Institutions Are Hunting for the Next Wave of Undervalued Crypto Assets
Four names keep surfacing in institutional research notes as the market’s most conspicuous valuation gaps: Pump, Hyperliquid, Venice and EtherFi. Each occupies a distinct corner of the on-chain economy — launchpad infrastructure, perpetuals trading, AI-powered consumer apps and restaking — yet all four trade at multiples that lag their revenue, user growth and protocol-level fundamentals.
The Four Candidates and Their Fundamentals
- Hyperliquid (HYPE): A fully on-chain perpetuals exchange that has captured a meaningful share of decentralized derivatives volume. Its fee generation rivals centralized venues, yet its token trades at a fraction of comparable CeFi exchange valuations. The protocol’s hyper-efficient matching engine and community-first token distribution have made it a favorite in institutional memos.
- Pump: The dominant token-launch platform on Solana, responsible for a large share of new memecoin issuance and on-chain activity. Despite generating substantial fees, its valuation is often dismissed as “meme-cycle dependent” — a framing institutions increasingly view as a mispricing of its role as retail onboarding infrastructure.
- Venice (VVV): A privacy-first AI assistant token that monetizes inference demand on-chain. As AI compute and consumer applications converge, Venice’s model of paying for private inference with tokens positions it at the intersection of two of the market’s hottest narratives.
- EtherFi: A leading restaking and liquid staking protocol on Ethereum. With restaking TVL still climbing and EtherFi expanding into neobanking and card products, its revenue base is diversifying beyond pure staking yield.
Why the Market Is Misreading Them
The common thread is that each protocol’s value accrual is poorly captured by traditional metrics. Hyperliquid’s buyback-and-burn mechanics, Pump’s fee flywheel, Venice’s inference-based demand sink and EtherFi’s points-to-equity conversion all complicate simple P/E or TVL comparisons. Institutions argue that as crypto matures, cash-flow-generating protocols will be re-rated relative to speculative assets — and these four sit at the front of that queue.
Another factor: liquidity fragmentation. HYPE and VVV trade primarily on a handful of venues, limiting price discovery. As listings broaden and derivatives markets deepen, the discount should compress.
Forward Outlook
The next 12 months will test whether institutions are right. Key catalysts include Hyperliquid’s expansion into spot and EVM features, Pump’s ability to retain launch volume through a full memecoin cycle, Venice’s enterprise AI partnerships, and EtherFi’s regulatory clarity around restaking in major jurisdictions. If even two of the four deliver, the “undervalued” thesis will harden into consensus — and the window will close.
