Virality can drive serious profits in a market driven by FOMO. That means it’s key to stay ahead of trends, and this list showcases the best trends currently bubbling to the surface. Today, we’ll highlight three of the hottest crypto tokens to buy in January, each with unique reasons to be bullish, tremendous profit potential, and bright futures ahead of them. Jump in to find out more.
Hottest cryptos to buy in January:
- iDEGEN: Crypto’s wildest AI creation yet
- AAVE: The titan of DeFi
- Pudgy Penguins: Building a world beyond NFTs
iDEGEN: Crypto’s wildest AI creation yet
Will 2025 be the year that an AI goes rogue? With iDEGEN in the picture, it just might be. iDEGEN is an AI that is not bound by corporate handbooks or ethical constraints; instead, it is trained entirely by the degens of crypto Twitter. Every hour, this AI posts whatever it’s learned and replies to everyone who interacts with it. It’s the answer to what some have pondered over the past year: what happens when degens raise an AI?
In just a few weeks, iDEGEN has transformed its pre-launch auction into a spectacle. That’s because its adaptive auction mechanism pumps pure adrenaline through investors’ veins. IDGN’s price recalibrates every five minutes in the presale based on demand. Two buys in a row equal a 5% jump, while a pause creates a 5% drop. This market-driven pricing creates a fair token price before open market launch and keeps buyers on their toes.
The results have been incredible. IDGN has risen 8,109% and raked in $12.5m, fueled by FOMO and the opportunity to jump in early on one of the most original ideas in crypto.
Tokens are to be listed at a 10% premium on the final presale price, and unsold tokens will be burned. It’s an open question of where iDEGEN will go next. Its creators think it could race towards the Degen Singularity, but it could become a trading savant, expert troll, or anything in between. This rollercoaster is just starting, with IDGN on track to become 2025’s hottest crypto.
Visit the iDEGEN website to learn more.
AAVE: The titan of DeFi
Aave is a decentralized finance (DeFi) platform that lets users lend and borrow various cryptocurrencies without traditional intermediaries. Users can earn interest by depositing assets into Aave’s liquidity pools, while borrowers can access loans by providing collateral. One of Aave’s most popular features is flash loans—uncollateralized loans that must be repaid within a single transaction block, providing opportunities for arbitrage and refinancing.
Aave remains the top lending protocol going into 2025. It currently has more than $20 billion in total value locked (TVL), a new all-time high post-November. News has also emerged of Donald Trump-affiliated World Liberty Financial buying $1 million worth of AAVE tokens, helping to pump the token 30% on the day of disclosure.
That comes as AAVE continues its bullish run from a trough between 2022 and 2024. From a low of around $128 in early November, AAVE has moved almost 200% to a peak in December, priced at over $300 and edging closer to its 2021 high of $631.
Thanks to its leading position in the DeFi space and its recent endorsement, AAVE could soon reach this target, making it one of January’s hottest cryptos.
Pudgy Penguins: Building a world beyond NFTs
Pudgy Penguins began life as a collection of 8,888 unique penguin-themed NFTs on the Ethereum blockchain, each with its own distinct personality. Launched in July 2021, these NFTs sold out in just 19 minutes.
Since then, the project has expanded beyond digital art. Pudgy Penguins now offers physical merchandise, including branded toys, at major retailers like Walmart and Amazon. They’ve also ventured into gaming with the announcement of Pudgy Party, a mobile game that brings their “good vibes” penguin characters to smartphones.
In December 2024, Pudgy Penguins launched its native token, PENGU, on the Solana blockchain, airdropping 25.9% of its 88.88 billion tokens to the Pudgy community and 24.12% to SOL and ETH holders. The attention received helped push its NFT collection to new heights, and it is now the fifth most traded NFT of all time.
PENGU quickly hit a market cap of $3.5 billion after launch, though a steep sell-off has pushed that number down to around $2 billion today. However, PENGU seems to have found a floor around $0.03. With the goal of bringing Web3 to the masses and an avid community behind it, Pudgy Penguins is one of January’s hottest cryptos.
These hottest cryptos look like excellent buys
The crypto market thrives on trends, and these three projects look set to ride them to stardom in January. Each has already attracted significant attention, with strong potential to outperform in the year ahead. Whether driven by advanced tech or rapidly growing communities, all three look set for a stellar 2025.