HYPE, OM and XCN hold up against crypto crash

AI agent tokens crash to $8 billion from a $20 billion peak

article-image

CryptoFX/Shutterstock modified by Blockworks

share


This is a segment from the 0xResearch newsletter. To read full editions, subscribe.


Hyperliquid (HYPE)

L1 tokens have pretty much taken a beating across the board, with one rare exception.

The exception is unsurprisingly Hyperliquid’s HYPE, which has actually posted a 15.8% gain on the week. The perps DEX generated $18.2 billion in trading volumes and ~$4 million in fees on Sunday.

Those price gains are coming in against a deep backdrop of red. When we zoom in on larger market cap L1s, almost none were spared the guillotine. From previous generation L1s like Cardano (ADA), Avalanche (AVAX) and Algorand (ALGO), to newer generation L1s like Near (NEAR), Sei (SEI) and Ton (TON), all saw 20%+ price declines on the week.

RON saw the greatest price crash of 27%.

One other L1 that bucked the market crash is the little-known Kava Network L1, which is undertaking an AI pivot. The KAVA token ($539 million market cap) saw a 15.7% gain on the week. Kava launched its mainnet in October 2022 after carving out a niche for itself with an interoperable Maker-like collateralized debt position (CDP) product.

MANTRA (OM)

The OM token, which is 31st largest token by market cap, is up 27% on the week.

For a token this large, I’m embarrassed to say I had no idea what OM was, so I looked it up.

OM is apparently the token behind the MANTRA project, a real-world assets-focused L1 catering to the institutional TradFi world.

Its mainnet launched relatively recently in October 2024. The OM token is used for validator staking, gas and governance — all pretty standard use cases. I expected to find huge TVL numbers on rwa.xyz, but they’re not even listed.

As far as I can tell, there is nothing particularly out of the ordinary that explains OM’s impressive price action. But look upon this price chart, ye Mighty, and despair.

Onyx (XCN)

Onyx (XCN) was a lending market for fungible and non-fungible tokens built on Ethereum, until it suffered a $3.8 million exploit in September 2024 and shut down.

Is it possible to summon an explanation for why XCN (96th largest token by market cap) is up 7% on the week? Perhaps, but the mental gymnastics aren’t worth it.

All I have to offer is this: Onyx yesterday announced XCN Ledger, a new L3 blockchain built with the Arbitrum stack, but settling on Base.

Loading Tweet..

AI agents

The AI agent sub sector has taken a pretty hard beating since it peaked at a market cap of ~$20 billion in early January.

When agents were still going parabolic, everyone wanted to know: How high would this market go? Analysts far smarter than I were making bold predictions that placed the agentic market at a range of $100 billion (base case) to $250 billion (bull case). 

It’s been a month since, and market caps have cratered to $8 billion. Yikes.

Source: cookie.fun

The top tokens in the AI agent sector haven’t held up: VIRTUAL is down 24% on the week, while FARTCOIN and AI16Z are down 22.5% and 38.6%, respectively.


Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:

Tags

Decoding crypto and the markets. Daily, with Byron Gilliam.

Upcoming Events

Old Billingsgate

Mon - Wed, October 13 - 15, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

Industry City | Brooklyn, NY

TUES - THURS, JUNE 24 - 26, 2025

Permissionless IV serves as the definitive gathering for crypto’s technical founders, developers, and builders to come together and create the future.If you’re ready to shape the future of crypto, Permissionless IV is where it happens.

Brooklyn, NY

SUN - MON, JUN. 22 - 23, 2025

Blockworks and Cracked Labs are teaming up for the third installment of the Permissionless Hackathon, happening June 22–23, 2025 in Brooklyn, NY. This is a 36-hour IRL builder sprint where developers, designers, and creatives ship real projects solving real problems across […]

recent research

Research Report Templates (19).png

Research

Suilend has grown into the top money market and liquid staking provider on Sui. STEAMM, Suilend’s Superfluid AMM, presents a compelling avenue for growing market share within Sui’s DEX landscape and revenue generation for the protocol. Suilend’s multi-product suite position it well for owning market share across key verticals. While current metrics across the Sui ecosystem are likely inflated due to Sui Foundation incentive programs, SEND trades at amongst the lowest multiples in the lend/borrow sector, suggesting that a bull case for continued growth in the ecosystem may be mispriced.

article-image

Silk Road founder Ulbricht made a triumphant return to the Bitcoin Conference, 10 years on from sentencing

article-image

A Blockworks Research report looked at who could take up some of the marketshare in the launchpad space

article-image

Business-to-business stablecoin payments are on the rise, per a report from Artemis, Dragonfly and Castle Island

article-image

Crypto continues to do its thing: incentivizing behavior

article-image

Kraken will soon offer Backed ‘xStocks’ as Solana tokens

article-image

In a unanimous decision, the US Court of International Trade has ruled that Trump’s IEEPA tariffs are unlawful