Blockworks: 27 predictions for 2025

Author: Mippo Source: X, @MikeIppolito_ Translation: Shan Oppa, Golden Finance

1. The United States will re-emerge as a global cryptocurrency hub

The founders will return to the United States and open an office in New York. U.S. crypto conferences will be bigger than their Asian counterparts.

2. More than 10 DeFi protocols will turn on the fee switch

Uniswap will be one of them.

3. DeFi protocols will increasingly adopt the re-hypothecation (re- hypothecation) of customer assets as a business model

Covers cross-chain bridges, liquid pledged tokens (LST), etc.

4. The debate over the direction of Ethereum will be settled

There will only be limited efforts in Ethereum layer 1 (L1) expansion (the Gas target reaches 50 million gwei, and discussions around shortening the block time are heating up), but the development route with Rollup as the core will still be confirmed in the end. The push by Max (Ethereum core developer) will ultimately not succeed.

5. The Ethereum ecosystem will gain much-needed cohesion and market sentiment will become more positive.

Some dissidents will leave the ecosystem out of frustration. ETH token price will perform well.

6. Basic Rollup won’t really take off in 2025

Cross-chain protocols such as Across will provide sufficient interoperability. Achieving universal synchronous composability is still elusive.

7. Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) will become an integral (and ultimately permanent) component of L2 infrastructure

8. 2025 will still be Solana’s cycle

But the cracks will show in 2025. Due to meme currency fragmentation and miner extractable value (MEV) issues, REV (revenue) will be difficult to reach new highs.

Extremist trends will rise in response to these problems.

9. Firedancer will be released in the fourth quarter, Solana TPS reaches 100,000

10. Solana will adjust its token issuance policy to reduce inflation, but Ethereum will not

11. Base will emerge as Solana’s main competitor and become the winner of the Rollup ecosystem

Total assets on Base will exceed $40 billion.

12. Base will become the dominant chain for AI agents (and potential AI branches)

13. Stablecoins will become the main assets held on the L2 chain

The number of stablecoins will be at least twice that of ETH.

14. Stablecoins will usher in explosive growth

The total market value will exceed US$450 billion. Stablecoins will become one of the top three categories for VC investment.

15. More than 5 large financial technology or traditional financial institutions will launch stablecoins in 2025

This will put pressure on existing stablecoins, and the growth rate of existing stablecoins in the market will slow down.

16. More than 10 companies (banks, Web2 giants, etc.) will launch L2 networks

Most of these projects have done nothing and have failed to make significant progress. Possible exceptions are fintech companies like Robinhood.

17. Robinhood will be one of the dominant players in the industry by 2025

With its massive user base and blue-chip brand, Robinhood will rise. By the end of the year, the industry will tie Robinhood with Coinbase as the two leading U.S. exchanges.

18. L1 transactions will still be valid, this trend is not over yet

The fastest "dark horses" will be Sui and HyperLiquid .

19. The ICO wave will re-emerge, but it won’t dominate the market like it did in 2017

Investor protection mechanisms will improve and become more like crowdfunding. Five blue-chip protocols will conduct ICOs.

20. Venture capital will return, but not on the same scale as in 2021

• Total crypto venture capital investment in 2021 : $30 billion

• Estimated investment in 2025 : US$20-25 billion

There will be more funding rounds of $50 million to $100 million.

21. Crypto companies will open the door to IPOs, but they will not explode on a large scale

More than four companies will IPO, but high valuations in 2021 will still hinder the pace of more companies going public. Growth equity investing still won’t be entering crypto at scale.

22. The trend that will dominate the market in 2025 is the integration of AI and encryption

The continued progress of the basic model will attract media attention, thus spawning more AI concept coins.

23. The AI ​​wave will continue and move beyond simple AI agents

Different types of AI agents will be tried (content creators, hedge fund traders, artists, etc.). Most projects will be in the early stages and fail.

24. TikTok’s influence will reach unprecedented heights in 2025

Crypto Twitter (CT) will become the "takeover" of some TikTok cryptocurrencies.

25. The United States will pass important cryptocurrency legislation

An updated version of the market structure or stablecoin bill will be passed and signed into effect.

26. Bitcoin L2 fails to make real progress in 2025

There is still a long way to go before true zero-knowledge (ZK) Bitcoin L2 .

27. Cryptocurrency will be widely seen as a force to be reckoned with in U.S. politics

The mainstream media (MSM) will gradually change their stance and start to realize that cryptocurrencies are not going away.