Author: Yuanshan Dongjian
Citrini's crypto basket has neither BTC nor ETH
Before the crash, Citrini Research, the firm known for publishing the "2028 Global Intelligence Crisis" AI doomsday report,
released a new article, "Breaking The Wall," discussing Agentic AI × crypto × traditional finance, and in the main text they revealed their crypto targets and weights.
❚ Crypto token basket: three main lines account for 92%
15 tokens, weights from 10% to 3%, seemingly scattered, but actually three thematic lines
1/ Derivatives are one line, accounting for 39%
- Derive ($DRV) 10%
- Lighter ($LIT) 10%
- Hyperliquid ($HYPE) 7%
- Aerodrome ($AERO) 7%
- Backpack ($BP) 5%
DRV and LIT, two new-generation names, are directly maxed out at 10%, ranking above the old leader HYPE
Backpack is also given 5%. The project I previously wrote about with "the car door welded shut" is also seen by institutions
2/ Yield and staking are one line, accounting for 27%
- Ether fi (ETHFI) 10%
- Ethena (ENA) 9%
- Maple (SYRUP) 5%
- Pendle (PENDLE) 3%
LST + synthetic stablecoins + fixed income + tokenized Treasuries, assembling the entire chain of "onchain interest rates" from source to application
This is the narrative institutions are most familiar with, corresponding one-to-one with their duration allocation in traditional finance
3/ Blue chips and infrastructure account for 26%
- Aave (AAVE) 9%
- Solana (SOL) 8%
- Chainlink (LINK) 5%
- Uniswap (UNI) 4%
The remaining LayerZero (ZRO) 5% for cross-chain, Ondo (ONDO) 3% for RWA
❚ Four counterintuitive signals read from it
1/ Not a single BTC, not a single ETH
The basket is called "crypto tokens," but it completely skips the market anchors
The meaning is very clear: in Citrini's framework, BTC and ETH are Beta; this basket only does Alpha; the two are managed separately
2/ UNI is given only 4%
Uniswap, the darling of old KOLs, is only a base position in the eyes of institutions
One possible reason is that Robinhood Chain has already captured nearly half of Uniswap's protocol fees, but has not yet plugged into the v2 and v3 Burn system; monetizing the UNIfication narrative takes time
3/ New leaders are daringly given higher weights than old leaders
DRV 10%, LIT 10%, both exceed HYPE 7%
The institutional judgment is that the Perp DEX track has not yet taken shape, and later entrants still have a chance to overtake; they do not blindly respect existing market cap. This approach is completely opposite to retail chasing leaders
4/ Crypto public markets: fully betting on compliant infrastructure
- Securitize (SECZ) 20%
- Circle (CRCL) 18%
- Coinbase (COIN) 18%
- Bitwise Hyperliquid ETF (BHYP) 14%
- Robinhood (HOOD) 14%
- Bullish (BLSH) 7%
- Figure Technology (FIGR) 5%
- BlackRock (BLK) 2%
- WisdomTree (WT) 2%
Not a single MSTR, not a single BMNR, not a single mining stock
In Citrini's eyes, "crypto stocks" are not leveraged proxies for BTC, but "the next generation of financial infrastructure"
Securitize at 20% ranks first. This position carries a lot of weight, placing the RWA issuance layer above Circle and Coinbase
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❚ Retail investors copying the homework, please copy this point
The greatest value of an institutional basket is not telling you what to buy, but telling you how they group things
The spine of this basket is actually just one sentence
"Cash flow + users + auditable" is what Citrini believes is crypto's next main line
- The derivatives track has the hardest cash flow, top allocation 39%
- Yield staking assets have real duration demand, top allocation 27%
- Compliant infrastructure has entry channels for traditional capital; the public market basket is entirely this type
As for Meme, AI Agent coins, L2 airdrop coins, Citrini put none of them in
Not that they do not understand them, but that they understand them and think they are not worth occupying a position
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Teachers, which weight in this basket do you think is the most counterintuitive?