our research is trusted by
Latest Alpha Insights
Artificial Intelligence
Macro & Markets
DeFi
Macro & Markets
Macro & Markets
Artificial Intelligence
DeFi
Infrastructure
DeFi
DeFi
DeFi
DeFi
Featured Report
The Evolution of Digital Asset Secondary Markets - 2025
By
Anil LullaThis report explores the transformative shifts in crypto secondary markets, driven by regulatory advancements like legislative progress, spot ETF approvals and the resurgence of crypto IPOs. This drivers are unlocking institutional capital and blending crypto with traditional finance. Key trends include the dominance of SAFT deals alongside a rise in equity rounds, with deal volumes surging 73% year-over-year in H1 2025 amid seasonal growth patterns. Pricing dynamics reveal a prevalence of down-rounds and discounts influenced by macro factors, token supply overhangs, and the emergence of new buyers. The report highlights emerging buyer cohorts, sector winners such as L1 protocols, the catalytic impact of Circle's listing on assets like Kraken, and the accelerating tokenization of real-world assets (RWAs). Looking ahead, the report predicts surges in pre-IPO equity rounds, discount compression, and broader institutional adoption, signaling a maturing market ripe for innovation and investment.
Latest Research
view allIn this update, we revisit Shuffle ($SHFL), one of crypto’s most cash-generative businesses. Since our original report in July, the project has delivered ~45% revenue growth, consistent lottery engagement, and an 80% token price increase, underscoring the strength of its model.
Key insights include SHFL’s unique positioning in the “revenue meta,” how tokenholders currently capture just 15% of cash flows versus near-100% for peers like Pumpfun and Hyperliquid, and why that leaves significant embedded option value. We also highlight catalysts ranging from an onchain lottery rollout and permissionless staking, to potential chain partnerships and the upcoming U.S. launch.
Despite already generating ~$17m in monthly revenue, more than Ethereum over the same stretch, SHFL trades at just a ~$330m FDV. With a robust balance sheet and credible paths to increase tokenholder distributions, we see a strong case for Shuffle to rerate higher and potentially break into the top 100.
Paradex represents a high-conviction bet on a fundamentally different approach to building an exchange. It’s not the easiest path and is far from consensus. Ultimately, my thesis is that we see a zero-to-one improvement in on-chain exchange design. If we analogize to the evolution of exchanges: first-gen DeFi (Uniswap, etc.) was an innovation (AMMs vs order books), second-gen (dYdX, GMX, etc.) tried to bring more pro features but still lacked certain elements, and now Paradex is the third-gen that combines the best of CeFi and DeFi
This chartbook examines many of the key macro & market themes that has taken place so far throughout the year. We examine the short term outlook for risk, marry it to our longer term secular market views, before highlighting important trends and crypto protocols that we believe are positioned for success.
Mantle Network has grown from its beginnings as BitDAO into Mantle 2.0, an Ethereum Layer 2 now closely aligned with Bybit. Built with a modular design, Mantle positions itself as the liquidity chain, targeting real-world asset tokenization, cross-chain growth, and institutional adoption.
Bybit’s role is central. With Helen Liu and Emily Bao advising the project, and MNT now integrated across Bybit for trading, collateral, VIP tiers, and payments, Mantle is entering a new phase of CeFi and DeFi convergence. This approach mirrors Binance with BNB Chain and sets Mantle up to compete as a hub for institutional on-chain finance.
Mantle 2.0 blends decentralized governance with centralized liquidity and compliance. This combination makes it one of the most important ecosystems to follow as the next wave of on-chain finance takes shape.
PrismaX is creating the connective tissue to link robots and humans by aggregating the edge-case training data that robotics companies need but can’t scale in-house. Today, this market is expensive, fragmented, and slow, but – by pooling together operators, automating quality control, and letting anyone invest in robot fleets – PrismaX turns it into a programmable, on-demand data engine.
As the U.S. move into the back half of 2025, the Treasury is preparing to refill its General Account (TGA). The TGA refill process is likely to begin within the next couple of weeks and has historically lasted for 2-4 months, resulting in an estimated pull of hundreds of billions of dollars out of the financial system. The last large scale TGA refill occurred in mid 2023, but was offset by over $2Tn in the Fed’s RRP facility, healthy bank reserves and strong foreign demand. Since then, each of these offsetting buffers have been eroded, leaving the current liquidity environment ripe for disruption.
This report examines how the 2025 TGA refill intersects with a structurally tighter funding environment, what it could mean for digital asset markets and why stablecoins are becoming a meaningful part of that equation.
This report has everything you need to know about Zora, the most polarizing project of the cycle. Zora is the latest attempt at Web3 Social, delivering a polished consumer app and strong support from Base. This post will explain Zora, its vision, and its flywheel. We’ll discuss the broken creator economy and compare Zora to previous SocialFi experiments like Friend.tech.
The concept of a "prop AMM" may seem like a contradiction. AMMs by design are open, deterministic systems. Their role is to offer clear pricing curves, transparent pool balances, and trustless access to liquidity. Prop AMMs operate completely opposite. They quote prices privately, don’t operate frontends, rely on vault-based liquidity, and only execute through aggregators. We can basically refer to them as onchain market makers.
The irony of all of this is that even on a permissionless chain, liquidity provision is trending toward centralization, not in terms of access, but in terms of operational control and execution quality. I don’t necessarily think this violates decentralization per say, but rather reshapes what “participation” looks like. And that’s ultimately the direction the market has decided on.
In the next ~6-12 months I could very well see this trend continue, with the long-tail of prop AMMs all competing to capture that same asymmetric upside currently held by the select handful today.
Geopolitical flareups, looming rate cuts and a growing institutional crypto wave are reshaping the macro landscape. From Circle’s explosive IPO to accelerating BTC ETF flows and the Fed’s shifting tone, the crosscurrents are intensifying. Our latest report breaks down the key thematics driving crypto’s macro narrative this summer and why institutions aren’t waiting for retail to catch up. Read on for the full breakdown.
KYC is finally meeting its match. Traditional checks cost North-American institutions $64 B a year and still expose users to sprawling data leaks. Our newest Delphi Pro deep-dive shows how Zero-Knowledge TLS (ZK-TLS) replaces slow document uploads with instant, math-backed proofs. Giving platforms compliance and users privacy.
Inside, we unpack the three ZK-TLS architectures (TEE, MPC, and Proxy) and spotlight live pilots from Reclaim, ZKPass, and Onflow that already let you prove balance, age, or full KYC once and reuse it everywhere. The result: quicker onboarding, lower fraud risk, and composable identity rails that can unlock new DeFi flows.
Read the full report to see which model scales, how regulators are reacting, and what this means for your next trade
Unsecured lending is arguably the biggest missing puzzle piece in DeFi's vision to upend and rewire the financial rails of the world. In our latest research piece, “Engineering Real Credit On-Chain: The 3Jane Bet,” digs into how 3Jane blends major infrastrucutre, cryptographic and mechanism design ideas: zk-proofs (zkTLS and zk-coprocessors), dynamic credit pricing, and a modified Morpho-style money market to tackle what the first wave of under-collateralized protocols simply couldn’t - balancing trust, incentives, and enforcement in one design.
Inside the report we discuss:
- How the previous Crypto credit cycle led by CeFi and its blowups undermined the previous generation of protocols
- Build a simple framework for evaluating under collateralized lending systems
- Deep dive into the design of 3Jane blending the right onchain and off-chain elements
- Metrics to monitor and judge whether 3Jane will be able to deliver on its promise
Daily Brief
A daily summary of all Delphi content, spanning reports, AF posts and Reads.
Coming soon!Sector Performance
View all sector performance data (30+ assets) on the Delphi Sector Performance Dashboard
Testimonials
Avi Felman
Head of Digital Assets Trading, Goldentree
Delphi Research is a subscription that genuinely stands out in the crypto space. For our team, it has become a great resource that we can confidently recommend to any investor seeking reliable, data-driven research resources to navigate the world of crypto.
Vitalik Buterin
Founder, Ethereum
Deep dive on Ethereum's sharding roadmap from @delphi_digital. It's very good!
Joe Lubin
Founder, ConsenSys
Delphi's team is passionate about the space and the quality of their analysis is top notch. Their diligent yet pragmatic approach to network valuation and token economic structuring has pushed our industry forward, solidifying Delphi's role as an important thought leader in the community.
edgar.eth
Member
So I just subscribed to a @Delphi_Digital membership. The most expensive subscription I've ever had. So I enter their portal, read a few things and the only regret I have is not subscribing to it earlier. It's just alpha all over the place.
Ria Bhutoria
General Partner, Castle Island Ventures
I can't think of a team that does a better job separating signal from the immense of amount of noise that crypto investors and analysts have to parse through in this space. They are essential in helping clients develop a comprehensive point of view on the landscape and its nuances.
Reginald De Le Grarbs
Member
Just want to say again how impressed I am not just by Delphi, but this community. You are all amazing, thoughtful, helpful, fun, and deep in this and I appreciate you all. Always makes me more bullish on what is being built. Cheers Delphi fam!
Hassan Bassiri
Portfolio Manager, Nima Capital
I have used Delphi Research almost exclusively since entering the space professionally in late 2018. They provide actionable quantitative and qualitative research on a daily basis giving their subscribers alpha level content in a succinct and timely manner.
Vlad (mightybo.eth)
Founder and CEO of Blockchain Cutie
Just read @Delphi_Digital's 'The Great Reset' report about #Web3 games in 2023. One of the best pieces this year, so far. Must read.
Unlocked Pro Research
Macro & MarketsDelphi Digital's Chartbook - September 2025
By
Anil LullaThis chartbook examines many of the key macro & market themes that has taken place so far throughout the year. We examine the short term outlook for risk, marry it to our longer term secular market views, before highlighting important trends and crypto protocols that we believe are positioned for success.
Free Alpha Insights
View All Free Insights
Free Exclusive Insights
Cut through the noise and discover new ideas with Delphi Pro, the crypto research platform that pays for itself.
or
Be one of the first to receive actionable summaries, key takeaways and exclusive alpha insights. We will only send you the most important updates.
Explore All Unlocked Reports
view allAs the U.S. move into the back half of 2025, the Treasury is preparing to refill its General Account (TGA). The TGA refill process is likely to begin within the next couple of weeks and has historically lasted for 2-4 months, resulting in an estimated pull of hundreds of billions of dollars out of the financial system. The last large scale TGA refill occurred in mid 2023, but was offset by over $2Tn in the Fed’s RRP facility, healthy bank reserves and strong foreign demand. Since then, each of these offsetting buffers have been eroded, leaving the current liquidity environment ripe for disruption.
This report examines how the 2025 TGA refill intersects with a structurally tighter funding environment, what it could mean for digital asset markets and why stablecoins are becoming a meaningful part of that equation.
This report explores the transformative shifts in crypto secondary markets, driven by regulatory advancements like legislative progress, spot ETF approvals and the resurgence of crypto IPOs. This drivers are unlocking institutional capital and blending crypto with traditional finance. Key trends include the dominance of SAFT deals alongside a rise in equity rounds, with deal volumes surging 73% year-over-year in H1 2025 amid seasonal growth patterns. Pricing dynamics reveal a prevalence of down-rounds and discounts influenced by macro factors, token supply overhangs, and the emergence of new buyers. The report highlights emerging buyer cohorts, sector winners such as L1 protocols, the catalytic impact of Circle's listing on assets like Kraken, and the accelerating tokenization of real-world assets (RWAs). Looking ahead, the report predicts surges in pre-IPO equity rounds, discount compression, and broader institutional adoption, signaling a maturing market ripe for innovation and investment.
Humanity Protocol stands out in the identity landscape not by competing directly with World, but by redefining the market. Where World focuses on vertically integrated hardware + consumer identity, Humanity is composable infrastructure targeting enterprise use cases from day one. Their horizontal scaling strategy, with SDKs and real enterprise integrations, feels far more practically feasible than hardware-bound, consumer-first alternatives. Governance mechanics, incentive design, and economic sustainability are still unproven. But the core thesis is plausible, demand is visible, and the risk is asymmetric. For now, that’s enough to take Humanity seriously.
Key Highlights Include:
Trump’s Tariff Impact: The report details how Trump’s tariff policies disrupted global trade and financial markets, driving volatility in risk assets—including crypto—and sparking a subsequent recovery, offering lessons for managing market shocks.
Fiscal Sustainability & Bond Yields: It explores rising global fiscal concerns and spiking bond yields, with implications for safe-haven assets and portfolio allocation amid a shifting economic paradigm.
Institutional Crypto Adoption Trends: A surge in Bitcoin ETF inflows and emerging crypto treasury strategies signal crypto’s growing integration into mainstream finance.
Crypto Regulatory Progress: Advances in U.S. stablecoin legislation and state-level Bitcoin reserves reduce uncertainty, potentially paving the way for broader traditional finance participation.
Tokenization Potential: The report spotlights tokenization as a transformative force for financial instruments, hinting at future opportunities in 24/7 global markets.
Plasma isn’t just a response to technical limits. It’s the thesis that stablecoins have grown large enough to justify infrastructure designed for them alone – the same way AWS built dedicated services for specific compute needs. Last year, stablecoins facilitated over ~$5 trillion in adjusted transaction volume, over 1/3 the volume of traditional payment giants like Visa and Mastercard. For crypto-natives, stablecoins represent a fiat-pegged asset to denominate in. For the broader population in emerging markets, it represents a hedge against hyperinflation, a source of savings and payment rails for the unbanked. This points to a future where stablecoins won’t be defined strictly by APYs or protocol incentives, but by infrastructure that can scale to meet real-world usage. If Tether continues to lead that thesis, Plasma may prove to be one of the most direct, high-leverage exposures to the next wave of stablecoin adoption; especially in the parts of the world where crypto isn’t just a trade, but a necessity.
This conversation features Yan Liberman (Delphi Ventures), Oleg Ivanov, and Omar-Shakeeb (SecondLane), and addresses common misconceptions, deal logistics, valuation dynamics, best practices, and regulatory nuances as it pertains to these types of transactions. The goal of this collaboration is to educate the industry as part of a broader research series on secondary markets, exploring their function, mechanics, and impact on spot markets.
The agentic economy may prove to be the most lucrative investment theme of our generation. With the value of your labor going to zero, the train only leaves the station once. The industrial revolution provoked changes in societal organization - from farms to factories - which demanded institutional reform - from feudalism to markets - which, in turn, required new legal and governance arrangements to cope with, and capitalize on, these fundamental shifts. Looking at our current trajectory, AI's impact on the economy will be more meaningful: transforming society not in two centuries, but in as little as two decades.
Software is eating the world. AI is eating software. AI is largely the combination of data, compute and talent. The entity or network which most effectively organizes these resources is set to own the 21st century. Whether you or I have any role to play in this future may very well be decided by how efficiently the long-tail can coordinate. Distributed training, efficient routing, verifiability, privacy, and effective developer incentives may will decide the difference. DeAI will live or die based on this test. The test of composable compute.
Dive into the Infrastructure Layer of the Decentralized AI (DeAI) crypto stack in part 2 of our DeAI series. Learn about Compute projects like Render, Gensyn, io.net and more, plus whether the "Airbnb for GPUs" narrative has legs. Then focus on Data: Scaling Data, Synthetic Data, AI Search and how Agentic Protocols like DataDAOs and DePIN fit in. Finally, the enablers of these data ecosystems like marketplaces, Lakehouses Storage and Retrieval. Will DeAI helps us achieve Digital Liberalism?
Can decentralized AI (The Square) compete with the behemoth that is centralized AI (The Tower)? The following report is an exploration into the AI value-chain: a peek into the awesome resources being deployed by the hyperscalers and the emergent decentralized AI ecosystem, assisted by cryptography & distributed incentives, aiming to present a viable alternative.
Are we heading for a world of a few 10 trillion parameter models governed from four thrones in the Pacific Northwest? Or are we destined for a tapestry of models in the millions underpinned by open source communities and collective ownership? An internet of agents? A Hivemind.
Free Exclusive Insights
Cut through the noise and discover new ideas with Delphi Pro, the crypto research platform that pays for itself.
or
Be one of the first to receive report summaries, key takeaways and exclusive alpha insights. We will only send you the most important updates.
Expert Picks
Latest Media
view all
In Focus: Crypto x AI
Recent Favorites
Delphi Consulting
