What is a good cryptocurrency in 2025? 💎 Decentralized: BTC, ETH, SOL & ADA Scalable: SOL, SUI, APT & NEAR Fast: SOL, SUI, APT & NEAR Well-governed: ADA, DOT, ICP & APT Economically sound: ETH, SOL, APT & NEAR These are only from top 30; there are many more gems out there: 🧵 Decentralized: Decentralization exists on a multidimensional spectrum; it is not a binary! From network topology to governance & politics, decentralization should be measured across multiple metrics, making it a complicated exercise For the purpose of this list, we are looking purely at network topology, where combining validator counts, Nakamoto Coefficient & the "cost of attack" serve as the primary measures ETH is the clear winner in decentralization here! 👑 When it comes to all of these decentralization metrics, it has the highest validator counts & the highest "cost to attack". Except for the Nakamoto coefficient, which ADA ended up leading in! Scalable We kept this one simple: Any chain that is able to exceed a max theoretical capacity of 10k TPS wins here This is using a simple 1 to 1 value transfer for the purpose of comparison The winner in scalability is NEAR! 👑 Thanks to its sharded design, it can scale to 100k+ TPS & beyond! Fast Sub-second block times are the new normal; if a blockchain does not meet this criterion, they are slow! SUI is the winner in speed! 👑 Overtaking SOL by a very narrow margin, as both chains represent the cutting edge in parallelized blockchain design Well-Governed On-chain governance/stakeholder governance is the only way we preserve decentralization into the future What is the point of a decentralized blockchain if the rules of the system can be changed in a dictatorial fashion So for this category, we looked at the maturity of the implementation of on-chain treasuries, proposal mechanisms & other checks & balances DOT takes the win on governance! 👑 DOT's governance design has been one of the best for years now. In particular, how stake is weighted based on time locked, along with the additional checks & balances present Economically Sound This might be my most unpopular take here, but the ideal economic design for a blockchain is a low tail inflation plus a high fee burn As this guarantees security during periods of low economic activity, unlike a fixed supply cap While being more scarce than a fixed supply chain during periods of high economic activity, due to the fee burn exceeding the inflation rate. That is what makes it more economically sound under all scenarios The winner in economics is SOL! 👑 A difficult & probably a controversial choice, as I could easily also have justified picking ETH as the winner in this category based purely on the current numbers The main reason I chose SOL instead is due to ETH's distinct lack of L1 scaling, as I see the fee value of a high-throughput network far exceeding that of a chain without that utility. Based on today's numbers, ETH should win, but this is an evaluation of the design, not only the current state of the network Another minor detail here is that SOL does not burn the priority fee, mitigating the problem of unnecessarily inflating the fee during times of congestion Conclusion Nothing is perfect, despite what maximalists of all chains want you to think. What is "best" depends on what we prioritise & in what order The "ideal" chain would win in all of these categories, but that is not realistic in a highly competitive market that is innovating at a breakneck pace As these teams prioritize different aspects of the design over others, there is a correct choice in terms of who "wins" this cycle. Speed has been one of the key factors over the last year, not scalability per se Explaining the dominance of purely parallelized chains over more sharded designs. Economics & governance have taken more of a back seat, but we can see that is starting to change Contrary to much of, if not more cynical, public sentiment, decentralization is still respected, as most of the top chains meet these criteria. Nothing is perfect, but decentralization is clearly still valued Moving forward, we want all chains to be as decentralized, scalable, fast, well-governed & economically sound as possible 🕊️ That is the fruition of the early cypherpunk dream: Utility drives change; that is the true value of our movement! 🔥