Grayscale Q3 Top 20 Crypto Assets list is out: new additions AVAX, MORPHO, while LDO and OP have been eliminated.

In the third quarter of 2025, Grayscale's "treasure map" has quietly adjusted: the newcomer Avalanche (AVAX) and Morpho (MORPHO) have jumped onto the list, while the former giants Lido DAO (LDO) and Layer 2 hopeful Optimism (OP) have unfortunately exited. Amidst this ebb and flow, what changes in trends are hidden within the crypto market? This article is derived from a piece by MarsBit News, organized and written by Foresight News. (Background: Grayscale Research Report: Stack, a leading Bitcoin scaling solution) (Background Supplement: Altcoin beacon? Grayscale adds SUI, CRV, ADA, LPT in Q4 while removing SNX, AVAX) As the fog clears, where does Grayscale's leaderboard point to? In the rapidly changing crypto world, the movements of institutional capital are often key clues to future insights. Grayscale Investments, a pioneer in the crypto asset management field, updates its Top 20 asset list quarterly, which resembles a "treasure map" of the crypto market from an institutional perspective, outlining a deep forecast of the "fact-based adoption trends" for the next phase of the market. In the third quarter of 2025, Grayscale's "treasure map" has quietly adjusted: the newcomer Avalanche (AVAX) and Morpho (MORPHO) have jumped onto the list, while the former giants Lido DAO (LDO) and Layer 2 hopeful Optimism (OP) have unfortunately exited. Amidst this ebb and flow, what changes in trends are hidden within the crypto market? We will delve into this together, revealing the new narrative of crypto investment in 2025 behind what seems to be a normal list update. Signals of Structural Change The strong pulse of Avalanche AVAX on-chain depicts a future of scalable, customizable blockchain. Its "Avalanche Consensus Mechanism" achieves high throughput, low latency, and decentralization, with a three-chain architecture (X-Chain, C-Chain, P-Chain) ensuring sub-second transaction finality, laying the foundation for large-scale applications. In 2025, Avalanche's C-Chain transaction volume soared from 250,000 to nearly 1.2 million, thanks to the Etna upgrade, which dropped average transaction fees by over 90%, greatly stimulating on-chain activity. Avalanche accurately captures the demands of GameFi and enterprise-level applications, with games like MapleStory Universe launching on subnets. It also actively embraces the traditional world, collaborating with Web2 giants such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Alibaba Cloud to promote the tokenization of real-world assets, a key step for the Web3 economy to penetrate mainstream markets. Grayscale's optimism towards Avalanche stems from its technological advancements, strategic ecosystem expansion, and the "multi-dimensional growth flywheel" formed by its integration with Web2. This indicates that Layer 1 competition is shifting towards a broader new track with real economic activities and the potential for Web2/Web3 integration. Morpho MORPHO Transformers of Decentralized Lending Morpho (MORPHO) is charting a new institutional pathway for decentralized lending. It is a DeFi lending protocol based on Ethereum and Base chains, optimizing yields and ensuring security through "Morpho Vaults" and isolated markets. Its protocol design prioritizes low transaction fees and has undergone over 25 audits. Morpho has achieved remarkable results: annual fee income reached $100 million, and total value locked (TVL) doubled to over $4 billion, securing its position as the second largest in DeFi lending. On the Base chain, it is the largest protocol in both TVL and active loan volume. Top venture capital firms like a16z Crypto and Pantera Capital have invested over $69 million. More significantly, Coinbase has integrated Morpho into its main application, allowing users to borrow USDC by collateralizing Bitcoin, marking one of the largest institutional adoption cases in DeFi to date. The release of Morpho V2 further signals its determination to bring DeFi into traditional financial institutions. Morpho's rise validates its potential as a "DeFi institutionalization engine." It understands the requirements of institutions regarding risk management and compliance, addressing the pain points of traditional finance entering DeFi through refined market design and support for permitted markets. Grayscale favors it because it enhances DeFi efficiency, reduces risk, and effectively connects with traditional finance. The Departure of the Old Guard: Lido and Optimism's Farewell Lido DAO's Liquid Staking Empire Faces Headwinds Lido DAO was once the undisputed "empire" giant in Ethereum's liquid staking space, managing about 33% of staked ETH. However, concerns about its centralized risks lurked behind its success: the "permitted" validator pool, LDO token control over core permissions, and the May 2025 incident where the Chorus One Hot Wallet was compromised, all sounding alarm bells. The Ethereum Shanghai upgrade in April 2023 allowed ETH withdrawals, weakening Lido's "moat" in liquidity. Users had more choices, turning to centralized platforms (like Coinbase, Kraken) or emerging non-custodial competitors. Innovations like EigenLayer's restaking also intensified competition. The removal of Lido reflects Grayscale's reevaluation of "centralized risk." After the Shanghai upgrade, Lido's "centralization" characteristics became more pronounced against the backdrop of intensified competition and clearer regulations (the SEC views "protocol staking" as non-security activity). Grayscale may believe that its risk-reward ratio is no longer attractive. Lido's exit signifies that institutional investors have raised their evaluation standards for liquid staking, placing greater emphasis on decentralization, governance transparency, and potential regulatory risks. Optimism OP The Grand Vision of Layer 2, Trapped in the "Myth" of Value Capture Optimism, as a leading Ethereum Layer 2 scaling solution, carries the responsibility of enhancing transaction capacity, lowering gas fees, and improving user experience. Its "Superchain" vision has attracted star projects like Coinbase's Base chain through the OP Stack. However, it still lags behind its competitor Arbitrum in TVL and activity levels. The OP token is the core of Optimism Collective's decentralized governance structure. However, its revenue distribution model harbors a "myth": currently, the sequencer's revenue goes to the Optimism Foundation to fund public goods rather than being directly allocated to OP token holders. Although future sharing is anticipated, this uncertainty affects the direct value capture of the token, leaving institutional investors with doubts. Moreover, Optimism's governance is not smooth sailing either. Voting participation...