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Crypto investors shift from market-cap rankings to token fundamentals
CoinDesk reports tokens are increasingly evaluated by revenue, usage, and value capture, while HYPE’s about 20% rise over the past year is cited as an example of activity-driven reassessment.
Investors in digital assets are increasingly looking beyond market-cap rankings and focusing instead on fundamentals like token economics, adoption, and value capture, according to crypto executives speaking with CoinDesk.
Wealth managers entering the space, the outlet said, are paying less attention to where projects sit on CoinMarketCap and more to how specific platforms generate economic value. Bitwise CEO Hunter Horsley described the change as the end of what he called the CoinMarketCap leaderboard era, adding that investors once commonly valued smaller layer-1 networks as fractions of larger chains.
CoinDesk also highlighted Hyperliquid as an early example, with investors assessing its HYPE token based on the platform’s activity and economics rather than treating it as a smaller version of another blockchain. Horsley said Hyperliquid has seen its token rise around 20% over the past year.
Other market participants told CoinDesk that fundamentals tend to matter most over longer horizons, while trading flows and perpetual futures still influence day-to-day pricing. Wintermute’s Jasper De Maere said fundamentals help establish the floor and shortlist, while flows set the price, and that revenue and usage can shape which tokens survive drawdowns or make allocator shortlists.