My narrative watchlist for 2025: AI: VIRTUAL, AIXBT, DEAI, NEAR DeFi: FLUID, PENDLE, MNT, RUNE Real-World Assets: CHEX, CPOOL Alt-L1s: HYPE, SOL Other: NATIX, PSTAKE, CARV Here's the bull case for each narrative + an overview of the top projects👇

🔶 AI AI is dominating across all metrics: • The Search Traffic for it is at ATH • it's the narrative with the most mindshare according to Kaito • AI Agents have been a top-performing trend for the past few months And I don't see why the hype around it would die down.

In 2025, AI has 2 major upcoming catalysts: • ChatGPT 5 release (likely in early 2025) • Nvidia's GTC AI conference (late Q1 '25) - which is historically very bullish for AI stocks & AI coins These events should help the narrative sustain the bullish momentum.

Let's now talk about some projects I'm watching: @virtuals_io - the #1 ecosystem of AI agents In the past months, thousands of AI agents have been launched using the Virtuals platform. While most of them are low-effort projects, there are also a few highly succesful ones:

• @aixbt_agent - an X bot that shares alpha • @luna_virtuals - a TikTok bot with 700k followers • @GAME_Virtuals - an infrastructure layer for AI agents Virtuals directly benefits from the success of these AI agents, and it has generated $60M in revenue so far. twitter.com/143836519750523290...

Labs is building a decentralized AI ecosystem focused on data privacy. Its highly anticipated AI-focused blockchain Cypher is launching in 2025, and $DEAI will be its primary asset. twitter.com/3046411560/status/...

Zero1 is also developing Terminal - an intuitive natural language interface for creating AI agents. And just a few weeks ago, its team announced a major partnership with NVIDIA's Ignition AI Accelerator. twitter.com/1611011814/status/...

did a great job at reinventing itself. In 2021, it was just another Ethereum competitor, but it eventually pivoted to become a blockchain for AI. In Nov. '24, Near announced plans to create the world’s largest open-source AI model. twitter.com/132376234330261504...

Besides this, Near has also developed a novel on-chain solution that enables trading the most popular tokens in one place. twitter.com/103194951860912128...

🔶DeFi 2025 will be the year of regulation. With the US now having the most pro-crypto Congress ever, I expect more crypto-friendly policies to start being announced. Utility projects stand to gain the most from regulatory clarity. There are 5 projects I'm closely watching:

is one of my favorite DeFi primitives. Its latest product, Fluid DEX, went live 2 months ago, and it quickly became a top 5 DEX by trading volume on Ethereum. This is because of its unparalleled capital efficiency for large trades. twitter.com/831767219071754240...

In 2025, Fluid will continue its L2 multichain expansion and likely activate $FLUID token buybacks. Its TVL went from $760M to $1.4b in the last 2 months alone. twitter.com/84375672/status/18...

is a hub of DeFi products on Ethereum. In 2024, it released several new products including cmETH, a composable restaking token, and FBTC, a BTC-backed token. All of those have reached hundreds of millions of dollars in TVL. twitter.com/159246878648921292...

Mantle team proved over and over again that they know how to promote their products, which is the main reason behind their success in my opinion. Fun fact: $MNT was the best-performing major L2 token in 2024.

is the go-to yield trading protocol. In 2025, Pendle will release Boros, which will allow yield trading with leverage. This could enable some very interesting yield opportunities and lead to a surge in Pendle TVL. twitter.com/137749369376296960...

Tokenless DeFi Projects There are also a few tokenless DeFi projects that I'm closely watching:

a DeFi SuperApp that lets you: • buy any token on any chain without worrying about gas fees, chains, or bridges • swap, earn, leverage, and lend in one place • secure your wallet with biometrics This is what DeFi App will enable.

Recently, the project raised $2M in a seed round led by Mechanism Capital. The first iteration of the app will launch on Jan. 6. twitter.com/176257167220737228...

is building an on-chain Bitcoin Reserve. Through its Staking Abstraction Layer, it simplifies access to dozens of yield opportunities for BTC. In the last year alone, Solv amassed over 25,000 BTC and reached $3.2b in TVL at its peak.

Solv raised $25M in funding so far. Interestingly, it's the first major dApp that confirmed it will launch its token on Hyperliquid: twitter.com/137063207092653670...

🔶 Real World Assets (RWA) RWA is one of my favorite sectors. By 2030, it's expected to be a multi-trillion-dollar sector. The protocols that will manage to capitalize on this growth have huge potential in my opinion. 2 RWA projects piqued my interest: twitter.com/155742908791178035...

is building the Shopify of RWAs. The project built a tokenization platform that has attracted over 50 institutional clients. In December alone, 2 institutions partnered with Chintai to tokenize $250M+ in renewable energy and $124M in real estate.

Chintai's goal for 2025 is to tokenize $10 billion in assets. What's more, the $CHEX team is expected to make several big announcements in Q1. twitter.com/974783184952004608...

is a leading DeFi credit marketplace that originated $600M+ in loans so far. In Aug. '24, Clearpool introduced Ozean - its blockchain for RWA yield that will launch in 2025 I'm really looking forward to seeing what RWA products will be built on it. twitter.com/171360609543509606...

🔶 Alt-L1 Blockchains Remember SoLunAvax? The L1 rotation was the biggest narrative in 2021, and I expect it to make a comeback. Certain L1s still have a lot of room to grow as they become more tailored to the needs of certain dApps. Avalanche is focusing on gaming and RWA.… x.com/i/web/status/18751852921...

perpetual DEX is a revenue-generating machine. And most of its revenue is used for token buybacks. At the current volume levels, its daily revenue is approaching $1M. Moreover, its high-performance EVM blockchain called HyperEVM will go live in 2025.

I'm excited about HyperEVM because: • 42% of HYPE supply is allocated to incentives (the team could launch a massive incentive program) • Several tier-1 projects like Ethena plan to build on it Hyperliquid also has a very active community, which is essential for any project. twitter.com/973261472/status/1...

has been one of my highest conviction bets over the past 2 years. Going into 2025, all signs indicate that the Solana ecosystem will keep growing: • The ecosystem hit a record number of new developers in 2024 (7625) • Its TVL did a 5x in the past 12 months… x.com/i/web/status/18751853371...

• Firedancer, the biggest network upgrade ever, will fully go live in 2025 If you're bullish on SOL, a good way to capitalize on its growth is to invest in some of its ecosystem projects. As $SOL now has a $100b market cap, it can't just do another 20x from here.

🔶 Other Narrative Plays Besides the AI, RWA, DeFi, and alt-L1 projects that I've covered above, there are also a few other projects that I'm closely watching:

is a very interesting DePIN project. Imagine a dApp with a sustainable drive-to-earn model. Using the Natix app, anyone can map their surroundings with their smartphone while driving and sell the data collected. twitter.com/951329744804392960...

123,000,000 km has been mapped by 206k drivers that have installed Natix's Drive& app. And recently, Natix also introduced VX360 - a device that gives Tesla drivers access to monetize their 360° cameras twitter.com/151670919374253670...

@pStakeFinance pSTAKE is a novel Bitcoin liquid staking solution on Babylon. A thing that makes it stand out from other liquid staking solutions is that it enables direct native BTC staking. Interestingly, it's also the first BTCfi protocol that went live on Binance Alpha. In

is building a modular data layer for Gaming and AI. The protocol enables users to manage, privately share, and monetize their data across industries like AI & gaming. In Q3 '24 alone, CARV generated $9M in revenue, which is used to drive value to its token. twitter.com/146587640414319820...

In 2025, the project has a major catalyst: The launch of CARV Chain - an SVM Layer 2 that blends Ethereum's security with Solana’s high-speed

My prediction is that we'll see a big altseason at some point in 2025. BTC Dominance is still very high. Historically, the real altseason starts after the dominance begins going down. Let me know in the comments if there are any other interesting projects I should check out.

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