Author: Sandy Carter, Chief Operating Officer of Unstoppable Domains
Compiled by: BitpushNews
Although it took a long time, by the end of 2024, Bit finally achieved the prediction of many people and successfully broke through the $100,000 mark. If you want, you can open a bottle of champagne to celebrate. But I believe that Bit breaking this historic milestone is just the beginning, and more significant events are about to come. I firmly believe that 2025 will be the long-awaited year of decentralization.
The reason is not much related to the soaring valuation of Bit. Over the past year, anyone who has paid attention to the prospects of centralized technology has witnessed an explosive growth of new use cases. Many use cases are quite strange, some are cool, and some have the potential to solve some of the biggest challenges facing humanity today. They collectively propel the utility of decentralization to the stratosphere through measurable impact rather than mere speculation. More importantly, they provide a series of compelling reasons for people to adopt and join decentralization in 2025.
Buckle up, here are my five predictions for the coming year.
1. Bit is expected to soar
If there's no bold prediction about Bit's price, something's missing in December. But don't throw out another figure like $250,000 or $500,000 like others, let's explore a more aggressive possibility: Bit becoming the foundation of global strategic reserves.
The fundamentals support this possibility. If a world power (or an unexpected power) officially adopts Bit as part of its national treasury reserves, the current price forecasts could be overturned. We're not just talking about $500,000; $1 million or even higher prices could become the new normal as countries scramble to acquire the world's rarest digital asset.
Even without geopolitical adoption, Bit's scarcity alone makes it a unique asset. There will only ever be 21 million Bits, far fewer than the global 60 million millionaires. With institutions and potentially governments now buying large Bit reserves, it will soon become something that only a tiny minority hope to own - unless they're smart enough to invest early.
Add to that the continued growth in the utility of Bit as a decentralized network, as well as its role as a fiat instability alternative, and we're seeing exponential growth.
But there's one unknown: what happens when Bit's price is no longer driven solely by the market, but by countries jockeying for digital dominance offsetting each other? That's where things get really tricky. With several countries already experimenting with Bit fiscal plans, $500,000 may just be the starting point.
2. DePINners get rich quickly
It has to be admitted that the crypto industry is sometimes not very good at conveying its vision to the outside world: slogans like "financial sovereignty" are almost meaningless to the average person, unless their bank account is frozen.
But what if we look at it from a different angle? Imagine this: decentralization can let you earn money without doing anything. Don't think it's a fantasy, because the "DePINners" have already done it. By leveraging and "farming" your computing resources, like your phone's processor, anyone can earn passive income by contributing to decentralized physical infrastructure (DePIN).
The DePIN revolution perfectly demonstrates how decentralization is changing the concept of ownership and empowering users with the (money-making) power. Equally important, it is giving birth to incredibly new use cases, from solving noise pollution to managing energy grids to natural disaster warnings, addressing all kinds of problems. Although DePIN is still in its infancy, its almost limitless application possibilities mean that in 2025, early adopters will quickly earn passive income equivalent to 5% of the average person's income - and all without much effort on their part.
3. Memecoins get serious
I predict that in 2025, there will still be "serious" financial commentators who do not recognize the practical value of memecoins, believing them to be nothing more than an over-the-top internet joke, but these financial commentators' views are not only wrong, but laughably wrong.
In some ways, I really can't blame them: on the surface, most memecoins seem to be a joke, especially the typical, ubiquitous DOGE. But ignoring them would be dangerous: memecoins are growing rapidly, and their development has surpassed their origins. The value of these tokens is not driven by speculation, but by their ability to bring people together to undertake a wide range of projects, from entertainment to politics.
In fact, memecoins can teach us a lot about the essence of community and participation in the decentralized world. By 2025, we will see brands realize the extraordinary potential of memecoins to attract new audiences, cultivate new communities, and reimagine the relationship between businesses and consumers. One thing is certain: memecoins can make money - but in the long run, their value to forward-thinking brands will far exceed their token prices.
4. TIME Magazine's Person of the Year - Possibly a Robot
I predict that in 2025, TIME Magazine's Person of the Year... will no longer be a person. In the 98-year history of this annual award, it will for the first time be given to what I call "Mrs Humanoid" - a composite character symbolizing the rise of AI and robotics and their integration into human society.
This humanoid robot (sometimes also called a "gynoid") will represent the huge impact of AI and robotics technology in areas like healthcare and education, highlighting the ability of machines to gradually blur the boundaries between human and machine labor. TIME Magazine has chosen some controversial figures in the past (like 1938's Person of the Year), but I don't think choosing a robot is inappropriate. I even think it would be irresponsible to the public not to put a robot on the cover.
The rapid rise of robots should spark global discussions on the ethics of AI, the future of work, privacy, and the redefinition of human identity. Many of these changes are positive, but there are also gray areas and potentially concerning situations. Therefore, developing new regulatory frameworks to address these challenges and seize the opportunities should be one of the most important issues of the century, alongside climate change. Putting Mrs Humanoid on the cover of TIME Magazine would be an important step in pushing people to focus on this issue, especially regulators and lawmakers.
5. Traditional Search Defeated by AI
Will 2024 be the last time we "Google" something we don't know? With the emergence of Gen AI applications, we have good reason to think so.
Tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity represent the biggest change in the search landscape since Google appeared 25 years ago. The power of AI not only provides more accurate results (thanks to its ability to understand semantics), but also changes the dynamics of search.
These new applications have excelled at the Turing test, allowing people to have meaningful conversations on topics ranging from cooking to philosophy. As such, they represent a fundamental shift in our emotional relationship with technology, and make "traditional" search (Google's long-near-monopoly, for example) look very outdated.
Just as the advent of the internet sparked an "SEO arms race" among brands vying for the top spot on Google's search results page, in 2025 we will witness companies beginning to explore how to maintain their relevance in the AI-driven search era.
One of the biggest changes will be the evolution of websites, which will increasingly cater to AI agents rather than human users. By 2025, we will see domain names take on new significance, with the most successful brands being those that can leverage on-chain domain names to protect consumer data, integrate AI functionalities, and provide revolutionary online experiences for their audiences.
Whether these predictions turn out to be fully, partially, or completely unfounded, one thing is certain - as we enter the latter half of the 2020s, decentralization is no longer a distant future, but is about to become an inescapable and integral part of everyone's present.
