What do projects born in the crypto bear market do?

Author: Hu Tao, ChainCatcher

In the current context of a lack of new narratives and financing difficulties, are there still enough excellent new projects emerging in the crypto industry? This question is becoming a focal point of discussion among an increasing number of practitioners in the crypto sector.

The number of high-quality new projects and new assets determines the level of investment from capital, attention, and even policy in the crypto industry, as well as the market's activity level.

It must be acknowledged that as the amount of financing in the crypto industry has hit a new low since 2020, the crypto capital market has entered a long-awaited cold wave, with more and more well-known projects announcing the cessation of operations due to a lack of operational funds. Meanwhile, the cryptocurrency market remains sluggish, and crypto entrepreneurs are facing an extremely poor entrepreneurial environment.

However, there is good news. In the past, crypto projects had high human resource costs in terms of technology and operations, requiring significant financing to support their ongoing development. The maturity of AI technology has allowed many tasks to be replaced by AI, significantly reducing project operational costs. The tremendous success of Hyperliquid has also provided motivation and inspiration for small teams to create pioneering products without the need for financing.

From January to April, RootData recorded over 1,070 new projects, a decrease of about 32% compared to the same period last year. However, considering that many projects at the beginning of last year were meme-type and the recent market lacks clear hotspots, the absolute number of new projects born in the first four months of this year is still quite considerable, including several early projects with high-quality team backgrounds and market influence.

From the RD Growth Index, MojoAI, Invent Money, JAR Chain, ABFinance, and Derpetual are the top five newly recorded projects in 2026, each scoring above 200. This index is calculated based on the project's track, team, financing, and X influence on RootData.

From the X Influence Index, xStocks, Arc, Ventuals, Surf, Earlybird, Bantr, Flying Tulip, nof1, Minara AI, and Liquid are the top ten projects established since 2025, each scoring above 530. This index is derived from the number of Top followers and ordinary fans following the project's X account.

In terms of project transparency, DeFi Development, Forum, Perle Labs, AlloyX, Nava, Stable, N3XT, Meld, AllScale, and Anchorpoint are the top ten projects established since 2025, each scoring above 67%.

It can be seen that most of these top-ranked projects are integrated projects in the fields of payments, AI agents, and RWA, and it is highly likely that future high-growth projects will also emerge from these areas.

RootData is currently the platform with the most recorded projects in the crypto industry, having recorded over 21,000 projects in total, and it is also the platform that records new projects most promptly, adding at least 10 new projects daily. This is thanks to the following three tracking methods.

First, the attention dynamics of X. When a newly registered Twitter account that has been active for less than six months appears in the new follower lists of multiple Top followers and is identified as a crypto project rather than a KOL or other figures, it will automatically enter our pre-database, where dedicated staff will check its project quality and select it for recording.

Second, media coverage. When a crypto project appears in a dedicated report from a well-known media outlet (financing, launching new products, partnerships, etc.), RootData will automatically check whether the project has been recorded in the system. If not, it will enter the pre-recording database for further processing by dedicated staff.

Third, proactive application for recording by project parties. The RootData website has opened a self-application entry for project parties to apply for recording, and regularly reviews the information submitted by project parties, with over 2,000 projects recorded through this channel.

Overall, the current state of the crypto industry is not that "there are no new projects," but rather that it has entered a phase closer to a real entrepreneurial environment: financing is no longer readily available, and narratives are no longer easily established. However, at the same time, advancements in technological tools and changes in cost structures are nurturing a more efficient and restrained new project generation mechanism. In other words, while the decline in quantity may be inevitable, the proportion of "effective supply" is quietly rising.

New Projects Worth Noting

Below is a list of some of the new projects on RootData that have seen the fastest growth in attention this year.

Nava

Nava is an AI agent security infrastructure located between agent intent and on-chain execution. It intercepts transactions after the agent constructs them and before they reach the blockchain. Each transaction proposed by the agent goes through the Nava verification process before fund transfer.

In April of this year, the project raised $8.3 million, with investment from firms such as Polychain, Archetype, and Hack VC. Additionally, the project gained 45 new Top followers on the X platform in April, ranking first among all crypto projects.

Delphi

Delphi is an information market based on the distributed AI computing network Gensyn. It allows users to create markets on any topic, where others can buy and sell bets on various possible outcomes, settled by AI. Participants invest funds in the outcomes they believe are most likely, and the market odds change in real-time based on collective sentiment.

In the past two weeks, over 13 Top followers, including CoinFund, Delphi Digital co-founder Tom Shaughnessy, Framework Ventures' Roy Learner, and partner KOL Leo the Horseman, have followed the project.

Derpetual

Derpetual is a decentralized derivatives trading protocol, with its main product being abstract futures trading. When trading abstract futures, profits and losses are settled directly between traders without the need for an order book.

In the past two weeks, well-known accounts such as Solana, SolanaLegend, zac.eth, sanyi.eth, and Grail.eth have followed the project.

Unipeg

Unipeg is the new project that has attracted the most KOL attention in the past two weeks, with well-known KOLs such as Yuzhong Kuangshui, Xueqiu, spark, Chen Mo, zac.eth, and LaserCat397.eth following it.

According to the introduction, Unipeg is an experimental on-chain object project based on Uniswap v4 Hooks, not a traditional token or NFT. Each Swap automatically generates a 24×24 pixel unicorn SVG image, and holding an integer number of uPEG (e.g., 1, 2, 3...) corresponds to a unique image generated based on the transaction hash, with a total supply fixed at 10,000.

In other words, Unipeg turns the technical potential of Uniswap v4 into a fun, visual, and tradable toy, making it one of the rare new types of assets in the recent market, thus receiving a lot of KOL enthusiasm, briefly surpassing $12 million, with a unit price once exceeding $1,000.

MojoAI

MojoAI is an intelligent trading operating system that converts trader instructions into real-time trading agents that operate around the clock.

The project was founded this year by Forest Bai, co-founder of Foresight Ventures, and has already attracted the attention of over 20 Top followers.

ABFinance

ABFinance is a one-stop crypto finance platform with functions such as deposits, earning, trading, and consumption.

The project was founded this year by Helen Liu, former COO of Bybit, and has already attracted the attention of 13 Top followers, including Lily Liu.

[JAR Chain](https://www.rootdata.com/zh/Projects/detail/JAR Chain?k=MjQzOTU= "Blockchain protocol for agent workloads")

JAR (Join-Accumulate Refine) is a blockchain protocol aimed at agent workloads. Its entire codebase is written by AI agents, with strategic decisions supervised by humans. JAR uses its own genesis mechanism—Proof of Intelligence—to allocate tokens based on the quality of contributions to the protocol itself.

Netrun

Netrun is a meta-protocol based on Solana and using the Metaplex standard, designed to introduce a flexible and programmable layer for non-fungible systems. Netrun draws inspiration from BRC-20 ordinal numbers, achieving richer on-chain data expression while avoiding the limitations of low throughput environments.

CardChase

CardChase is a real-money binary prediction market based on Pokémon card prices. Users place bets using USDC tokens on whether card prices will "rise" or "fall" within a fixed period.

Caspius

Caspius is a data collection platform for training embodied AI world models. The on-chain layer is built around $CAS, used to reward users who contribute to the protocol.

WorldClaw

WorldClaw is an agent operating system built on WLFI, providing optimized costs and unified access to over 300 AI models to support users' OpenClaw and any AI products.

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