Grayscale Research Head: Crypto Valuations Shouldn't Rest on Narrative Alone; HYPE, CAKE Among Top 10 on Yield Metrics

October 22: Zach Pandl, Head of Research at Grayscale, said Bitcoin — a digital commodity and a decentralized alternative to fiat currency — should be valued as "digital gold," while many other crypto assets can be valued on fundamentals through cash flows. He noted that onchain applications can generate fee revenue through activities such as trading and lending, and that after deducting supply-side costs, protocol earnings can be used to assess their economic value; token buybacks, burns and staking distributions also affect how value is passed through to holders, but new issuance and token unlocks may cause dilution.

Grayscale Research's list of the top 10 tokens by Tokenholder Yield includes HYPE, LIT, CAKE, AERO, UNI, RAY, PENDLE, AAVE, JUP and CRV; its top 10 by Adjusted Earnings Yield includes CAKE, LIT, HYPE, RAY, AAVE, JUP, SKY, UNI, AERO and PENDLE. The former measures tokenholder distributions after accounting for supply inflation, while the latter measures inflation-adjusted protocol earnings relative to market capitalization.