According to the Q4 2024 Insight Report released by asset management company Grayscale yesterday, the company evaluated Ethereum's performance from the beginning of the year to the present and updated its research department's top 20 watchlist.

Ethereum performs well

Grayscale stated in the report that although Ethereum's performance this year lags behind Bitcoin with a 13% increase, it still outperforms most cryptocurrency assets.

Our 'Crypto Sector Market Index' (CSMI), which measures the returns of the entire asset class, has fallen by about 1% this year. In fact, if Ethereum is not included, the 'Smart Contract Platform Sector Index' has fallen by about 11%, which means that Ethereum is also performing better than other assets in its market sector

Despite this, Ethereum still faces increasing competition, with multiple new public chains of smart contracts including Solana, Toncoin, Tron, Near, etc. making progress, and new assets like Sui joining the "cryptocurrency sector". These networks are all competing for transaction fee revenue, and the excellent user experience provided by some of them may lead to a decrease in the fee market share of Ethereum Layer 1. However, Grayscale emphasizes that Ethereum still has its advantages compared to its competitors:

It remains the leader in the field, with the most applications, the most developers, the highest 30 day fee income, and the most value locked in smart contracts

Grayscale TOP20 List

On the other hand, Grayscale has also updated its top 20 list of concerns for its research department in the report.

This season, Render, Mantle, ThorChain, Pendle, Illuvium, and Raydium have been removed. However, Grayscale emphasizes that the removed projects do not necessarily indicate a lack of confidence in their future value. They remain an important component of the cryptocurrency ecosystem, but the company believes that the revised top 20 list may provide better risk adjusted returns for the next season.

The newly added currencies include SUI, TAO, OP, HNT, CELO, and UMA. The company explained that Sui and Optimism can both be seen as exemplars of high-performance infrastructure, Celo and UMA benefit from the unique application trends of stablecoins and prediction markets, Helium is a leader in the DePIN (decentralized physical infrastructure network) field, and Bittensor is a prominent player in the combination of cryptocurrency and AI.