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Author: Paul Veradittakit, Managing Partner, Pantera Capital Source: veradiverdict Translation: Shan Oppa, Bitchain Vision
Last week, Coindesk released my 8 forecasts for 2025,I want to release the full version here, including an overview of this year, my review of the 2024 forecast and a forecast for 2025.
Every year, bulls and bears use short-term case studies to predict destruction or exponential growth of cryptocurrencies.But every year, neither group is completely correct.
Some major events this year: Ethereum Dencun upgrade, U.S. election, crypto ETF, Wyoming DUNA bill, wBTC dispute, Robinhood received Wells notice, Hyperliquid’s nearly $2 billion airdrop, Bitcoin breaking $100,000, and SEC Chairman Gary Gensler announced that it will be in JanuaryResign.
There were no major market turmoil in 2024.While not bringing a lot of new capital, it proves that more and more cryptocurrency companies are capable of sustainability.Bitcoin market value reaches$1.9 trillion, the total value of all other cryptocurrencies$1.6 trillion.The total market value of the cryptocurrency market has doubled since the beginning of 2024.
The diversification of the crypto market has enhanced its ability to deal with shocks.Payment, DeFi, gaming, ZK, infrastructure and consumer-level applications are all growing, and each sub-field has its own funding ecosystem, market, incentive mechanisms and bottlenecks.
This year at Pantera, we invest in companies targeting specific issues in these ecosystems.
•Crypto Gaming CompanyWe have faced difficulties in adopting Web3 data analytics tools, so we investedHelika, a game analysis platform.
•Web3 AI ProductsDue to the fragmentation of the AI technology stack, it often faces promotion challenges, soSahara AIDesigned to create an all-in-one platform that enables permissionless contributions while maintaining a seamless user experience similar to Web2.
• IntentInfrastructure chaos, the order flow is scattered, soEverclearStandardize the process by connecting all stakeholders.
•zkVM integration complex,thereforeNexusModular approach is adopted to meet customer needs that only partially require a single super-large tier.
•Consumer ApplicationsFacing the problem of attracting users, we areTONThe largest investment ever made, the blockchain is directly connected to Telegram’s950 million monthly active users.
2025, we will enter the new year driven by possible regulatory clarity, continued mainstream interest and rising cryptocurrency prices.Even though the market is slightly sluggish this summer, crypto users are entering the New Year with strong optimism (or “greed”) sentiment.
CoinMarketCap’s Fear and Greed Index
2024 Forecast Review
Last year, I made a prediction for this year.Here I rate myself,1 point means the most inaccurate, 5 points means the most accurate.
1. The Revival of Bitcoin and “Summer of DeFi 2.0”
Accuracy: 4/5
• In 2023, Bitcoin price has been from January$16,000Rising to December$40,000High point.
• The price of Bitcoin has exceeded$90,000,Bitcoin dominance exceeds 60% this year.
• It does appearBitcoin DeFi Summer, but the success of the definition depends on the specific indicator.
•Less than 1% of BitcoinWrapped and used for DeFi, with a weak growth compared to last year.Bitcoin ecosystems such as Mezo, Stacks and Merlin have built communities but have struggled with sustained user growth.
• I have predicted that Ordinals, inscriptions, and pledges may cause1% of Bitcoin users try DeFi, but this prediction has not been fully realized.
However, this yearBabylonAllow users to lock Bitcoin directly without packaging, attracting$2 billionBitcoin.Price increases also help TVL achieve$3.549 billionIt was last year10 times(TTVL was about $300 million last year), but from what I predicted1% or about 200,000 Bitcoins(Current value$19 billion) There is still a gap.
2. Tokenized social experience for new consumption scenarios
Accuracy: 2/5
• If not includedmeme coins, forecast market or gambling applications, then this prediction is basically lost.
• The definition of tokenized social experience evolved this year,The rise and success of on-chain gamesBecome the focus.
• based onTON (Telegram),ArbitrumThe games on platforms such as this are excellent, and the tokenization mechanism has been successfully integrated into the game.
•FarcasterThe growth (and frames) has stabilized.Helium, Grass, Blackbird, etc.DePin ProjectStill in its early stages.
But in terms of new consumption scenarios, few achievements have been made.We invested in Morph, a global consumer sector, and hoped it would be the leader in this area.
3. Traditional finance and DeFi growth, such as stablecoins and mirror assets
Accuracy: 5/5
• ETF purchases continue to grow, with record total Ethereum and Bitcoin ETFs$119 billion.
ETH and Bitcoin ETF liquidity
Since the beginning of this year, the number of RWAs has grown by more than 60%, reaching more than $13 billion, and the number of stablecoins has also reached an all-time high of $192 billion.
RWA data
Mirrored Assets became a hot topic, with Ethena, Ondo and M^0 leading the trend of mirrored assets.Annualized rate of return (APY) for assets like sUSDe is close to30%.
Agreement asMorphoandPendleThese assets are allowed to be leveraged, yield farming, revolving lending, etc.
SuperstateThe agreements such as the other party further strengthened the direct connection between traditional finance (TradFi) and decentralized finance (DeFi).
4. Cross-fusion of modular blockchain and zero-knowledge proof (ZK)
Accuracy: 4/5
ZK Proof is an efficient way of verification or proof that has been successfully integrated into multiple blockchains and protocols as infrastructure components.
•Polygon, Conduit, and OP StackNow integrated fromSuccinct’s SP1.
•NexusandQED and CalderaThe agreement reached cooperation, but it has not yet ushered in explosive growth.
Although there has been some progress, it has not yet reached the level of exponential growth.
5. More computing-intensive applications (such as AI and DePIN) are gradually put on the link
Accuracy: 2/5
Despite the price increase, there are actually very few computing-intensive applications that are truly on-chain.
•A few AI projectsApart from its token value, it has not yet been widely recognized by the market.
•HeliumIt is one of the few companies that have truly developed more competitive products than the Web2 alternative.
•GrassTo a certain extent, this trend is in line with it, but overall,The wave of DePIN (Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Network) has not yet arrived yet.
6. The integration of public chain ecosystem and the “central radiation model” of Appchain
Accuracy: 2/5
Although some application chains choose Hub-and-Spoke mode, we observe an interesting trend:
• Applications choose to create their own chains, usually through Rollup as a Service (RaaS) providers or specific ecosystems (e.g.Arbitrum OrbitorOP Stack) build it.For example:
•UnichainAdoptedOP Stack.
• Application Chain Discovery that subscribing to a platform with built-in interoperability protocols and other features is simpler and more performant than building your own central radiation chain.
On the underlying architecture, many chains may use central radiation technology in partial modules of the stack, such as messaging, propagation, and liquidity aggregation, but they do not use central radiation patterns as the core design philosophy of the chain.
2025 Forecast
The views expressed in this article are the author’s opinions as of the date of publication and may be changed at any time.Forecasting does not guarantee future results.
This year, I invited investors from the Pantera team to participate in the forecast.I divide predictions into two categories:Upward trendandEmerging Concepts.
Upward trend
1. Real-world assets (RWA) will account for 30% of the total on-chain lockout (TVL) (currently 15%)
This year, RWA’s on-chain funding has grown by more than 60% to $13.7 billion.About 70% of RWA is private credit, and the majority of the rest are Treasury bills and commodities.Inflows in these categories are accelerating, with more complex RWAs likely to be introduced in 2025.
First, private credit is accelerating growth due to improvements in infrastructure.The numbers account for almost all of this, and by 2024, the value of assets will increase by nearly $4 billion.As more companies enter this field, it has become easier to use private credit as a means to transfer funds to cryptocurrencies.
Secondly, there are trillions of dollars worth of US Treasury bills and commodities off the chain.There are only US$2.67 billion worth of Treasury bills on the chain, and their ability to generate returns (as opposed to stablecoins, which allow minters to earn interest) makes it a more attractive alternative to stablecoins.BlackRock’s BUIDL Treasury Fund has only $500 million on the chain, while it owns tens of billions of dollars in government bonds off-chain.Now that DeFi infrastructure has fully embraced stablecoins and Treasury RWA (integrating them into DeFi pools, lending markets, and perps), the resistance to adopting them has been greatly reduced.The same is true for commodities.
Finally, the current RWA range is limited to these basic products.The infrastructure for creating and maintaining RWA protocols has been greatly simplified, and operators have a better understanding of the risks posed by on-chain operations and appropriate mitigation measures.There are specialized companies to manage wallets, casting machines, witch sensing, crypto-new banks, etc., which means that stocks, ETFs, bonds and other more complex financial products may and feasible to introduce on-chain.These trends will only accelerate RWA usage until 2025.
2. 1% of Bitcoin will participate in Bitcoin Finance (Bitcoin-Fi)
Last year, my predictions for Bitcoin finance were relatively optimistic, but Bitcoin TVL did not reach 1-2% of all Bitcoins.
This year, due toNative Bitcoin Financial Protocol (such as Babylon)No cross-chain bridge is required to use, high returns, high prices, and increased demand for Bitcoin assets (such as Runes, Ordinals, BRC20) is expected to have1% of Bitcoins participate in Bitcoin Finance.
3. Fintech companies will become the entrance to cryptocurrency
TON, Venmo, Paypal and Whatsapp are all witnessing the growth of cryptocurrencies due to their neutrality.They are gateways where users can interact with cryptocurrencies, but do not push specific applications or protocols; in fact, they can act as simplified portals for cryptocurrencies.They attract different users; TON has its current 950 million Telegram users, Venmo and Paypal have their respective 500 million payment users, and Whatsapp has its 2.95 billion monthly active users.
For example:
•FelixOperating on WhatsApp allows instant transfers via messages, funds can be transferred digitally or withdrawn in cash at partner stores such as 7-11.
•FelixUse stablecoins at the bottom andBitso on Stellar.
•MetaMaskUsers are now supported to purchase cryptocurrencies through Venmo.
•StripeAcquisition of stablecoin companyBridge,RobinhoodAcquisition of crypto exchangeBitstamp.
Ultimately, every fintech company will become an entrance to cryptocurrency, whether intentionally or through supporting third-party applications.The popularity of fintech may be comparable to the crypto holdings of small centralized exchanges (CEXs).
4. Unichain will become the largest L2 transaction volume
Uniswap’s current total locked position (TVL) is close$6.5 billion, daily trading volume$1-4 billion, every day50,000-80,000 transactions.ArbitrumDaily trading volume$1.4 billion(One-third of them are from Uniswap),BaseDaily trading volume$1.5 billion(One quarter of them are from Uniswap).
ifUnichainCan captureUniswap Half of the transaction volume, it will easily surpass the current largest L2 and become the king of trading volume.
5.NFT will usher in a recovery, but it mainly focuses on specific application scenarios
NFTs are considered as encryption tools, not ultimate purposes.NFT has gradually become a practical tool in on-chain games, AI (for model ownership transactions), identity and consumer applications.
Case:
•Blackbirdis a catering rewards application that integrates NFT into a customer identity system to connect Web3 to the catering industry.Restaurants can provide consumer behavior data with NFTs and easily create/cast subscriptions, memberships, and discounts.
•SofamonDevelop Web3 Bit Magic Emoticon Pack (NFT) to unlock the financial aspect of the emoticon market.They work with KOL and K-pop stars to combat digital counterfeiting and reflect the growth of on-chain IP value.
•Story ProtocolIt aims to tokenize global IP assets with originality as the core.The project recently2.25 billion USD valuationFinancing$80 million.
•IWC (Swiss luxury watch brand)Launch member NFTs to provide holders with exclusive events and community access.
NFTs can be used to identify transactions, transfers, ownership, membership, and can also represent and value assets, thereby achieving monetization and potential speculative growth.This flexibility gives NFTs a strong potential and future use cases will only continue to increase.
6. Restaking (Restaking) main network starts
In 2025,Eigenlayer, Symbiotic and KarakWhen the re-staking agreement will be officially launched on the main network, the operator will obtain revenue through AVS (active verification service) and punishment mechanism (slashing).However, the popularity of re-pled this year seems to have weakened.
The influence of restaking has grown as more and more networks use it.If the protocol uses an infrastructure supported by a restake agreement, value can be obtained from such connections even if there is no direct contact.Therefore, even if some protocols lose their attention, they may still have huge valuations.
We believe that re-pled is still aBillion dollar market, As more and more applications become application chains (Appchain), they will utilize restaking agreements or other protocols built on restaking agreements.
Emerging Concepts
7.zkTLS: Introduce off-chain data to the chain
zkTLSUse Zero Knowledge Proof (ZK Proof) to verify data validity in the Web2 world.This new technology has not been fully implemented yet, but new types of data are expected to be introduced when it is implemented this year (hopefully).
For example, zkTLS can be used to prove that certain data does come from a specific website.At present, there is no way to verify this.This technology utilizes the Trusted Execution Environment (TEE)andProgress in multi-party computing (MPC)** may be further improved in the future to keep some data private.
Although zkTLS is still in the conceptual stage, we predict that companies will start developing and integrating them into on-chain services, such as:
•Verified oracle for non-financial data,
•Encrypted and secure data oracle,
Provides a trusted external data source for on-chain applications.
8. Regulatory support
US regulatory environment presents positive attitude towards cryptocurrencies for the first time.In the latest election,278 House candidates who support cryptocurrency are elected, and there are only 122 candidates against encryption.SEC Chairman of the Anti-crypto factionGary GenslerAnnounced to resign in January.Trump plans to nominate, according to reportsPaul AtkinsLead the SEC.Atkins served as a SEC member from 2002 to 2008, is a public supporter of the crypto industry and a consultant to the Chamber of Digital Commerce.The agency is committed to promoting the legalization and popularity of cryptocurrencies.
Trump also appointed tech investor, former Yammer CEO and former PayPal COODavid SacksHe served as the newly established “AI & Crypto Czar”.In Trump’s statement, he mentioned:David Sacks will work to develop a legal framework that provides clarity to the crypto industry, which is what the industry has long demanded.”
We expect to see: SEC litigation gradually decreases, clear definition of cryptocurrencies as a specific asset class, and further clarification of tax policies.
May be aImportant turning point in the development of the US cryptocurrency industry.
