based on your personal financial situation.
1. Kaito
Kaito's flagship portal subscription fee is $1,099 per month (a two-year package can be reduced to $750 per month).
It is worth noting that Kaito offers a free data dashboard, which lists the top non-token projects according to "Mindshare." Although screenshots of the top 20 projects frequently flood the screen, how many of the projects in the top 21-50 can you recognize?
You can visit yaps.kaito.ai to learn about the potential projects that interest you.
Take Multipli as an example, which provides yield solutions for native assets (such as BTC), stablecoins, and real-world assets (RWAs). The project has been backed by top-tier venture capital firms like Pantera, Sequoia Capital, and Spartan Group, and is expected to launch its token issuance in a "low circulating supply + relatively high fully diluted valuation (FDV)" model. The current total value locked (TVL) of $70.3 million is in an ideal range: it avoids the potential risks of projects with low TVL and does not face severe dilution pressure due to its large scale (although it is currently in the second phase of the incentive cycle).
Although Kaito's tool is powerful, there is industry skepticism that it may distort the market, with KOLs often endorsing projects. If you have doubts about this, you can try the second tool that uses a different algorithm to expand the screening dimensions of your Alpha strategy.
2. Dexu AI
"Obtain multi-dimensional information such as mindshare, market sentiment, narrative spread, original tweet data, and crypto social (CT) smart account metrics."
Here is a guide on how to use Dexu to filter out non-token projects:
Method One:
Log in to Dexu AI → Enter "Sector analysis" → Select "Social"
Switch between different analysis dimensions: Mindshare Index, Sentiment Heat, Distribution of High-Value Followers on the X platform, etc.
Customize the time period and adjust the data granularity through the slider.
Method Two:
Click on "Projects" → Enter the "Top Project" page
Scroll down to "Projects Leaderboard - top 5000"
Lower the "Seniority" (existence cycle) filter value to discover emerging projects and increase the "Network" (network participation) proportion to filter out low-activity projects.
If you need a video tutorial, you can check out the in-depth guide that Dexu has released on the X platform.
Project Case: Time.Fun
Two core application scenarios:
Paid direct connection to crypto industry leaders: By paying to send private messages to founders and KOLs in the crypto field, the probability of a response for high-value communication is significantly increased.
Demand prediction speculation mechanism: Make predictions and speculative operations on "which figures' private message demands will surge."
It is worth noting that the Solana team and its core members are frequently using and actively promoting this platform, coupled with the strategic investment background of institutions such as Coinbase Ventures and Alliance DAO, its potential airdrop value is worth looking forward to.
3. 0xPPL
0xPPL is my privately kept top-tier crypto tool, but very few people truly understand and use it.
This is a subversive social platform that, although it supports posting functions similar to X, its core highlight is to display the wallet dynamics of the people you follow on X.
While Kaito and Dexu are still focusing on follower counts and social mindshare, 0xPPL has long penetrated the surface of public opinion to directly present users' real on-chain operations.
To our delight, 0xPPL's wallet association system can now accurately match KOL accounts with on-chain addresses. You can not only see the records of token buying and selling but also capture their key actions of injecting funds into protocols.
Simply log in with your X account and link a wallet with transaction history to synchronize the on-chain tracks of your followees in real time. Each person's activity stream is unique due to their different follow lists.
If you follow a large number of airdrop hunters, you can directly see the protocols they are truly involved in, rather than just discussing the hype in the public opinion field.
We must give a thumbs-up to the team's daily iteration: from interface refinement to detail optimization, each update is genuinely improving the user experience.
Although the team has not yet officially announced a token plan, judging from the product maturity, it is only a matter of time.
4. Nansen
Nansen's multifunctionality is an industry benchmark. Previously, I shared an operation guide on how to use Nansen and other tools to discover "hundredfold potential targets."
In addition, there are two major functions worth focusing on:
First, the Nansen points incentive system. You can accumulate points in the following ways:
Subscribe to the Pioneer or Professional paid package
Participate in staking mining on the platform
Invite friends to register
In the current InfoFi narrative boom, Nansen, as a leading player in this track, is worth paying attention to.
Second, tracking the flow of funds in popular contracts. Operation suggestion: Make flexible use of the filtering function.
I usually exclude DEXs and liquidity pools (this function is especially useful if you are an active LP)
Set the minimum TVL to $5 million
Limit the contract creation time to within 30 days
Filtering result examples:
YielFi's vyUSD stablecoin offers a 16% annualized return (current TVL $32 million, suggested to evaluate carefully)
Plasma protocol's popularity is soaring but deposits have been suspended
Liquity's newly launched BOLD stablecoin is continuously expanding in scale (while the LQTY token is rising against the market trend during the downturn)
In addition, there is Steer Protocol:
A DeFi automated multi-position liquidity management tool that supports 27 + public chains and 32 DEXs (such as Quickswap, Camelot, Sushiswap)
Core advantages:
No need for manual management of concentrated liquidity
Improve LP performance
Built-in diverse market-making strategies
Financing background: Received a $1.5 million seed round investment from institutions such as Druid Ventures, Republic Capital, Big Brain Holdings.
5. DeBank
Although DeBank's flagship portfolio function has been integrated into the Rabby wallet, causing its mindshare on the X platform to decline somewhat, DeBank's address tracking function can still uncover a large number of excess return opportunities.
Operation steps:
Visit the DeBank official website
Click on "More" → Enter "Web3 Social Ranking"
Screen target accounts and check the airdrops they are currently participating in
It takes effort to find airdroppers and protocols that match your investment style, but it is definitely worth it. Compared to browsing the latest hot topics on the X platform, observing the capital movements of investors is obviously more valuable.
While writing this article, I discovered the LAGOON protocol through DeBank: a vault strategy provider with a total value locked of $70 million, offering a 9% annualized return on ETH deposits. (Note: Be sure to conduct your own due diligence!)
6. DeFiLlama
Since DeFiLlama is already a well-known tool in the industry, I will directly share the core tips here.
DeFiLlama's growth lead Patrick Scott once shared two practical strategies:
Strategy One: Precisely screen airdrop potential projects
Enter the DeFiLlama official website → Click on the "Airdrops" section
Check "Hide Forked protocols" (hide forked protocols)
Add TVL value screening conditions
Next, you need to check each protocol one by one and screen out the projects that meet your own standards.
Strategy Two: Capture the dividends of hot public chains
Lock in the current hot public chain (such as HyperEVM)
Sort all protocols on this chain by TVL
7. Coincarp - Tracking Financing Dynamics
Despite the unprecedentedly high market aversion to venture capital (VC) in this round, well-funded protocols are still high-quality targets for airdrop mining.
I have always emphasized that tokens with "low circulating supply + high FDV (fully diluted valuation)" are the most suitable for airdrop hunters. These projects have the financial strength to provide initial liquidity for token issuance (TGE).
Among many financing tracking tools, Coincarp is my top choice: completely free and extremely easy to operate.
My screening strategy:
Select the "DeFi" section
Lock the financing stage to "Seed" (seed round), focusing on the earliest-stage projects
Interestingly, the number of seed rounds in the DeFi field has recently plummeted: only 4 projects in May, and only 5 in April. Fortunately, the decrease in the number of projects makes it easier to study each one individually.
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