The ONLY 6 Altcoins I’d Hold This Bull Market!

Jose’s largest liquid positions are Zcash, Hyperliquid, Ethena and Lighter, with smaller holdings in Derive and EtherFi. Another speaker’s biggest positions are Bitcoin, Zcash and Hyperliquid; the top five account for roughly 65–70% of that portfolio, while ETH is a tiny holding. Across the discussion, the preference is for liquid assets with cash flows or a credible way to return value to holders. Speakers were more cautious about venture crypto, with AI, biotech, deep tech and robotics seen as more compelling areas for venture investment.

Zcash stands out for its privacy use case, rising shielded activity and evidence of actual usage. Speakers compared its current feel to Bitcoin in earlier years and praised its team’s response to an exploit, while still flagging the possibility of an Orchard-pool exploit as a material risk. One valuation scenario put Zcash at 5–10% of Bitcoin’s market capitalization; 50% was raised only as a hypothetical that could support a “flippening” narrative, not as a base case. A Bitcoin holder considering a shift into Zcash remained wary of the security risk.

Hyperliquid and Lighter drew interest for different reasons. Jose described Lighter primarily as a bet on a high-caliber team, including math Olympiad participants and experienced crypto-market professionals, while acknowledging that its earnings multiple did not look especially cheap versus Hyperliquid and that his own entry price was favorable. Others pointed to Lighter’s business development, integrations and possible role as a liquidity backend for customer-facing platforms such as Robinhood. Its options expansion could add growth, but no on-chain options winner is established: market-making options is more difficult than perps because of many strikes and expiries and the need to manage gamma.

Options were framed as a potentially large DeFi growth category and a source of activity for Hyperliquid, including when options protocols hedge real-world-asset exposure through perps. One speaker said a put spread on SPX produced hedging equivalent to about 15% of Hyperliquid’s perp volume that day, but stressed that adoption is still minimal and that hedging, market-making and liquidity remain difficult. A separate estimate suggested crypto options could have roughly two orders of magnitude of growth ahead relative to traditional finance’s options-to-perps volume ratio. Tokenized stocks and other asset classes could also make Hyperliquid less dependent on crypto-market reflexivity and potentially make rallies more durable.

Ethena’s stablecoin was described as a productized carry trade that turns perpetual-futures funding rates into a yield-bearing dollar. The bullish case is that a yield-bearing dollar is structurally more attractive than one without yield, and that real-world-asset perpetuals could make earnings more durable. Ethena’s planned neobank could broaden its business through card payments, cross-border fees and customer balances. Supporters also cited its response to potential exploits and depeg concerns and its integrations across crypto, but said it still needs stronger distribution and a stronger culture or movement.

Other theses came with explicit execution and token-design caveats. Grass was described as an AI-focused network using residential IP bandwidth to gather data, with projected year-end revenue of $70 million, about $40 million in operating cash flow and fourfold year-over-year growth; the speaker said it now operates without token emissions. At 67 cents, its roughly $500 million adjusted fully diluted valuation was viewed as discounted, though another panelist cited doubts about revenue figures, inconsistent communication and the falling price. Arrow’s planned expansion beyond Base and emissions tied to revenue could improve its token flows, but holders who do not stake for a long time may lose ground to inflation. Its proposed market for selling the decaying component of staking positions is intended to address that concern.