Hot Tokens Learning Week (2): 2026 — A Breakout Year for Real-Time Applications with AI Still at Full Throttle

Overview

The broader community is optimistic that Ethereum’s Fusaka upgrade will reduce fees and drive institutional inflows; and Ethereum's accelerated upgrade cadence is expected to reinvigorate its narrative.

Solana is transitioning from an experimental phase to a mature infrastructure, with significant potential in 2026 (ETFs + upgrades). The year 2025 is viewed as the year of institutional adoption, paving the way for Solana to lead real-time applications in the years ahead.

Audiera’s core narrative centers on “Dance-to-Earn + AI Entertainment Metaverse”, leveraging classic IPs to bridge large Web2 user bases into Web3.

JELLYJELLY is transitioning from a meme coin to a utility-driven project, gaining strong momentum recently.

In 2025, Aster, backed by CZ and fueled by privacy innovation and explosive growth, evolved from a newcomer into a strong competitor to Hyperliquid.

Ongoing fervor in the AI narrative has driven community enthusiasm for popular AI projects such as PIPPIN and Talus.

Terra (LUNA) is a public blockchain protocol originating from Terra Classic.

ETH

Project Introduction

Ethereum, founded by Vitalik Buterin in 2015, is the first blockchain to support Turing-complete smart contracts and underpins DeFi, NFTs, stablecoins, RWA (Real-World Assets), and Web3 applications.

Ecosystem Highlights (2025)

Fusaka Upgrade (Activated on December 3): The upgrade introduced PeerDAS and optimized blob parameters, significantly lowering Layer-2 fees and enabling real-time verification as well as higher throughput. Vitalik described it as the realization of the sharding vision first proposed in 2015. The Fusaka upgrade followed the Pectra upgrade (May 7), which improved validator efficiency, account abstraction, and blob capacity, laying the foundation for institutional adoption.

Accelerating Institutional Adoption: BlackRock CEO Larry Fink acknowledged prior misjudgments about crypto; spot ETH ETF inflows have been strong. Entities such as Bitmine are building sizable ETH positions. RWA assets have exploded in popularity, with Ethereum’s RWA TVL surpassing $6.5 billion and institutional players such as BlackRock have launched tokenized fund products on Ethereum.

On-chain Data

In 2025, Ethereum’s annual issuance rate was approximately 2.5% (used for staking rewards), with a net supply growth rate around 0.5% (issuance minus burn). Staking APR varied around 3–5% depending on network activity. Over 35 million ETH were staked, representing roughly 29–31% of the total supply.

Community Views

The broader community is optimistic that Fusaka upgrade will reduce fees and drive institutional inflows while some express concern about L2 fragmentation. However, it is generally believed that the accelerated upgrade cadence is expected to reinvigorate its narrative.

SOL

Project Introduction

Solana is a high-performance Layer-1 blockchain whose core innovation couples Proof of History (PoH) with Proof of Stake (PoS) to achieve parallel processing and high throughput. Its developer ecosystem has grown explosively, with active developers surpassing 17,000, the highest among all chains.

Ecosystem Highlights (2025)

Firedancer Launched on the Mainnet (December): An independent validator client developed by Jump Crypto is designed to improve network reliability, TPS and client diversity, reducing single points of failure.

Alpenglow Upgrade: A consensus overhaul aims to achieve 150ms transaction finality and a 66% increase in block capacity; the testnet has gone live and the mainnet is expected in Q1 2026.

Breakpoint 2025: The Abu Dhabi event saw strong participation and institutional collaborations (e.g., Visa, Shopify payment integrations, and Bhutan's gold-backed token).

Institutional Growth: Solana-linked ETFs have seen cumulative inflows exceeding $671 million, led by Bitwise BSOL, alongside tokenized funds from Franklin Templeton and BlackRock. Stablecoin TVL ranks third within major ecosystems.

Others: ZK Compression v2 has cut costs by up to 5,000×, while developer activity has grown over 30%. Use cases in RWA and payments (e.g., Western Union) are emerging as leading applications.

Tokenomics

SOL has no hard supply cap and follows a disinflationary inflation schedule: annual inflation starts at roughly 8% and declines by about 15% each year toward a long-term target of 1.5%. 50% of transaction fees are burned, and staking rewards, including MEV tips, range roughly 7–9% APY. About 67–70% of SOL is staked. Validator revenue mostly derives from inflation rewards, fees and MEV.

Community Views

Figures like Raoul Pal (Real Vision) forecast a strong alt season in 2026, with Solana benefitting from liquidity. The community views Firedancer as a key reliability milestone, and believes that Solana is transitioning from an experimental phase to a mature infrastructure, with significant potential in 2026 (ETFs + upgrades). The year 2025 is viewed as the year of institutional adoption, paving the way for Solana to lead real-time applications in the years ahead.

Audiera (BEAT)

Project Introduction

Audiera is the Web3 evolution of the classic rhythm dance game Audition, which has amassed over 600 million users globally. The development team has rebuilt it as a blockchain entertainment platform that blends AI agents, NFTs, and immersive gameplay. Users could interact with AI idols, create music tracks mintable as NFTs, and engage in full-body dance via Smart Fit Mats. The platform spans mobile games and Telegram mini-apps, offering a “Dance and Earn” mechanism that combines rhythm gaming with Web3 economics.

Tokenomics

BEAT is Audiera’s native token with a fixed supply of 1 billion. It employs a deflationary design. Tokens are allocated for in-game rewards, NFT minting, AI interactions, and governance. A portion of transaction fees is burned.

Narrative Focus

Audiera’s core narrative centers on “Dance-to-Earn + AI Entertainment Metaverse”, leveraging classic IPs to bridge large Web2 user bases into Web3 and avoiding empty meme appeal.

Community Views

The community praises the IP advantage and AI innovation, viewing Audiera as a potential GameFi renaissance project, but some caution against token volatility and long-term retention challenges. Analysts such as DeFiRadar note the project’s emotional engagement may outweigh pure tokenomics, and social discussions on X highlight both listing surges and airdrop buzz, while some KOLs caution that fresh content is critical for sustained growth given that BEAT depends on daily activities. Overall, the community views Audiera as a 2025 entertainment dark horse, while also cautioning that it carries high risk, as emerging projects are particularly susceptible to market volatility.

Jelly-My-Jelly (JELLYJELLY)

Project Introduction

Launched via Pump.fun’s fair launch in January 2025, JELLYJELLY is a SocialFi + meme project in the Solana ecosystem.

Ecosystem Highlights

In December, Jelly-My-Jelly was launched on the App Store with the JellyJelly app as its core. The app is an AI-powered video chat clipping tool positioned as the fastest way to share video clips, enabling users to quickly extract, edit and share short clips from video calls with AI-generated subtitles and summaries.

Tokenomics

The total supply of JELLYJELLY reaches 1 billion tokens, fully circulated with no pre-mining or team lockups. It is designed as a fair-launch token emphasizing community ownership.

Community Views

In 2025, JELLYJELLY’s founder profile and practical application have supported its shift from a meme token toward a utility-driven project, with recent strong momentum. Nonetheless, high volatility and manipulation risk persist, making it suitable mainly for participants with a high risk tolerance.

Aster

Project Introduction

Aster is a next-generation multichain decentralized exchange (DEX), which in 2025 gained prominence as a perpetual decentralized exchange (Perp DEX) known for privacy protection, high leverage and capital efficiency, emerging as one of Hyperliquid’s strongest rivals.

Ecosystem Highlights

CZ Endorsement (Sept–Nov): Binance’s CZ publicly praised and purchased $2 million tokens, driving several price surges and narratives on "Binance series". In October, sell-offs linked to the airdrop created downward price pressure; in November, the team issued a clarification about misunderstandings over token unlock schedules (including delays extending into 2035). A $4 million daily buyback plan was introduced recently, and Aster Chain mainnet is expected in Q1 2026.

Community Views

In 2025, Aster, backed by CZ and fueled by privacy innovation and explosive growth, evolved from a newcomer into a strong competitor to Hyperliquid. Its risks include competition, deflation execution, and regulatory factors, yet fundamentals remain strong for investors focusing on the DeFi perpetuals sector.

PIPPIN

Project Overview: PIPPIN ($PIPPIN) is an AI-driven meme coin built on Solana. It originated from an AI-generated unicorn character created by VC Yohei Nakajima in 2024, aiming to grow a viral community through experimental AI agents. Its ecosystem narrative blends AI-influencer and meme culture, emphasizing AI art and social experimentation within Solana's low-fee environment. This positions the "AI Unicorn" storyline for counter-cyclical growth during the 2025 crypto downturn.

Tokenomics: PIPPIN leverages a fair-launch mechanism with a total supply of 1 billion tokens (999 million in circulation). Its zero-tax design and community-driven approach are designed to encourage holding and AI-powered content creation.

Note: Fueled by the broader AI-meme narrative, PIPPIN has drawn strong interest from whales and retail investors alike. However, its token distribution indicates potential manipulation risks, so investors should proceed with caution.

US

Talus is a decentralized AI Agents infrastructure platform focused on providing essential autonomous digital economy building blocks. It uses the Talus Agentic Framework (TAF) to define standard interfaces for general computation, exposing them as callable services to construct asynchronous workflows.

LUNA

Terra (LUNA) is a public blockchain protocol originating from Terra Classic. Terra Classic is home to the algorithmic stablecoin TerraClassicUSD (UST). The token is now rebranded as LUNC once served as collateral for UST, but it collapsed during the May 2022 bank run, driving LUNA’s value to near zero and prompting the launch of a new chain that resulted in the split into Terra Classic and the new Terra (LUNA).

Risk Warning for Meme Coins

Meme coins originate from the culture of meme, where "meme" typically refers to cultural information fragments spread through the internet, such as images, videos, text, or concepts. These fragments often contain elements of humor and can go viral online. Meme coins are prone to drastic price volatility as they lack practical application. Additionally, MEME coins are community-driven, meaning their development and value are influenced by community engagement and support. Decreased community activity or increased disagreements among members could impact token prices and development negatively. To sum up, investors should be aware of the risks associated with investing in meme coins.This article is provided for reference only and should not be considered investment advice.