XRP News Today: Grayscale's Q3 2025 Altcoin List Shifts Focus to Avalanche and Morpho

Grayscale has released its Q3 2025 "Top 20" altcoin list, which includes notable changes that reflect a strategic shift in the crypto investment landscape. The list now features Avalanche (AVAX) and Morpho, while Lido DAO (LDO) and Optimism (OP) have been removed. This reshuffle is driven by individual project performance and sector-specific trends, particularly in the realm of smart contract platforms.

The exclusion of prominent tokens like Ripple (XRP) and Cardano (ADA) continues to raise questions about the metrics and market narratives shaping institutional preferences. Despite their active developments, these tokens have been consistently left out of Grayscale's list. Lido, known for its dominance in liquid staking, and Optimism, whose technology powers several Layer 2 networks, face short-term uncertainties. Lido's potential exposure to U.S. regulatory changes and Optimism's lack of significant revenue growth are cited as reasons for their exclusion. Additionally, Grayscale has flagged ambiguity around Optimism's long-term "superchain" vision, especially in light of Ethereum's evolving plans around rollup interoperability.

The inclusion of Avalanche and Morpho in the Q3 2025 Top 20 list underscores Grayscale's focus on real-world adoption and ecosystem momentum. Avalanche, a top smart contract platform by market cap, has seen a notable uptick in network activity, driven by increased gaming and stablecoin usage. This organic growth indicates strengthening utility for AVAX beyond just hype. Meanwhile, Morpho has emerged as a serious contender in the DeFi lending space, boasting over $4 billion in Total Value Locked and significant fee generation. With its latest upgrade, Morpho V2, aiming to connect traditional finance with on-chain lending, Grayscale sees potential for the protocol to play a larger role in DeFi’s evolution.

The exclusion of prominent altcoins like XRP and ADA from Grayscale’s updated Top 20 list appeared to weigh on investor sentiment, with both tokens seeing declines. The timing of these price dips coincided with Grayscale’s announcement of a new investment vehicle, the Grayscale Space and Time Trust. This initiative centers around the Space and Time blockchain, designed to support verifiable, real-time data processing for smart contracts, AI, and dApps. While certain legacy assets are being sidelined, Grayscale’s evolving strategy suggests a pivot toward innovative platforms designed to meet the growing computational demands of the decentralized future.