We are back to the Wild West of bull market rallies.

Tokens can surge in value in an instant, and transaction volumes can push the network to market caps that would have been unthinkable in less bullish times.

To trade cryptocurrencies, whether altcoins or memecoins, you have to be ahead of the curve.

Retail investors need to have the right tools to find the right tokens at the right time and ensure they don’t miss out.

In this article, we’ll take a look at five indispensable tools that you can include in your token hunting arsenal.

1. Dexscreener​

A dream tool for newbies and a staunch ally for veterans, Dexscreener is quickly becoming the go-to platform for those seeking memecoins and altcoins.

Dexscreener’s live data stream allows you to check charts in 5-minute intervals, and it can discover newly launched memecoins across 30 blockchains and track their movements, making it stand out like a Swiss Army knife.

In addition, Dexscreener's iOS and Android apps provide push notifications based on percentage change, price targets, or price changes over a specific time period, allowing users to keep abreast of the market pulse. If you want to ride the wave of token issuance on Solana and Ethereum, or if you just want to keep an eye on the real-time dynamics of DeFi, then Dexscreener will be your best choice.

2. Arkham Intelligence

Arkham Intelligence recognizes that blockchain transactions are often opaque in nature, so it reveals to users what is happening behind anonymous transactions.

Arkham has many features, from an on-chain intelligence market (where users can trade intelligence related to specific wallet addresses) to tools that show a wallet’s current/historical holdings and its overall profit and loss (PnL).

In short, whether you are investing or trading, these tools allow traders to have a valid and informative list of holders to inform your allocation. Like Dexscreener, Arkham also allows you to get real-time push notifications to help you understand the movements of specific wallets, with sending options such as Telegram, email, or even Slack - the choice is yours.

Another great feature is its ability to identify large token holders, giving you insight into whether they are sophisticated on-chain actors, through their use of the Ethereum Name Service (ENS) or activity as an OpenSea user, or whether they are just a one-time wallet.

Overall, whether you want to discover the next big thing, prevent fraud, or simply track the movements of influential wallets, the Arkham AI Intelligence Platform provides a complete set of tools to help you gain blockchain insights.

3. Zapper

Zapper transforms the blockchain into a social media platform, helping you easily browse popular DeFi applications and tokens, veteran DAOs, and NFT collections.

Monitoring can be filtered by network (such as Base, Arbitrum, ETH) or some other limiting criteria, including top token holders, recent buy and sell orders, or the most profitable traders. The user-friendly interface allows both newcomers and experienced veterans to track digital footprints on the network, while also being able to dig deeper, monitor portfolios, and even trade or bridge assets across EVM chains. In addition, it is a SocialFi platform that provides you with the ability to create or enter token-gated chats if you wish.

In summary, it can be said that Zapper treats blockchain as a social network, presenting popular tokens, projects, and NFTs in a familiar and easy-to-understand format, helping you keep up with its amazing pace of development.

4. DefiLlama

The DeFi world is changing almost every day, and DefiLlama stands out as a tool to track DeFi dynamics, monitoring the total locked value (TVL) of all DeFi, blockchains, and dApps built on them.

Through an easy-to-use database, DefiLlama allows users to see the DeFi landscape and evaluate trends such as stablecoin flows and transaction volumes over a specific time frame, while also enabling users to drill down into specific ecosystem and protocol trends, such as how tokens react to TVL or user growth over a period of time. In addition, it tracks funding announcements for new protocols, categorizing them by type and investor to help you perform pattern matching.

Whether you’re analyzing market size, spying on protocol revenue, or tracking venture capital movements, DefiLlama ensures you always have the latest and most complete data.

5. Coinglass

For those wading into the more nuanced world of cryptocurrency derivatives, Coinglass provides an indispensable resource.

The platform stands out for its ability to provide comprehensive data on cryptocurrency derivatives, such as futures trading volume, open interest (two data points often used to identify whether market sentiment is fear or greed), and the extremely useful Bitcoin rainbow chart.

The Bitcoin Rainbow Chart can help users navigate Bitcoin's volatile market cycles, letting users know whether Bitcoin is currently in a buy low or buy high state and what actions should be taken. As mentioned earlier, it also shows that Bitcoin's volatility decreases as it matures, giving a sense of where on the chart Bitcoin is likely to peak and at what price in the current cycle. With Coinglass, you can turn blind guesswork into calculated decisions.