Antelux Research · Report

The Antelux 250: August 2026

The top 250 cryptocurrencies, graded mechanically on fundamentals, real on-chain usage, momentum, and risk. What the ratings say about where the market actually stands.

Data as of August 27, 2026 · refreshed every 15 minutes · methodology public at anteluxresearch.io/methodology

Key findings

  • Essentially all of the market's value sits in the top two bands: A and B grades hold 98.9% of the $2.39T rated market cap, while 124 coins graded C or below share 1.1%.
  • Real usage is rarer than market caps suggest: only 117 of 250 rated assets generated any measurable fee revenue in the last 24 hours, 58 earn an annualised fee yield above 1% of market cap, and 28 exceed 10%.
  • 44 coins secure more value on-chain than their own market cap, a list dominated by DeFi lending and exchange protocols rather than Layer 1s.
  • The bottom of the market is structurally damaged, not just cheap: the 19 F-rated coins sit an average of 75% below their all-time highs.
  • Concentration remains extreme: the ten largest assets account for 93%of the rated universe's value.

Where the grades landed

Grades are percentile bands within the rated universe, so their coin counts are by construction. What is not by construction is where the money sits.

GradeCoinsShare of rated market cap
A1925.1%
B10773.8%
C740.8%
D310.2%
F19<0.1%

The uncomfortable finding: Bitcoin grades B

The model currently grades Bitcoin B, with a composite of 89. That is not an editorial opinion, and no one overrode it: grades are relative percentiles, and this week the top of the table is crowded with assets earning measurable fee revenue against their market caps while Bitcoin's momentum cooled. A mechanical scale that never embarrasses anyone is not measuring anything. We publish what it says, and the full scorecard shows exactly which pillar did it.

Category scoreboard

DeFi tops the table on average score, which follows directly from the methodology: protocols that earn fees and secure value score on evidence Layer 1s and infrastructure tokens often lack. Memecoins scoring above Layer 1s on average is the scale being honest about what it measures: turnover and momentum are real, measured properties, and memes have them in abundance. That is an argument for reading the pillar breakdown, not just the letter.

CategoryCoinsAvg scoreLeader
DeFi2084Aave A
Meme980Pepe A
Exchange875OKB A
AI774Virtuals Protocol B
Oracle360Chainlink A
L13958Solana A
L2746POL (ex-MATIC) B
Infra643Ondo B

The current A list

An A is the top 8% of the universe and additionally requires at least median fundamentals. 19 coins clear the bar today:

CoinScoreFee yield (ann.)Value secured
AaveAAVE9922.5%$18.1B
Pump.funPUMP99122.6%$330.3M
PepePEPE99
HyperliquidHYPE988.9%$6.8B
OKBOKB98$30.0B
MorphoMORPHO9815.7%$9.5B
SkySKY9820.5%$5.9B
Pudgy PenguinsPENGU98
LighterLIT9720.7%$610.7M
SolanaSOL960.55%$5.7B
UniswapUNI9655.2%$3.4B
MonadMON962.0%$948.7M
EthereumETH950.04%$49.5B
ZcashZEC95<0.01%$2.3M
EthenaENA95<0.01%$4.5B
ChainlinkLINK940.09%$1.8B
BNBBNB920.26%$5.6B
XRPXRP92$41.9M
Ether.fiETHFI9132.9%$5.3B

Method, in one paragraph

Every coin in the top 250 by market cap (excluding stablecoins, wrapped assets, and tokenized real-world assets) is scored on four weighted pillars: fundamentals (35%), on-chain usage measured by fees actually paid and value actually secured (25%), momentum (20%), and inverted risk (20%). Scores are percentile ranks within the universe, refreshed every 15 minutes, with no analyst overrides and no way for a project to influence its grade. Daily scores are recorded append-only, so every claim in this report can be checked against the record later. Full detail: methodology.

Citing this report: “Antelux Research, The Antelux 250 (August 2026), anteluxresearch.io/research/antelux-250-august-2026”. Figures on this page are computed live from the current ratings table; the as-of date above tells you when. Press: contact@anteluxresearch.io