Buying new instead of old is the biggest scam in the next bull market for playing with copycat coins. Some long-established “old school” meme/copycat coins have gone through multiple bull-bear cycles; in fact, they tend to attract more capital and are more likely to break into a sustained trend.
It’s not because they have any fresh narratives. Many of these projects have already been tested through a full market cycle; their products, ecosystem, users, and business models have been steadily maturing. The market logic that once priced them may be completely different from today.
So what’s truly worth watching in this cycle isn’t just whether there’s a new story. It’s whether what they’ve accumulated over the past few years can start to realize value into token worth.
Sharing some personally favored long-established copycat coins
AAVE: A long-standing DeFi lending protocol. The project is about to begin automated token buybacks.
NEAR: An AI public chain + AI Agents + cross-chain infrastructure. Betting on the Agent economy. If Agents truly enter large-scale applications, NEAR’s chain abstraction and cross-chain capabilities could become important foundational infrastructure.
LINK: Oracle leader, connecting on-chain data with the real world. With the growth of RWA and on-chain finance, the importance of trusted data infrastructure will keep rising.
SUI: A next-generation high-performance public chain. The key is whether its ecosystem, capital, and applications can form a positive feedback loop.
ONDO: A core player in RWA, pushing traditional assets like government bonds and US stocks onto the chain. What’s truly worth paying attention to is whether, after tokenization of assets, it can create new financial applications.
ENA: Synthetic dollar representation, centered on USDe. Betting on the long-term growth of on-chain dollars and the stablecoin market.
UNI: A DEX leader. V4 + Hooks + RWA continuously expand the boundaries of the business. The core thing to watch is whether protocol revenue and value capture can truly flow through to UNI.
ZEC: A long-standing project in the privacy track. Zero-knowledge proofs + privacy payments, betting on ever-growing on-chain privacy demand.
ARB: One of Ethereum L2 leaders. Rollup + Orbit, betting on Ethereum scaling and the on-chain application ecosystem.
INJ: A financial public chain. Laying out RWA, derivatives, and AI finance, betting on on-chain financial infrastructure.
RAY: A core Solana DEX. AMM + LaunchLab, deeply benefiting from Solana’s trading and Meme ecosystem.
LDO: A leading liquid staking token on ETH. stETH ecosystem + Lido Earn, betting on the long-term growth of Ethereum staking and DeFi.
CRV: A long-standing stablecoin protocol. It provides liquidity for stablecoins; part of the revenue is used to buy back CRV and burn it.
It’s not because they have any fresh narratives. Many of these projects have already been tested through a full market cycle; their products, ecosystem, users, and business models have been steadily maturing. The market logic that once priced them may be completely different from today.
So what’s truly worth watching in this cycle isn’t just whether there’s a new story. It’s whether what they’ve accumulated over the past few years can start to realize value into token worth.
Sharing some personally favored long-established copycat coins
AAVE: A long-standing DeFi lending protocol. The project is about to begin automated token buybacks.
NEAR: An AI public chain + AI Agents + cross-chain infrastructure. Betting on the Agent economy. If Agents truly enter large-scale applications, NEAR’s chain abstraction and cross-chain capabilities could become important foundational infrastructure.
LINK: Oracle leader, connecting on-chain data with the real world. With the growth of RWA and on-chain finance, the importance of trusted data infrastructure will keep rising.
SUI: A next-generation high-performance public chain. The key is whether its ecosystem, capital, and applications can form a positive feedback loop.
ONDO: A core player in RWA, pushing traditional assets like government bonds and US stocks onto the chain. What’s truly worth paying attention to is whether, after tokenization of assets, it can create new financial applications.
ENA: Synthetic dollar representation, centered on USDe. Betting on the long-term growth of on-chain dollars and the stablecoin market.
UNI: A DEX leader. V4 + Hooks + RWA continuously expand the boundaries of the business. The core thing to watch is whether protocol revenue and value capture can truly flow through to UNI.
ZEC: A long-standing project in the privacy track. Zero-knowledge proofs + privacy payments, betting on ever-growing on-chain privacy demand.
ARB: One of Ethereum L2 leaders. Rollup + Orbit, betting on Ethereum scaling and the on-chain application ecosystem.
INJ: A financial public chain. Laying out RWA, derivatives, and AI finance, betting on on-chain financial infrastructure.
RAY: A core Solana DEX. AMM + LaunchLab, deeply benefiting from Solana’s trading and Meme ecosystem.
LDO: A leading liquid staking token on ETH. stETH ecosystem + Lido Earn, betting on the long-term growth of Ethereum staking and DeFi.
CRV: A long-standing stablecoin protocol. It provides liquidity for stablecoins; part of the revenue is used to buy back CRV and burn it.
