2024 was a pivotal year for digital assets, with notable advancements from technological development to strong market adoption. HTX Ventures, the global investment arm of HTX, highlighted five key sectors that demonstrated exceptional growth in its 2024 annual report.
The company discussed the Bitcoin ecosystem, infrastructure, memecoins, AI, and the TON ecosystem, and presented an outlook towards 2025. Analysts expect that the incoming Donald Trump administration in January 2025 will provide additional regulations and institutional support to further strengthen these sectors.
The Bitcoin Ecosystem
The HTX Ventures report emphasized Bitcoin's strong performance in 2024, noting that spot ETFs now account for 5.3% of the total BTC supply. The report also mentioned the success of U.S. listed companies like MicroStrategy (MSTR), reflecting the increasing institutional adoption of Bitcoin as a dollar-based liquidity instrument.
After his inauguration on January 20, 2025, Trump is expected to repeal SAB 121, which could further strengthen Bitcoin's position. By allowing traditional finance (TradFi) institutions to hold cryptocurrencies on their balance sheets, analysts expect a surge in institutional adoption and Bitcoin demand.
"This regulatory change can position Bitcoin, alongside AI, as a core asset in the dollar-dominated economic cycle," HTX Ventures stated.
Amidst these trends, HTX Ventures emphasized the need to develop Bitcoin's Layer 2 (L2) ecosystem to improve capital efficiency and scalability. Infrastructure projects aim to enhance the execution layer, interoperability, and security, opening new opportunities for Bitcoin's utility.
Cryptocurrency Infrastructure
The report identified cryptocurrency infrastructure as a key investment sector throughout 2024. Significant progress was made across Layer-1, Layer-2, and middleware projects due to increased technology adoption and capital inflows.
Ethereum's ecosystem improved Layer-2 (L2) performance, significantly reducing network fees and expanding user activity. Simultaneously, Layer-1 blockchains like Solana and TRON experienced a surge in on-chain transactions due to memecoins development and infrastructure innovations.
Innovations in cross-chain middleware further expanded interoperability between blockchain ecosystems. Modular public blockchains like Celestia and Monad introduced flexibility and scalability, attracting a variety of decentralized applications (dApps). Meanwhile, restaking protocols emerged to enhance network security and capital efficiency.
Going forward, HTX Ventures identifies infrastructure as the foundation for the evolution of cryptocurrencies. Particularly, L1 solutions are expected to be the focus of both technological development and capital investment in 2025.
"Layer 1 now represents the most concentrated area of technological development and exploration in the crypto space. This is expected to remain a key sector for development resources and capital investment in the future," the report stated.
Memecoins, the Crypto Onramp for Retail Investors
HTX's venture arm also acknowledged that the memecoin sector experienced explosive growth in 2024, fostering community consensus and providing new ways to integrate with DeFi and GameFi. Solana's support for meme projects injected fresh energy into the ecosystem, garnering significant market attention.
Platforms like Pump.fun and SunPump emerged as key infrastructure tools for fair memecoin launches, creating new avenues for capital inflows. They effectively lowered launch costs and barriers, increased market and community trust, and drove participation. As a result, meme projects maintained popularity throughout the year.
With a more favorable cryptocurrency market environment, HTX Ventures expects increased retail investor participation in 2025, with memecoins serving as an accessible entry point to the crypto market.
"Meme projects can become more diverse and practical in the future, and infrastructure can integrate functionalities tailored to specific use cases like gaming, NFTs, and social networking to provide greater product capabilities. As the multi-chain ecosystem matures and real-world use cases expand, memecoin infrastructure will continue to inject more vitality into this sector," the report excerpt read.
Crypto-AI Convergence
The convergence of cryptocurrencies and AI was also a prominent theme in 2024. Specialized areas such as ZK/OPML, decentralized computing, AI data trading, and AI-powered gaming gained significant momentum. Notably, the rise of AI agents stood out, as they leverage blockchain's token economies to drive behaviors like trading, smart contract interactions, and automated queries.
HTX Ventures anticipates that AI agents will evolve into comprehensive personal assistants capable of performing independent asset management, viral marketing campaigns, and DAO formation. Over time, these AI-based agents may develop unique cultural and behavioral ecosystems that are unattainable in traditional Web2 systems.
The TON ecosystem, the potential of Telegram
The TON (The Open Network) ecosystem experienced a major boom in 2024. Leveraging Telegram's vast user base, it has driven adoption in the areas of DeFi, Non-Fungible Tokens, gaming, and meme coins. Meanwhile, new models like the "Tap-to-Earn" game that provide token incentives have onboarded millions of Web2 users, bridging the gap between traditional applications and cryptocurrencies.
HTX Ventures highlights projects like Naut Coin and Catizen as having brought many Web2 users into the Telegram ecosystem. However, it points out that in 2025, TON will need to explore new business models to find user retention and the next growth curve.
Indeed, this is true as user interest is waning from the Tap-to-Earn games. The TON blockchain, which can monetize Web2 social applications through blockchain technology, can play a crucial role in the mainstream adoption of cryptocurrencies.
2025 Outlook... Trump Administration, Optimism
Looking ahead to 2025, analysts and market experts expect the Trump administration to be a positive catalyst for cryptocurrencies. Trump's plan to repeal SAB 121 is widely seen as a turning point for institutional adoption, opening the door for traditional financial institutions to directly hold cryptocurrency assets. This regulatory easing will accelerate the institutionalization of BTC and other digital assets, providing new avenues for liquidity and finance.
With BTC becoming a core institutional asset, AI driving new use cases, and infrastructure rapidly evolving, HTX Ventures is optimistic about the long-term growth potential of the industry.
