HOR WATCHLIST
JANUARY 2025
Purpose: The purpose of the HOR Watchlist is to highlight 5 noteworthy projects for the
month.
Process: The projects were picked based on capital raised, stage of project, type of funding,
who the lead investors are and tiers of the investors, impact on current industry, and potential
to get sector market share.
Projects of the Month
1. Aztec (Privacy Ethereum L2)
2. Sentient (AI)
3. Chaos Labs (Real Time Market Data for DeFi Protocols)
4. Securitize (Tokenized Real World Assets)
5. Particle Network (Blockchain)
Overall Potential Score
Each project will be scored from A to C. A meaning the project has high potential. C meaning
the project has low potential. The projects will be ranked from lowest potential to highest
potential.
1. Sentient: Raised $85M in total. The two lead investors were Pantera Capital (Tier 1
Venture Capital) and Framework Ventures (Tier 2 Venture Capital). Sentient aims to
usher in an OpenAI economy by creating platforms and protocols that allow AI
developers to monetize their creations. I believe the experience of the team will allow
them to make an impact on the current AI industry along with getting a significant
share of the market. Score: B
2. Aztec: Raised $119M in Series B in total. Aztec is currently in testnet and an airdrop is
confirmed. The two lead investors were Andreessen Horowitz (Tier 1 Venture Capital)
and Paradigm (Tier 1 Venture Capital). Aztec is a L2 for Ethereum that allows users to
send private transactions. I believe this can be used by businesses to hide their
important transactions so wallet trackers can’t track them which I think will disrupt
the current ETH ecosystem and lead to higher quality dApp innovation. Score: B
3. Particle Network: Raised $23.8M in total and has a $40M valuation. The two lead
investors were The Spartan Group (Tier 1 Venture Capital) and Gumi Cryptos (Tier 3
Venture Capital). There’s also a more recent investment of an undisclosed amount by
Binance Labs (Tier 1 Incubator). Particle Network aims to unify all blockchains through
the use of its Universal Accounts. These universal accounts allow users to use dApps on
any blockchain with any token to be used as gas. I believe this will make crypto as a
whole get closer to mass adoption. Score: A
4. Chaos Labs: Raised $79M in total. The two lead investors were Galaxy (Tier 1 Venture
Capital) and Paypal Ventures (Tier 3 Venture Capital). Chaos Labs provides real time
market data for DeFi protocols. Some of their clients are Aave, Uniswap, Arbitrum, and
Chainlink. There’s no confirmed airdrop announced but it's a project to follow to get in
on ground floor if it does. Score: A
5. Securitize: Raised $121.75M in total. The two lead investors were BlackRock (Tier 1
Corporation) and Blockchain Capital (Tier 1 Venture Capital). Securitize brings high
quality investment opportunities for retail investors, accredited investors, and qualified
purchasers. I believe BlackRock being a lead investor and also being the first to put a
tokenized fund called BUIDL means they are business partners. Securitize’s success
benefits BlackRock so I think it is likely it will use some of its vast resources to help
them succeed. Score: A
Bonus Wild Card: GoMining
GoMining has been in business for 7 years and offers digital miners in the form of NFTs that
reward you with daily BTC rewards. Each digital miner can be upgraded to increase daily
rewards and backed by real physical miners in the 9 Data Centers owned by GoMining. Miners
have been launched on ETH, BSC and recently SOL networks.
GoMining got $3 million from Bitscale Capital which is a tier 2 venture capital. I believe
GoMining will continue to capture market share in the Bitcoin mining sector since it allows
people living in high electricity cost countries to be able to mine Bitcoin through the digital
miner. This provides a simple way to earn Bitcoin without any extra work. NFT flippers can
even buy and sell the NFT on the different marketplaces.
Score: A
