Fundamentals matter. Understanding the metrics that separate noise from signal.
Now more than ever, the time has come to back founders with a track record of delivering results. In the fast-paced age of AI, anything can be built much easier - agency is the enabler. Ethics and the willingness to grow collectively is now more important than ever.
At ICM Analytics, we bet on teams, their ability to deliver, and we track the fundamentals that make price appreciation of the underlying asset a bet with high odds. This education section equips you with the tools to do the same.
The P/E ratio measures how expensive a protocol is relative to its earnings. It's calculated by dividing the market capitalization (or FDV) by annualized earnings.
Understanding what different P/E ratios mean:
Traditional stock market averages:
Crypto protocols with P/E under 10 are often considered attractive opportunities, especially if revenue is stable or growing.
If a protocol has a market cap of $100M and generates $1M in daily revenue:
Check our Launchpad Rankings where we track live P/E ratios daily for protocols like Heaven, Believe, Pump.Fun, MetaDAO, and Meteora. Watch how these ratios change with revenue fluctuations!
Market Cap represents the total value of all tokens currently in circulation.
FDV represents what the market cap would be if all tokens were in circulation (including locked, vested, and future emissions).
Understanding FDV is critical! Compare protocols in our Launchpad Rankings to see how different supply structures affect valuation. Projects with 98% circulating supply show Market Cap ≈ FDV, while others may have high dilution risk.
Revenue is the total income generated by a protocol in the last 24 hours. This typically includes:
We annualize this number (multiply by 365) to compare against market valuations.
GMV represents the total dollar value of goods or services transacted through a platform over a specific period.
GMV shows the total volume of commerce flowing through a platform, regardless of whether the platform profits from each transaction.
If an e-commerce platform facilitates $100M in sales but only takes a 3% commission:
GMV helps you understand:
$DUPE - $75M+ GMV with 18M+ users. AI-powered price discovery finding identical products at 60-80% less. The token flywheel captures value from this massive transaction volume.
$FITCOIN - $115M+ wardrobe GMV with ~1M users. AI digital closet app tracking what users own and recommending outfits. GMV here represents the total value of wardrobes digitized on the platform.
When tokens are permanently removed from circulation, reducing total supply and potentially increasing scarcity.
When a protocol uses revenue to purchase its own tokens from the market, often to reward users or reduce circulating supply.
The number of tokens currently available and trading in the market.
The maximum number of tokens that will ever exist (including locked, vested, and yet-to-be-minted tokens).
$SIRE demonstrates advanced tokenomics: protocol profits from their aVault are used for buybacks and burns. The better the vault performs, the more tokens get bought back. See the live performance dashboard to understand how performance drives buyback potential.
Prediction markets are exchange-traded markets where participants can bet on the outcome of future events. These markets harness the "wisdom of the crowd" to generate probability estimates for real-world outcomes.
In prediction markets, you buy shares in an outcome. If your predicted outcome occurs, your shares pay out (typically $1). If not, they're worthless.
Traditional betting houses ban winning bettors. Prediction markets operate differently:
AI is revolutionizing prediction markets. $SIRE operates as an on-chain DeAI hedge fund, using AI-powered sports analytics to place bets on platforms like Kalshi. Track their real-time performance on our SIRE Dashboard with 60%+ APY and 58.9% win rate.
Understanding the difference between APY and ROI is crucial for evaluating investment performance, especially in DeFi and vault strategies.
ROI measures the simple percentage gain or loss on an investment, regardless of time.
Example: Invest $10,000, now worth $10,571 = ROI of 5.71%
APY projects your returns to a full year, accounting for compounding. It normalizes returns across different time periods.
A vault generates 5.71% ROI in 33 days:
The same ROI over 365 days would only be 5.71% APY. Time matters!
Our SIRE Dashboard tracks live APY calculations. Watch how the APY changes as more days pass and the vault accumulates returns. Currently showing 63%+ APY based on 33 days of performance data.
DeFAI represents the convergence of decentralized finance protocols with artificial intelligence. These systems use AI agents and machine learning models to make automated financial decisions on-chain.
$SIRE is a prime example of DeFAI in action. Their aVault uses AI-powered sports analytics from Bittensor Subnet 44 to place bets on prediction markets. The team behind it (CrunchDAO) has 10,000+ ML engineers contributing to model improvement. Track live performance here.
In prediction markets and sports betting, win rate alone doesn't tell the full story. Understanding expected value (EV) is essential for evaluating strategy performance.
A 58% win rate means winning 58 out of every 100 bets placed.
Positive EV means the bet is profitable over time, regardless of individual outcomes.
The best strategies optimize for:
Our SIRE Dashboard tracks win rate across 241+ bets. With a 58.9% win rate and $28,574 cumulative P&L, you can see how consistent edge translates to real returns. The dashboard also breaks down performance by sport.
Beyond financial metrics, understanding user behavior is critical for evaluating the long-term viability of any protocol or app. Teams that deliver results show it in their user numbers.
The number of unique users who interact with a platform at least once per month. This is the standard measure of platform engagement and growth.
High retention indicates product-market fit. Users keep coming back because the product delivers value.
Users who interact daily. The DAU/MAU ratio (often called "stickiness") shows how habit-forming the product is:
User growth drives revenue growth. More users = more transactions = more fees = higher token value. But quality matters more than quantity:
$AVICI - 8.29K+ monthly active users with 72.4% retention. Privacy-first crypto banking with metal cards and yield features. Strong retention signals product-market fit in the competitive wallet space.
$DUPE - 18M+ users demonstrating massive reach in AI commerce. The scale here shows the potential of AI-powered price discovery.
$FITCOIN - ~1M users in the digital closet space. Strong engagement in a niche category with high wardrobe GMV per user.
Understanding these metrics helps you:
Now that you understand the metrics, explore our analyses to see them in action: