In a comprehensive review of its 2025 strategy, global cryptocurrency exchange HTX detailed a year of aggressive and selective asset expansion, adding 166 new cryptocurrencies to its platform. The exchange's approach focused on securing first-mover advantage in emerging narratives, which translated into significant gains for early investors in tokens like PIPPIN (95x), DONKEY (69x), M (42x), and the politically-charged TRUMP (10x).
The strategy was built on four key pillars: capitalizing on macro-political narratives, capturing community sentiment within specific ecosystems like Binance Smart Chain (BSC), positioning ahead of forward-looking tech trends such as AI Agents and the x402 sector, and maintaining a long-term focus on valuable infrastructure like perpetual DEXs. For instance, HTX was the first global exchange to list the TRUMP memecoin in January 2025 and later listed the USD1 stablecoin and WLFI governance token from the Trump-affiliated World Liberty Financial project.
Looking ahead to 2026, HTX announced a strategic pivot towards more fundamental, value-driven asset selection. The exchange will prioritize projects with verifiable revenue streams, regulatory clarity, and sustainable business models, while imposing stricter standards on high-fully-diluted-valuation (FDV), low-circulation venture capital tokens and purely sentiment-driven memecoins. HTX outlined four high-conviction sectors for focus: Real World Assets (RWA) and tokenization, prediction markets, revenue-verifiable perpetual DEXs and derivatives infrastructure, and mobile-first PayFi solutions and super DApps.
