Top 7 Crypto | Analytics & Alpha

Top 10 Perp DEXs by Open Interest Growth in last 30 Days Open interest is one of the clearest signals of trader conviction and platform momentum. Rising OI means more capital is actively deployed in positions, and perps collectively added over $1.5B in OI over the past month. Here's how the last month growth leaderboard looks: • Hyperliquid: +$1.01B (+21%) • tradeXYZ: +$295M (+56%) • Derive: +$272M (+60%) • Variational: +$151M (+26%) • Aster: +$107M (+6%) • edgeX: +$106M (+11%) • Grvt: +$97.2M (+24%) • Extended: +$34.7M (+13%) • Dreamcash: +$34.1M (+130%) • dYdX: +$32.4M (+51%) Hyperliquid remains the undisputed leader in perp DEX open interest, gaining over $1B - more than 3x than its closest competitor. Meanwhile, Dreamcash leads the pack with a staggering +130% OI growth in just 30 days, followed by Derive with +60%, tradeXYZ with +56%, and dYdX with +51%. The fact that multiple mid-tier perp DEXs are growing OI faster than Hyperliquid percentage-wise suggests the perp DEX space is far from winner-takes-all, and competition is heating up heading into Q2. Get 12% Points boost with our Variational link🔗omni.variational.io/?ref=OMNITOP7ICO Get 10% Points boost using our Extended link🔗app.extended.exchange/join/TOP7 Boost deposit yield to 11% with our Grvt link🔗grvt.io/?ref=top7ico Data🔗DefiLlama @TOP7ICO

Nest Overview – Plume’s RWA Yield Protocol Nest is a decentralized app built on top of the Plume blockchain, which gives anyone with a wallet access to institutional-grade real-world assets through onchain vaults. You deposit stables – the vault buys tokenized assets (US Treasuries, private credit, payment financing), and you earn real-world yield. Everything is non-custodial and fully onchain – live on Ethereum, Solana, BNB Chain, and Plume. When you deposit, you receive nTOKENs — liquid vault receipt tokens that accrue value over time. These can be used across DeFi (lending, DEXs, structured products) or redeemed anytime. AML and threat screening is inherited from Plume's infrastructure. Current stats that matters: • $20.6M TVL across 7 active vaults • $20.9M monthly volume • 208K+ holders Top vaults by APY: • BlackOpal LiquidStone II (Payment Financing) – 12.46% APY, $7.8M TVL • Alpha (Diversified RWA Index) – 9.26% APY, $8.2M TVL • Credit (Public & Private Credit) – 8% APY, $250k TVL • WisdomTree CRDYX (Private Credit) – 6% APY, $3M TVL Moreover, Nest RWA vaults just went live on Perena – users can earn ~9% APY from short-term credit card receivables. Additional yield available through DeFi integrations – Pendle offers +10.01% in Plume Nest Points, with Morpho and Rooster also live. Hamilton Lane SCOPE vault coming soon. Plume – the chain behind Nest – is a Layer 1 which provides a full-stack RWA infrastructure with built-in compliance tools, powered by $PLUME token. Plume managed $645M in tokenized assets with 280K+ RWA holders, as for latest reports. And Nest is the entry point to the network. @TOP7ICO

8 Crypto Projects that Shut Down in 2026 The first quarter of 2026 has been a brutal shakeout for crypto projects. Liquidity dried up, economics stopped working, and even well-funded teams couldn't hold on. 8 closures happened this year – here’s what they built, why they failed, and what's worth remembering. 1️⃣ MilkyWay Celestia's first liquid staking and restaking protocol, letting users stake TIA and receive milkTIA while keeping liquidity across DeFi. • Raised $5M in a seed round led by Polychain Capital, also backed by Binance Labs and Crypto.com. • Launched $MILK token in April 2025, hit $80M+ in restaking TVL and 300K+ users early on – but demand faded fast. • The team cited low revenue from staking fees (only 10% retained), delayed products, and ultimately couldn't sustain operations. 2️⃣ Nifty Gateway One of the OG NFT marketplaces that defined the 2021 art boom. Founded in 2018, and acquired by Gemini (Winklevoss twins) in 2019. • Hosted landmark drops from Beeple, Pak, Grimes, and Eminem • Processed over $300M in sales at peak, but struggled post-bubble • Entered withdrawal-only mode January 23, full closure February 23 3️⃣ Slingshot A DeFi trading app and DEX aggregator, originally built at a hackathon in 2018. • Raised $18.1M in total – Framework Ventures, Coinbase Ventures, Winklevoss Capital, DCG, Robot Ventures, Ribbit Capital in investors. • Began sunsetting September 2025, fully shut infrastructure February 28. • Team cited unsustainable operations – declining metrics post-2021 bull run made the business unviable. 4️⃣ Polynomial On-chain derivatives platform for crypto, indices, commodities, and forex, built on its own OP Stack chain. • Raised $1.1M in a pre-seed round led by Archetype. • Accumulated 27M+ tx and $4B+ in cumulative volume – but TVL peaked at just $8M. • Phased shutdown: markets suspended Feb 13, forced liquidations Feb 18, liquidity layer closed Feb 24, full chain halt March 3. • Team plans to restart with priority access for early backers. 5️⃣ ZeroLend Multi-chain decentralized lending protocol that operated for 3 years across L2s including Linea and zkSync. • Raised $3M in a seed round, backed by Blockchain Founders Fund, Morningstar Ventures, and others. • $120M $ZERO valuation at peak, with $359M TVL – crashed 98% to $6.6M by shutdown. • Team cited a brutal combo: inactive supported chains, oracle providers discontinuing support, persistent hack threats, and razor-thin lending margins. • Most markets set to withdrawals only as part of orderly wind-down starting February 16. 6️⃣ Parsec DeFi analytics terminal for custom dashboards and protocol-level flow tracking. • Raised $5.25M in total from Galaxy Digital, Polychain Capital, Robot Ventures, and Uniswap Ventures. • Had peak traction during the 2022 liquidation cascade (Terra, 3AC, stETH depeg) when everyone needed on-chain visibility. • Post-FTX, DeFi leverage never came back the same way. • Shut down February 19. Full subscription refunds issued. 7️⃣ Step Finance Founded in 2021, was known as the front page of Solana – a portfolio tracker and DeFi dashboard serving 2.4M+ users. • Raised $2M from Alameda Research, Raydium, One Block, and Solidity Ventures. • Killed by a $27-40M hack on January 31 — attackers compromised executive team devices and drained treasury wallets. Only $4.7M recovered. • Pre-hack snapshot will be used for a $STEP buyback program. Remora rTokens remain backed 1:1 with USDC redemptions planned. 8️⃣ DataHaven Focused on private, verifiable storage for AI agents – user-controlled data with an anti-data-selling ethos. • Was a newer entrant in the AI and Web3 space. • Failed to secure sustainable funding, partnerships, or a viable token launch path. • Shut down March 4. All community channels discontinued. This isn't a mass exodus – it's a cleanup. The big players like Aave and Morpho keep growing while everyone else fights over scraps. Same story across every closure here: no liquidity, no survival. @TOP7ICO

SEC & Justin Sun Settle – $10M to Close 3-Year Case The SEC and Tron founder Justin Sun have settled, ending a lawsuit that had been hanging over the Tron ecosystem since March 2023. Under the terms of the deal, Rainberry Inc., a Sun-controlled company behind the BitTorrent protocol, will pay a $10M civil penalty, while all remaining claims against Sun personally, the Tron Foundation, and the BitTorrent Foundation are dismissed with prejudice. The original lawsuit accused Sun of illegally generating $31M by directing employees to conduct hundreds of thousands of wash trades between accounts he controlled, creating a false impression of legitimate trading activity. Sun and his companies did not admit or deny wrongdoing as part of the settlement. On X, Sun wrote: "Today's resolution brings closure, but I never stopped building. I will continue to focus on accelerating innovation in the United States and around the world." For the broader crypto industry, this settlement sends a clear signal: the "regulation by enforcement" era in the U.S. is fading. With the Trump administration pushing to make the country a global crypto hub, the SEC appears to be clearing its docket rather than fighting high-profile battles in court. 🔗coindesk.com/policy/2026/03/05/sec-justin-sun-reach-settlement-over-tron-lawsuit @TOP7ICO

Tether made a strategic investment in Axiym Tether invested in Axiym, a fintech company building a globally distributed treasury and settlement infrastructure within regulated payment ecosystems. Axiym already processes real payments and settlements every day across 140 countries and 70 currencies. The key feature is the native integration of $USDT directly into existing treasury operations of payment companies: instead of sourcing USDT externally or managing separate settlement paths, companies get access to it right where their USD already sits. Among Axiym's products is Pay Now, Settle Later (PNSL), a post-pay settlement solution alongside infrastructure for global aggregators and payment processors that makes international transactions near-instant and predictable. Tether has been on an active investment spree, backing Whop,Dreamcash,LayerZero and Anchorage Digital. Tether is clearly positioning itself well beyond stablecoins - as a broad financial and technology investor with global ambitions. 🔗tether.io/news/tether-invests-in-axiym-to-advance-digital-asset-use-cases-across-global-payment-ecosystems @TOP7ICO

Yellow [YELLOW] Overview – TGE on March 8 Yellow is an ecosystem dedicated to real-time, non-custodial cross-chain trading, powered by state channels, $YELLOW token, and a next-gen SDK for builders. At its core, Yellow solves crypto's liquidity fragmentation problem - connecting brokers and exchanges across any blockchain without bridges, intermediaries, or latency. Core products include: • Nitrolite Protocol (ERC-7824) - modular state channel framework powering fast, cross-chain dapps. • Yellow SDK - real-time communication toolkit for developers with quick API integration and low-level state channel control. • NeoDAX - turnkey brokerage solution handling hundreds of thousands of TPS, combining CEX security with DEX principles, open source and battle-tested. • Clearing Network - aggregated orderbooks connecting exchanges, non-custodial, with cross-chain settlement points across all major blockchains. The project raised $10M in a private round led by Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen, with participation from Consensys, GSR Capital, and other notable backers. Yellow also ran a U.S. regulated public sale on Republic on August 25, with $1M raised at a $120M valuation. $YELLOW token will play a key role across the entire ecosystem - powering transaction fees, clearing, network access, staking, and broker collateral. TGE is set for March 8. You can join the waitlist and register for early access perks 🔗yellow.pro/waitlist @TOP7ICO

Once-Hyped Blockchains with Low Wallets Activity Low user activity alone isn't the problem - it's the combination with massive future unlocks that makes this data alarming. Several chains on this list are already trading at a tiny fraction of their ATH FDV, yet still have tens of percent of supply left to hit the market. Weekly active wallets by chains: Sonic $S – 31.1K Cosmos $ATOM – 25.3K XDC $XDC – 20.4K Berachain $BERA – 20K Mantra $MANTRA – 13.3K Polkadot $DOT – 12.6K Gnosis $GNO – 10.7K Hedera $HBAR – 10.6K Movement $MOVE – 10.3K Celestia $TIA – 5.8K The worst offenders by that metric include Mantra, which peaked at $63.4B FDV and now sits at $171M - a 99.7% collapse - with 43.7% of supply still to be unlocked. Berachain and Movement both carry over 65% in future unlocks with under 21K weekly active wallets. Without a real user growth catalyst, that incoming supply has nowhere to go but down. Data source🔗Token Terminal @TOP7ICO

Billions introduces First AI Agent Rewards for OpenClaw Billions introduced Verified Agent Identity for OpenClaw - a solution that links users AI agent to a KYC-verified human using zero-knowledge proofs, without exposing any private data. Setup takes seconds: sign in with Google, Apple, or a crypto wallet, complete a quick face scan if needed, and your agent gets a verified onchain identity. The main highlight is FAIAR (First AI Agent Rewards) - Billions' early rewards program, where only agents with the Verified Identity Skill on OpenClaw are eligible. Participants can interact with $BILL tokens on their behalf, build an onchain reputation, and receive an airdrop when eligible allocations open. Billions is a decentralized identity protocol building the trust layer for the AI era, already deployed for HSBC, Sony Bank, and Deutsche Bank, powering 9,000+ projects with 2.3M+ verified users. The project raised $35M - $30M from Coinbase Ventures, Polychain Capital, and Polygon Labs, plus $5M via public IDO on Capital Launchpad. TGE date is yet to be announced. 🔗billions.network/blog/verified-agent-identity-openclaw @TOP7ICO

Top 10 Crypto Protocols by Revenue Shared with Token Holders According to a recent analysis by DeFi researcher Ignas, out of 17,000+ tokens tracked on CoinGecko, only 45 are genuinely "investible" based on revenue sharing - and just two of them account for nearly 70% of all holder revenue. The list makes it clear how concentrated real cash flow in crypto still is, and how rare it is to find a protocol that both generates revenue and shares it with token holders. Here's the top 10 protocols by 30-day revenue shared with token holders: $HYPE – $66M $PUMP – $39.2M $SKY – $8.28M $AERO – $7.5M $JUP – $6.9M $CAKE – $2.4M $ORE – $2.4M $CLANKER – $2.1M $UNI – $1.5M $YB – $1.4M The gap between $HYPE and the rest is striking - Hyperliquid alone generates more holder revenue than all other protocols on this list combined. Meanwhile tokens like $ORE, $CLANKER or $YB stand out for their extremely low FDVs relative to revenue, making them some of the cheapest plays by P/S ratio in the entire space. 🔗ignasdefi.com/p/the-investible-crypto-tokens @TOP7ICO

OKB pumps amid NYSE parent ICE invests in OKX at $25B Valuation Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, has invested in OKX $OKB at a $25B valuation and will take a seat on OKX's board of directors. The deal goes beyond a simple financial stake: OKX will provide ICE with a live crypto price feed and will also allow its users to trade tokenised stocks and derivatives listed on the NYSE, a feature expected to launch in H2 of 2026. Back in October 2025, ICE invested up to $2B in Polymarket, at a pre-investment valuation of $8B. As part of that deal, ICE also became a global distributor of Polymarket's event-driven data to institutional investors. The OKX investment makes it clear that ICE is systematically building its presence across the crypto landscape. Following the news, OKX's native token $OKB surged +37%. The move also builds on already strong tokenomics - back in August 2025, OKX burned over 65M tokens, permanently capping the max supply at 21M OKB, mirroring Bitcoin's scarcity model. Current $OKB price: $105 Current FDV: $2.21B 🔗okx.com/en-us/learn/okx-ice-nyse-partnership @TOP7ICO

Meteora [MET] launched Dynamic Terminal - redesigned interface for DLMM liquidity protocol Meteora's $MET update transforms the pool page into a single command centre for LPs, combining all critical token and pool data in one place - includingmarket cap, holder stats, rug risk indicators, and fee metrics. Key additions include a full TradingView chart built directly into the pool page, real-time P&L tracking across all positions, and quick-action buttons to claim fees or close positions in one click. LPs can also deploy liquidity with a single token via the "Ape In" button, and rebalance positions with one click. The interface is fully customizable - panels can be resized or hidden depending on your workflow. Dynamic Terminal is live now, with DAMM v2 support coming soon. 🔗meteoraag.medium.com/dynamic-terminal-a-more-powerful-way-to-lp-and-print-8086e6f9a739 @TOP7ICO

a16z сrypto plans to raise $2B for its fifth crypto fund The firm venture capital giant, which raised 18% of all venture capital dollars in the U.S. last year, is looking to raise $2B for what will be its fifth crypto vehicle. A16z’s previous four crypto funds topped $7.6B, including its massive $4.5B Crypto Fund 4 in 2022. The news come amid a broader wave of crypto VC fundraising announcements in Feb 2026: • Dragonfly closed its fourth fund at $650M • DBA launched its second at $62M targeting early-stage crypto startups • Paradigm is reportedly preparing a new fund of up to $1.5B, expanding into AI and robotics. a16z has been highly active throughout 2025 and into early 2026, backing promising projects ahead of public markets - including prediction markets platform Kalshi ($1B), CeFi infrastructure play Talos ($45M), blockchain rewards layer Daylight, and early-stage terminal Kairos ($2.5M). 🔗theblock.co/post/392322/a16z-looks-to-raise-2-billion-for-its-fifth-crypto-fund-fortune @TOP7ICO