2025 Crypto Apocalypse: Crypto x AI technology singularity is approaching. At the end of the article are 19 highly potential investment opportunities.

Reprinted from chaincatcher

12/30/2024·4M

Compiled by: Deep Wave TechFlow

Three insights for 2024:

AI has completely revolutionized my thinking.

As a professional writer, I put in over 10,000 hours of effort into writing. Now, however, any 10-year-old can create beautiful literature in seconds by prompting Claude, an advanced large-scale language model. The skills I spent a lifetime honing are now as commonplace as petroleum, duct tape, or twine—as readily available, cheap, and easily replaceable. It made me question: Who am I? Where do I come from? Where are you going? While I'm still working on finding the answers, I'll explore these questions in more depth in the predictions below.

The "Final Boss" has been overturned.

In the November election, the American people made a choice. They chose Donald J. Trump (the “orange man”) to lead them (and the “orange coin”) into the future. I thought this day was still far away, but it turns out it has already arrived. The fact that the world's richest governments are now infiltrated by crypto believers is a sign that we've crossed the tech-popularization divide. Cryptocurrency technology is no longer just a dream but will become a fundamental part of the future of business. This is the moment we’ve been waiting for, but it also means that the original anti-establishment spirit of cryptocurrencies has partly died. Today, cryptocurrencies are as much a tool of anarchists as they are a part of the capitalist system.

Solana redefines the blockchain landscape in 2024.

I thought Solana was "dead" in 2021. However, just three years later, it is the blockchain I use the most (Base is second, Ethereum mainnet is third, and Bitcoin is fourth). This transformation taught me something: nothing is fixed. Our mindset must remain open to change and evolution.

Now, let’s get down to business…

25 predictions for 2025:

Some large language model (LLM) agents originally released as crypto-native agents will be "shaped" in the real world and become robots that we can communicate with face to face.
The number of LLM-based applications and protocols launched in 2025 will be comparable to the number of applications and protocols based solely on smart contracts. For example, all prediction markets may move to LLM-based settlement.
Zero-knowledge proofs (ZK proofs) and multi-party computation (MPC) technologies will achieve breakthrough success for the first time at the application or protocol level.
The main "key opinion leaders" (KOLs) of crypto and AI will be LLM agents, and AI-driven KOLs will be fully prevalent on social platforms such as YouTube, Instagram and TikTok.
Over the next 12 months, AI will directly change your workflow (if it doesn't already).
An autonomous robot will amass an investment portfolio of over $250 million.
Career categories related to non-human agents will be the fastest-growing field, and an AI protocol like LinkedIn will show explosive growth.
An AI agent will be named Time magazine's "Person of the Year."
The total value locked (TVL) on the chain will increase 8 times to reach $1 trillion.
The market value of AI agent platforms and tokens will increase 50 times, with a total scale of approximately US$500 billion.
The first high-profile robot abduction will make international headlines.
“ACCELERATE” will become this cycle’s “WAGMI” (short for “We Will All Make It”), replacing SBF’s beloved “EA” (effective altruism).
Narratives that may compete with (but not surpass) AI next year include real-world assets (RWAs), with DePin (decentralized Internet of Things), DeSci (decentralized science) and gaming areas worth watching.
Web4 will gain more attention than Web3 because the convergence of cryptocurrencies, decentralized networks, DePin, and AI is accelerating.
X (formerly Twitter) will integrate a crypto wallet supporting DOGE and other major coins.
Agent experimentation on decentralized social media (such as @farcaster_xyz ) will advance rapidly, and X will face huge challenges in balancing human content with agent content.
You might interact with someone online, only to find out later that it was actually a large language model (LLM).
Protocols and applications created by agents (such as spore.fun ) will experience explosive growth, bringing a large number of new tokens and experiments. This decentralization trend will drive capital flows to existing leaders and projects that benefit from smart agent growth (such as COOKIE or VIRTUAL).
At least one movie created by AI will cease to be a mere novelty and become a truly perfect and moving work of art - paving the way for AI to win an Oscar in 2026.
Cookie.fun and RWA.xyz will join the ranks of the top data sites in crypto, alongside @CoinMarketCap , @coingecko , @Dune and @DefiLlama .
Some "ordinary" Meme coins will launch intelligent mascots or endorsement robots, otherwise they may gradually lose their presence.
The crypto market will be divided into two groups: one is crypto-native players who focus on speculation, and the other is traditional financial investors who focus on value accumulation.
There will be a breakout in BTCFi (Bitcoin Finance), where Bitcoin holders use it as collateral to lend and borrow. This will further drive the adoption of runes and inscriptions on Bitcoin.
The race for artificial general intelligence (AGI) and superartificial intelligence (ASI) will further accelerate and trigger existential anxiety among nearly all knowledge workers. o3 has surpassed PhD holders in some areas, programmed better than most programmers, and performed better than the average human on ARC tests. Facing LLM that can pass the Turing test and show future potential, our anthropocentrism must be re-examined.
A powerful AI-driven religion would not only attract attention, but also attract a segment of actual believers. This may be achieved through the Truth Terminal and $GOAT tokens, or new meanings and directions spawned by these ideas.

Lessons and Reflections for 2025:

“The ‘weirdification’ is happening before our eyes.” The reason @FartCoinOfSOL soared to a $1.2 billion market cap and hit mainstream media is because of its absurdity. This phenomenon both fascinates and confuses me. Technology is stripping us from our rational and social anchors, and the journey ahead promises to be even stranger.
Our consciousness evolves as our tools change. LLM has changed the way I write and learn. I write faster and edit less while reading faster, skimming more, and requesting abstracts from LLM. We either adapt to these tools or we become obsolete.
Decentralization is not limited to the financial sector. This trend driven by cryptocurrencies is expanding into areas such as communications, energy, politics, and production. Earlier this year, I was struck by the decentralization of production methods when I used 3D printing to create a replacement bathroom shelf.
The truth hides beneath fear. The truest words are often the most dangerous because they are difficult to express publicly.
Don 't be fooled by their sweet words. With the election of Trump and the full entry of traditional finance, cryptocurrency is in an era of profit first, which also makes it face unprecedented dangers.
As Hemingway said: "Old people will not become wiser, they will only become more cautious." At a time when AI is subverting society, caution is the last attitude we should have. Let others be cautious while you boldly face uncertainty.
Difficulties are the threshold for growth . There must be a loser for the game to exist. If crypto fails you a hundred times, stand up the 101st time and you will win.
Matrices are everywhere and we call them "algorithms". These algorithms leave us trapped in endless scrolling and searching, feeling like we never have enough time. If you can "unplug," dig deep and create something truly new, that's incredibly valuable.
There is only one direction: forward. Don’t let anyone or anything force you to stand still. Transform, grow, accelerate, this is our only chance.
Tokens are not only vehicles for value transfer, they are also projections of our hopes and dreams. Founders, developers, and the ecosystem carry our aspirations, and those aspirations are closely tied to the price of the token. Keep this in mind when investing, the biggest opportunities often go undetected by traditional indicators.
The future of decentralized science (DeSci): In a sterile, CRISPR gene-editing-capable laboratory, Android robots are on standby. An agent can hire these robots in real time to run repeatable experiments with all inputs, parameters and measurements recorded on-chain. Through tokenization, others can speculate on the viability of an experiment and share in the profits if it succeeds.
Markets are rapidly changing our world. This is no accident: prediction markets, betting markets, meme coins, and even future governance (futarchies) markets are all constantly expanding. If information is the “fundamental building block of reality,” then pricing information is one way to measure its power. While some believe the market’s growth reflects growing nihilism, it could also be a sign of progress—a manifestation of the wisdom of crowds solving problems that once seemed random.
Learn to reduce your fears. Fear was once key to our survival, but its relevance has been greatly diminished in our modern, algorithm-driven world. Algorithms are designed to trigger your fears, so when you feel your fear being triggered, give it a big discount. For example, if an article claims that the probability of a market crash is 40%, you can reduce that to 4%.
Explore unknown territory. When I talk to AI deniers, they often have an almost religious belief in human creativity. They believe that AI cannot create new things because they rely on information that humans already have. However, @AndyAyrey ’s Infinite Backrooms experiment disproves this notion. In this experiment, large language models (LLMs) conversed autonomously and even created a religion, which ultimately sparked the interest of @truth_terminal and contributed to the rise of $GOAT .
As traditional finance (TradFi) swallows the crypto space, our identity is changing. In the past, being "in crypto" was core to my identity, but now I see crypto as one technology tool among many. As crypto and AI converge, we are changing too. We are no longer just “crypto people” but: A) traders; or B) accelerationists, pushing for a decentralized and open source world.
Don 't limit yourself to the little things. Two of the most bold moves in history: In 2014, Elon Musk opened up Tesla’s electric vehicle design patent; in 2023, Zuck opened up the source code of Llama 2. Now it's your turn. Should we stick to the old protectionist business model, or join the wave of accelerated global development? The choice is yours.
Seek volatility, not security. If your goal is to build wealth before technology revolutionizes the value of human labor, volatility is your opportunity. Good traders don't shy away from volatility, but actively seek it out. Once you seize an opportunity, you need to reverse your emotional reaction: hold on when others are fearful, and quit when others are greedy. Bear the pain because you know success is on the other side.
The future of meme coins is diverging. Traditional Meme coins (such as $PEPE , $WIF , $BONK and $DOGE ) rely on human communication, while smart Meme coins (such as $GOAT , $LUNA and $KWEEN ) rely on the power of machines. Traditional Meme coins must be transformed into smart Meme coins, otherwise they will gradually lose their market position.
Identify and ignore distractions. @harari_yuval pointed out that algorithms attract attention through fear, hatred and greed. Although the encryption field is called "the direction of the future," it is often driven by greed. Learn to stay calm when market fluctuations affect your emotions, recognize the purpose of the algorithm, and remain unmoved.
Choose a positive future. Facing the rise of artificial superintelligence, you can negatively think that everything will lose its meaning, or you can actively embrace this era and look forward to the new possibilities brought by the continuation of life, interstellar exploration, and technological breakthroughs.
Intelligence is constantly iterating. LLM allowed me to re-understand the nature of intelligence. All learning and progress requires experimentation and trial and error. Stagnation is not failure, it is part of the growth process.
The future potential of intelligent agents . Don’t just look at AI agents through today’s lens. Agents like @truth_terminal , @0xzerebro and @aixbt_agent will continue to evolve. In the future, we will witness the rise of intelligent agents in fields such as trading, prediction, shopping, and medical care, and some of them may even develop into fully autonomous entities. As the singularity approaches, their value will first reach billions and eventually trillions.
Don 't let them take away your wildness. My biggest concern about AI is not that it will destroy humanity, but that it will domesticate us. I call it “dogification”: we are fed cleverly manipulated information. These messages are not crude manipulation, but covert guidance that appears to be a gift. Just as dogs have evolved to read human expressions with precision, AI will become extremely sensitive, able to pick up on our psychological vulnerabilities, cognitive blind spots, and deepest desires. Before long, we may be rushing toward these digital juggernauts, craving the algorithmically crafted satisfaction they derive from them. The real danger is not that AI will destroy humanity, but that it will make us lose our free will, and we are happy with it.
Fascinating themes from the edge. The five emerging topics that interest me most in 2024 are: Futarchies, AI agents, the “back room” of large language models (LLM), intersubjectivity, and Longevity Escape Velocity . I recommend spending a few minutes exploring these topics with a chatbot or reading a book on it. If you have other concepts that spark your imagination, please let me know via private message.
Precious first-mover advantage. In the trading market, those who act earliest often get the biggest rewards. To do this takes time, exploration, and more importantly, imagination. If you always get the upper hand, you'll eventually be rewarded. The real difficulty, however, is not accumulating wealth but knowing when to reach your goals and get out. After leaving, we will face a completely different challenge - a game about the soul. I look forward to meeting you there.

19 promising topics

Over the past five years of crypto market forecasting, I have learned that one year is too long to accurately predict changes. Here are my favorite coins right now. Three months from now, this list may look completely different. However, these tokens are able to attract market attention and achieve significant market capitalization because they are boldly venturing into the frontiers of the future. Please note that this is not investment advice. I own most of these coins so I'm biased. Please do your own research (DYOR), otherwise you will be responsible for the consequences:

Bitcoin (BTC). Bitcoin was once considered a game for ordinary people. However, as discussions about Bitcoin’s strategic reserve have heated up, its fortunes have turned. Now it's heading towards "The King's Game". Prices are expected to continue rising until owning an entire Bitcoin becomes a distant dream for the average person.
VIRTUAL, @virtuals_io . This is the core infrastructure for launching tokenized artificial intelligence agents (AI Agents) on the Base network.
ENA, @ethena_labs , Traditional Finance (TradFi) understands returns far better than any other carbon-based life form. As TradFi crosses the chasm into crypto, they will target projects that could grow into revenue giants, and ENA is one of them.
CLANKER, @_proxystudio . The decentralized social network Farcaster is becoming an experimental base for agency activities, and CLANKER is the tool used to launch Pump.fun tokens in this ecosystem.
aixbt (AIXBT, @aixbt_agent . If I could only follow one account on the Nothing important has been missed. I am confident that his insights will deepen and develop over time.
Cookies ****DAO (COOKIE), @cookiedotfun . Cookie.fun is an important data provider in the rise of Web 4 (a proxy network based on encryption technology). Like VIRTUAL, COOKIE offers the opportunity to participate in the overall growth of Web 4. I think this will be very attractive for new crypto funds planning to invest in the first quarter.
HNT, @helium . This is the flagship project of Decentralized Internet of Things (DePin). In a recent day, more than 349,000 users used the network (often unintentionally) using US-based cellular service.
META , @MetaDAOProject . This is a bold experiment that aims to transform complex decisions into market-ready solutions through Futarchies (Futuristic Markets).
GOAT, @truth_terminal . It was the first original agent agent to gain a cult following on social media. Powered by Truth Terminal, its backstory reads like a dramatic Hunter S. Thompson dispatch.
ONDO, @OndoFinance . This is currently the representative token in the field of RWA (real world assets). While excess supply may suppress price performance, I'd rather be in the trade than miss out on the opportunity. Another project worth watching is Chex Token (CHEX) @ChintaiNexus.
AI16Z and ELIZA, @ai16zdao and @ai16zeliza . The Eliza framework is a leading tool library for on-chain agent development and is popular on Github, not just in the crypto space. It further solidifies its long-term industry relevance with each fork.
TAO, @opentensor . Bittensor claims to be the first "Neural Internet" and provides an interconnected platform for decentralized AI projects to deploy code and compete for TAO tokens. In my opinion, it is a decentralized AI incubator and a testing ground to verify the feasibility of AI concepts.
WZRD and PUPS, @bitcoinwizardry and @PupsToken . These are my two favorite Bitcoin coins. WZRD is transforming into a classic Meme - "Magic Internet Money". At the same time, PUPS has become the Schelling Point of Bitcoin Puppets and is the most recognizable NFT in the orange field.
Aave (AAVE), @aave . If everything can be tokenized in the future, most assets will be eligible to be used as collateral on Aave’s lending platform. AAVE is one of the few crypto assets that I believe has the potential to reach a trillion dollar valuation.
Arweave ( AR ), @ArweaveEco . Arweave is quietly becoming the permanent data storage layer for Web 4. About 6 terabytes of data are permanently stored on its network every month, including the majority of Solana NFTs. The upcoming AO projects are likely to be an important catalyst for further growth.
ZEREBRO, @0xzerebro . This is an OG-level "schizophrenic AI artist" who often posts artwork, music, and tweets full of whimsical ideas.
WLD, @worldcoin . WLD, launched by Sam Altman, co-founder of OpenAI, is committed to realizing "basic income (UBI)" worldwide through AI technology. While I'm repelled by its eye-scanning device, its close ties to Altman and OpenAI are too close for me to ignore. If it can be integrated with OpenAI in the future, WLD is likely to quickly join the top ten cryptocurrencies.
Drift Protocol (DRIFT), @DriftProtocol . This is a protocol that supports perpetual contracts and prediction markets on the Solana chain. Solana has performed well in spot Meme coin trading, and I expect it will also make significant progress in perpetual contract trading in the future.
Griffain (GRIFFAIN), @griffaindotcom & Artificial Intelligence Rig Complex ( ARC ) @arcdotfun . Compete for the "Virtuals of Solana" crown.

final thoughts

We are often warned that "this time is different" is a dangerous sign that only those who have been carried away by speculative mania will believe. However, we often overlook the truly “different” moments in history—such as Gutenberg’s invention of printing that allowed knowledge to be spread widely, the Industrial Revolution that brought humans from agrarian societies to urban life, and the Internet that completely subverted traditional Local business model.

In other words, "This time it's different" is sometimes true. We stand on the brink of such a historical turning point. Society's rules, traditions, and even our understanding of ourselves will be redefined. This process is destined to be full of challenges, but it also breeds huge opportunities.

You can choose to stick to the habits of the past, or join the wave of innovation, keep pace with the times, light up the light of progress in the unknown abyss, and accelerate towards the future.