20+ PRE TGE PROTOCOLS TO LOOK OUT FOR: 26/27
Bitcoin seems to have bottomed, signaling the start of a new cycle. VCs are back investing, capital is starting to flow back into crypto, and new projects are raising again.
It’s that time of the year to be** delusionally optimistic about novel ideas.**
In this read, I’ll uncover some of the most interesting ones I’m watching:
This is the infrastructure behind spot tokenized stocks onchain; assets that can be held, transferred and integrated across DeFi, including lending markets and DEX liquidity pools.
Before tokenized stocks, accessing U.S. equities typically meant going through a broker, completing KYC and dealing with jurisdictional restrictions.
With tokenized stocks, the vision is different: stocks become onchain assets that can move across DeFi.
They raised $12.7M from investors including Founders Fund, Kraken, and Cyber Fund, and currently run an ongoing points program.
▪️You can buy stocks onchain here: 🔗https://lunarfinance.io
Create an xstocks account: 🔗https://defi.xstocks.fi/points?ref=HEADBOY ▪️Proceed to explore other options, bridge, wrap, lend or LP your xstocks.
Additionally, you can get more exposure by buying YT-STRCx on Pendle. This allows you to earn more points while also generating yield, but comes with the risk of losing your liquidity at maturity.
Last cycle was dominated by teams launching tokens at insane valuations and airdropping a significant percentage of the supply to their community.
While it was the most sought-after model for launching a token, it came with some significant flaws.
This cycle, most crypto startups would opt for community sales over airdrops. It’s easily one of the best ways to fight Sybils while also selecting the most aligned members of the community.
For that reason, I am spotlighting Legion, a merit-based crypto fundraising launchpad.
An Overview Of Thier Last Five Sales: ▪️ Squid Router: 100% Unlock at TGE - 3.10x return on investment at ATH ▪️ Solstice Finance: 100% Unlock at TGE - 5.08x return on investment at ATH ▪️ Sports Fun: 50% at TGE & 50% linearly vested for 6months - 2.02x at ATH ▪️Makina Finance: Sale concluded, TGE Delayed. ▪️Yield Basis: 100% Unlock at TGE - 4.12x return on investment at ATH
Based on recent performance, Legion has been one of the most profitable launchpads and is definitely one of the most interesting platforms to look at if you're looking to invest in solid crypto startups with the potential for sizeable returns.
Get Started Here: https://legion.cc?homie=04A42448
→ Build your investor profile. Your social reputation, on-chain reputation, and developer experience all play a key role in being selected for sales.
Your score updates daily, so the more you contribute and build your reputation, the better your chances of getting selected for future sales.
Meet Robinhood Chain, a Layer 2 scaling solution built by Robinhood, a publicly traded company valued at over $100B.
Just 3 months after launching its public mainnet, Robinhood Chain has climbed to the 9th-largest chain with over $1B in TVL, ahead of Monad, while averaging $777M in daily DEX volume.
Interestingly, MegaETH raised $107.68M, yet its TVL is sitting at just $18M after roughly 8 months, compared to Robinhood Chain’s $1B+ TVL after just 3 months.
All things being equal, and considering everything that has happened over the past three months, Robinhood Chain has the potential to become one of the top chains this cycle.
Here’s an in-depth overview of the Top 15 Utility Plays on Robinhood Chain by @blocmates. Easily one of the chains with the most interesting and unique builders this cycle.
Having thousands of people make money from your chain simply by using it is one of the clearest signs of a healthy ecosystem.
For me, the biggest asymmetric bets every cycle have been on newer ecosystems, and Robinhood Chain could certainly live up to those expectations.
Definitely a top chain to have on your rather and one to even have on-chain footprints on.
→ @Giwa_io
GIWA Chain is an Ethereum Layer 2 built on the OP Stack by Dunamu, the parent company of Upbit, South Korea’s largest crypto exchange.
Dunamu is a South Korean fintech company that has raised $1.22B at a $10B valuation.
GIWA is still on testnet, and I think this is the best time to start taking positions across the ecosystem, especially considering the success and reach of Upbit.
We’ve seen Binance push BNB Chain and Bybit push Mantle. I think Upbit has the capacity to build something even bigger.
This is a perpetual DEX launched by the same team that built the famous dYdX.
Perpetual DEXs have proven to be a profitable business, and the team behind Arcus has a pretty solid reputation. The choice of ecosystem, Robinhood, is also one that I believe holds a lot of potential.
The team has confirmed a native token for the exchange, and they just started their points system for active traders.
While many may see this as just another perp DEX, I see it as exposure to an undervalued ecosystem with a lot of potential.
→ Get Started Here: ▪️Start trading and accumulating points. This should be rewarding.
Tori Finance is a DeFi protocol that lets you earn yield on stablecoins by converting them into a synthetic dollar, trUSD, backed by market-neutral trading strategies.
Basically, it’s a stablecoin yield farming protocol. You deposit liquidity and start earning yield while also accumulating points that could potentially be redeemed for a future token airdrop.
Current APY on deposits is 10.99%, with over $1.11M in rewards distributed cumulatively.
They also had an undisclosed funding round led by Delphi Ventures.
I’ve deposited $5,000 to test it out and see what I can make from it over the coming months.
Get started here: https://app.tori.finance/earn?referral=VDJUF
Sunrise arranges for an asset from another chain to appear on Solana as one official token, with trading already set up.
In simple terms, it makes **cross-chain assets easier to access and trade on Solana.
This is actually a unique idea and for now you can only trade assets on spots, there are no confirmed talks if there would be a native token but it is important to note that Sunrise was built by Wormhole Labs**, the company behind the Wormhole ecosystem.
Wormhole already has W, its own native token and some traders has since been speculating on an increase in price due to the added usecase from sunrise but **Wormhole has not said that fees are directly used to buy back W on the open market.
Overall, it is an interesting product.**
→ @onrefinance
This is an onchain reinsurance platform built on Solana.
They are basically bringing the reinsurance market onchain and allowing crypto users to earn yield from real-world insurance activity. At the moment its currently the largest RWA on @solana.
How it works: Crypto Liquidity → OnRe → Reinsurance contracts → Insurance premiums → Yield to capital providers.
Its main product is ONyc, a yield-bearing dollar asset.
When you mint ONyc, your capital is used to back short-term reinsurance contracts. You earn yield from the premiums generated by these contracts and the returns on the collateral.
→ Here is how to get involved: https://app.onre.finance/earn/defi Simply buy and hold ONyc to accumulate points that would be redeemable for rewards in the later future (11% APY)
For more exposure: Yield trading YT-ONyc on @ExponentFinance to earn additional yield while maximizing exposure to ONyc.
Additionally, if you hold ONyc, you can loop your position through @kamino and @Loopscale for up to 6x points.
→ @Loopscale
Loopscale is a Solana-based lending and borrowing protocol focused on fixed-rate, fixed-term credit markets. Instead of using the typical lending-pool model, Loopscale uses an on-chain order book to match lenders and borrowers directly.
They are backed by major investors including Coinbase Ventures, Solana Ventures, CoinFund, and Jump, and currently have an ongoing points campaign.
Get started here: https://loop.sl/i/NFw3x
Now here is a one stone kill two bird strategy;
For your ONyc farming strategy, the important part is that Loopscale lets you:
▪️Use ONyc as collateral ▪️Borrow against your ONyc ▪️Use the borrowed funds to buy more ONyc ▪️Repeat the process to increase your ONyc exposure and points
This is essentially looping ONyc. OnRe specifically integrated ONyc with Loopscale so holders can borrow against their ONyc and recursively increase their exposure.
Importantly, you can lend USDC and other featured assets to receive up to 10% APY.
→ @fomo
Fomo is a social crypto trading app that allows users to discover what other traders are buying, share their trades, track wallets, and interact with a community of crypto traders.
They secured a total of $94M in several funding round, overtaking Pump.fun as the biggest crypto consumer app while also hitting 3,000,000 lifetime users.
Pump.fun did a presale at an insanely high FDV and still managed to produce a 100% return on investment. In the advent of Fomo’s token launch, I think they could do even better, regardless of the token launch model they opt for.
Aside that, there's a lot of upsides and potentials to tradding on fomo especially if you actively trade memecoins.
Here are some tools to outperform other traders:
Simple overview on navigating fomo:
→ @world_xyz
Prediction Markets are one of the top narratives shaping crypto and pushing it further into the mainstream
World is a fully on-chain prediction market built on Solana, allowing users to speculate on real-world events directly on-chain.
I for one love the fact that it is built on a proven ecosystem, is fully on-chain, and is still pretty early.
Get access here: https://world.xyz/?ref=Q7PZ785S
With talks of Polymarket exploring a token, if they eventually launch one, I could see its success having a ripple effect across other major prediction markets. World is one of my top picks to watch.
Nothing too complicated. If you know a lot about certain events, put your money where your conviction is.
→ @arc.
Arc has been one of the most anticipated L1s and it literally peaked the same day after a team member posted a dog memecoin but that doesn't tell the full story of the chain
They secured a total funding of $222M at 3B valuation and have managed to achieve over 500M in total locked value while averaging $27M in 24hours Dex volume.
On mainnet day, Arc announced that 10B ARC tokens had been minted, with trading expected to commence later in 2027.
🔗https://explorer.arc.io/address/0xA12Cd81d0f9988E3d60c4B6a0D52D368Ef3c788d
Prior to this, they released their tokenomics and whitepaper, allocating 60% of the total supply to the Ecosystem, 25% to Circle, and 15% to Long-Term Reserves.
The Ecosystem allocation is further divided across token sales, developer grants, network growth programs, and broader participation mechanisms.
Contrary to popular opinion, I don't think Arc is dead. I believe there could be a comeback, and the best thing to do is engage with the ecosystem, build your social reputation and on-chain footprint, in case these become merit factors for the token sale.
→ @Titan_Exchange
Titan Exchange is a Solana-based meta-DEX aggregator and trading infrastructure provider. Instead of being a single DEX with its own liquidity pools, Titan searches across multiple liquidity sources and uses its Argos routing engine to find better execution for trades.
Titan has secured $10.35M in total funding and has processed over $33B in cumulative routed volume, according to DefiLlama. They also currently have an ongoing points campaign.
This is one DEX to keep in mind whenever you’re trading on Solana. 🔗 https://titan.exchange/@NDIDI_GRAM
→ ZERO Chain
LayerZero, crypto’s largest interoperability protocol, has announced plans to launch a new blockchain called ZERO.
The timeline for mainnet launch is set for 2026, and the team has also confirmed that there will be no new token.
ZRO will serve as the gas token for Zero Chain, the staking asset for delegated proof-of-stake, and the governance token.
There’s also a planned buyback and burn program for ZRO using fees generated by the chain.
There are two ways to play this:
▪️ Be early to the ecosystem and make the most out of it.
▪️ ZRO. There’s a lot of money to be made trading the news around Zero Chain.
Official Docs: https://layerzero.network/zero
→ @KairosTradeX:
Kairos is a trading terminal for prediction markets. You can place trades across Polymarket, Kalshi, and PredictFun.
Ideally, this is a “kill four birds with one stone” interaction.
They raised $2.5M in a founding round, with a16z as the lead investor, and are arguably the first to build an aggregator for prediction markets.
Still early, and here are some invites to get started:
▪️https://app.kairos.trade/invite/RZLKW9TX
▪️https://app.kairos.trade/invite/RZTGPMQQ
▪️https://app.kairos.trade/invite/UMWT4JTT
▪️https://app.kairos.trade/invite/GDA66GRF
Bullish on this because they didn’t opt to build copy-pasta tech, but rather a useful tool around a hot narrative.
→ @bulktrade:
According to @DefiLlama, there's only one native Solana perpetual DEX in the top 10 perpetual DEXs by trading volume, and it ranks 10th.
That's disappointing for the second-largest chain in the industry. A large part of this can be attributed to the $250M+ Drift Exchange hack, but I don't think it'll stay this way for long.
There's a huge gap to fill, and Bulk looks like an interesting project aiming to do exactly that.
They already have $30M in mainnet pre-deposits and have allocated 30% of their total token supply to the community.
→ Try it out on the testnet:
🔗https://early.bulk.trade/trade/BTC-USD
→ Join the mainnet & start trading to earn Aura:
🔗https://early.bulk.trade/deposit?ref=HEADBOY
Additionally, you can get more exposure through @ExponentFinance:
PT-BulkSOL: Earn fixed yield until maturity.
YT-BulkSOL: Earn variable yield + Aura Points. YT’s value generally decays as maturity approaches and reaches zero at maturity.
BNB Agentic L1
BNB Chain is building a separate Layer 1 for agentic trading and autonomous AI agents
There’s been no talks of if a new token would be needed on the new agentic L1.
The public testnet is scheduled for late 2026 and mainnet is target for early 2027.
The mindshare for agentic economy is on the high side and there’s a whole lot that can happen around that narrative.
This is definitely one to keep that on, for whatever that may come.
DAWN and Grass compete for some of the same users and bandwidth, but they’re ultimately targeting different markets.
Grass is building a decentralized data layer, while DAWN is focused on decentralized internet infrastructure. Both are among the few teams building actual AI x crypto infrastructure that solves a real problem.
I’ve previously talked about DAWN, but there’s been a recent development worth paying attention to.
DAWN has launched its Bytes points program alongside USD.infra and sUSD.infra, giving users another way to farm points while earning yield.
You can farm it here: https://app.exponent.finance/
For context, Dawn has raised a total of $48.5M in funding, and just this week, Multicoin Capital announced an investment in Grass. ( there‘s an insane demands for depins that actually works)
Polymarket & Variational are obvious misses from this article, although I’d argue it’s either too late to cover them or most people already have an account with them.
If you enjoyed this, I’d recommend looking into these narratives next:
Tokenization, Perp DEXs, Launchpads, Yield Farming, DePINs, Agentic Finance, L1/L2s, and Prediction Markets.
