Flagship’s 7 best calls of 2023

It's that time of year for reflection, and at Flagship, we're reflecting on our achievements over the past 12 months. One important aspect of our work is our Intelligence Network, a token-incentivized network of crypto experts who help our community discover great opportunities. Interestingly, our community has also been assisting our experts in this endeavor.

In this article, we're looking back at the top calls made by the Flagship Network throughout 2023. These calls were shared publicly through articles, newsletter highlights, and Telegram posts. Please note that we explicitly expressed bullish sentiments on three occasions: early January, early September, and again in October after the fake ETF news surfaced. Additionally, we consistently provided signals that the market was becoming overbought or frothy. Without further delay, let's review our seven best calls.

#1 Bittensor

After a few weeks of research, we decided to share Bittensor's network token $TAO with our newsletter subscribers and community. On June 25th, we published our first article on the blockchain for AI applications. The price of $TAO was roughly $51 at the time. With its price currently bouncing between $300 and $350, this marks a return of over 500% in just a few months!

As Bittensor was relatively unknown at the time, our article also quickly became the #1 on Google. We followed up by being the first to cover the release of Bittensor's subnets, and now we publish the "State of Bittensor" every month as we’re still convinced this innovative new ecosystem is positioned well to grow exponentially over the next years.

#2 Ordinals and BRC-20 tokens

One of the most interesting innovations this year has been Ordinals, which is a way to add data to Bitcoin's smallest unit of account, Satoshi's. We were actually present at the Twitter Space in which the Ordinals protocol inventor, Casey Rodarmor, first explained the innovation. After this, we wrote our first article on the phenomenon on January 30th. Since then, various Ordinals collections have exploded in popularity and price, even leading to a Sotheby's auction of the new digital collectibles. You can find our top 10 Ordinals projects here.

On top of this, we were also extremely early to BRC-20 tokens, writing our first article about the token version of Ordinals on the 28th of April. Soon after we published the article, one after the other BRC-20 token started exploding in price as the trend caught more mainstream attention. At the time of writing, the trend is still continuing to pick up steam.

#3 Solana and the Solana ecosystem

Our analyst Jash saw right through the FUD surrounding Solana after the collapse of FTX and had a strong thesis for the high-performing blockchain. Late July, he wrote a hit piece with the top 10 new Solana projects (including Jito, which airdropped tens of thousands of dollars worth of their tokens). Shorthly after, in early August, he also shot a short video arguing the Solana would make a comeback. Since then, $SOL has appreciated over 250% while many of the ecosystem tokens mentioned have done even more multiples. It’s also worth mentioning that our community spotted NEON, a new blockchain combining Ethereum and Solana, right before it appreciated 600% and counting.

#4 Real World Assets

Real World Assets are the rage now, but we spotted the #RWA trend early in 2023 after both Citigroup and Blackrock released little-known reports about their potential. In early April, we published articles on tokenized real estate, tokenized US treasuries, tokenized securities, and conducted various deep dives. Among these deep dives were Maple Finance (up over 500%), Polytrade (also up over 500% since our mention), and IXSwap (up 1200% since our interview with the project's founder), among many others. Again, this trend is still unfolding, and while there's definitely risk involved due to high centralization, the RWA trend will continue to grow for the next few decades.

#5 Flagship Community calls

Since our community has been incredibly good at spotting early opportunities, we just have to devote a section to it. The list of excellent spots is long, and many of these are also part of other sections of this article as we often use our community as a source of inspiration for our research and content. But to give you an idea:

• Zephyr, a privacy-focused stablecoin protocol on Monero, has increased over 25 times since it was first mentioned.
• Aqtis, an AI-enabled hedge fund, has returned over 500% from mention to the top.
• Kujira, a Cosmos-based DeFi chain, is up 6 times since we decided to write an article about it based on a community member's spot.

And the list goes on, with new BRC-20 tokens, AI tokens, and Bitcoin Layer 2s especially taking the spotlight currently. Join us to receive all this information directly here!

#6 Stacks and Alex

Our team has been a long-time supporter of the Stacks blockchain, which is a Bitcoin Layer 2 that allows you to do a lot more with your Bitcoin than just hold it. Through Stacks, you can soon start using your Bitcoin in DeFi to earn interest on it or use it as collateral, or even to buy NFTs and Ordinals with it. All without giving away custody to some centralized party. When Stacks' token $STX was $0.67, we wrote an updated article about the blockchain and have since been giving our community regular updates on the network's status and upgrades.

Additionally, we've been shining a lot of light on Stacks' leading DeFi protocol ALEX. We published our first article about the project when it was $0.07 on April 26th, and the token's price has appreciated by over 500%. We believe Stacks still holds a lot of promise, and you can find our top DeFi projects on the Bitcoin Layer 2 here.

#7 AI tokens

We firmly believe that the combination of AI, blockchain, and crypto-assets is a match made in heaven and will remain one of the leading megatrends for the upcoming bull market. I actually wrote about this combination for the first time in 2017, starting to build my thesis after the release of ChatGPT and had my allocation in AI tokens ready on January 5th, 2023.

Since then, the returns of the AI sector in crypto have been nothing less than stellar, with Fetch AI, Autonolas, Paal AI, Render, Bittensor, among various other intriguing projects, returning many, many multiples. As we go into 2024, we're more convinced than ever that the innovation, value creation, and mania in this perfect combination of digital technologies will continue unabated.

We’re just getting started, strap in for 2024

From the beginning, Flagship has aimed to assist individuals in accessing the benefits of cryptocurrency. The convergence of borderless, permissionless, and digital technological advancements, along with network effects, results in unparalleled exponential returns for the majority of people in comparison to other markets.

As shown in this list, we are at the forefront of the crypto economy, and our collective intelligence continues to grow with each new Captain and community member. Additionally, as we enter a new bull market, generating returns becomes easier compared to 2023, which was a confusing year with depressed market participants and unsettling macro conditions. Let's make it happen again in 2024!

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