Stacks (STX)

Most altcoins are trash.

If I had to invest my money now, here are the 10 DeFi assets I'd invest in and hold into the next market cycle ↓

1. $HYPE

Hyperliquid crushed the derivatives category this cycle.

~70% of all on-chain perp volume and ~$900M in ann. revenue, and nearly all of it was used for HYPE buybacks.

Most importantly, it achieved it with no VCs.

#1 on this list for a reason.

2. $AAVE

Aave has been the #1 crypto lending market for years.

~$13B in TVL and ~$940M ann. fees can only come from proper borrower demand.

Institutions always choose it because it has the deepest liquidity in DeFi.

Cleanest RWA-lending bet at the moment.

3. $MORPHO

~$7B in TVL, with Coinbase's crypto-backed loans running entirely on it.

Isolated markets feature stops one bad asset from sinking the rest, so it's exactly what institutions need.

This is the credit layer that institutions build on, so the moat is clear.

4. $LDO

Lido is still the default liquid staking layer in DeFi.

stETH and wstETH sit across lending markets, vaults, and collateral loops, making them hard to displace.

If ETH stays productive in DeFi, Lido keeps capturing the demand around it.

5. $EIGEN

EigenLayer turned restaking into a real category.

The bet is simple: Ethereum security is becoming something that other networks and services can rent.

EigenCloud extends that into AVSs, data availability, AI verification, and compute.

6. $PENDLE

Pendle is the market for trading yield.

It splits yield assets into principal and future yield, with both trading separately.

As DeFi creates more yield assets, Pendle gets more markets to price, trade, and hedge.

7. $SKY

Sky is boring in the best way.

It runs one of crypto’s largest dollar systems, backed by Treasuries, DeFi lending, and BlackRock’s BUIDL.

If USDS keeps growing, Sky gets more assets to allocate and more revenue to route back to SKY.

Boring, but the model is working.

8. $LINK

Every tokenized asset needs trusted data before it can move safely onchain.

Prices, reserves, NAVs, corporate actions, cross-chain messages.

That’s why LINK is less a bet on one app and more a bet on the rails behind tokenized markets.

9. $UNI

Uniswap is still the default DEX.

The important change is that volume now has a clearer path back to UNI through fees and burns.

If onchain trading keeps growing, UNI is one of the simplest ways to own that flow.

10. $STX

Stacks is a bet on Bitcoin becoming productive capital.

sBTC gives BTC holders a DeFi asset, and Fireblocks gives institutions a custody-grade path into the ecosystem.

If you believe in Bitcoin DeFi, Stacks' STX is one of the most direct bets you can make.