"Creators' Perspective" is a dialogue column launched by Foresight News, where we interview outstanding content creators selected each month on hot market topics, collect their views, and compile the results into articles to uncover deeper insights.

Written by: Outstanding Content Creators of Foresight News in December 2024

Compiled by: Foresight News

As the curtain rises on 2025, the crypto realm seems to have been injected with a dose of excitement, stirring with anticipation. Looking back on 2024, the crypto market was like a raging sea, with waves of opportunities and risks constantly crashing. Some managed to "surf" the market precisely and reaped abundant rewards, while others were swept away by the tides, leaving only regrets. Now, people are filled with both excitement and anxiety, wondering whether 2025 will become the "Crypto Boom Year".

Carrying our aspirations, let us review the past, focus on the current popular tracks, and boldly look ahead to unveil the mysterious veil of the new year in the crypto world.

The theme of this issue of "Creators' Perspective" is "Entering 2025, Will It Be the Crypto Boom Year?" We have invited the outstanding content creators on the Foresight News list for December 2024, including Zero Difference Research Institute 0xSpread, Biteye, Crypto Market Observer, Centreless, On-Chain Expert, Tangyuan Finance, Klein Labs, and Ethean to join the discussion.

Regarding the topic of "Crypto 2025", we posed four questions: "What were your successful and regrettable crypto investments in 2024?", "How do you plan to position yourself in 2025?", "Which tracks or projects are you not optimistic about?", and "What are your predictions for the industry's development in 2025?" Here are the answers we collected:

1. What was your most successful crypto investment in 2024? What was your biggest regret?

Zero Difference Research Institute 0xSpread: This year, I took a steady and gradual approach, with the majority of my capital allocated to DCA-ing BTC. I had considered a swing trading strategy, but was worried about getting caught in the volatility. As it turned out, this decision was correct. Anyone who bought BTC before November 6th made a profit. For me, my capital has steadily grown, which was a successful investment.

My biggest regret is that I allocated a portion of my position to DCA-ing ETH, while overlooking the opportunities in other platform coins. ETH's performance over the past year has indeed been disappointing. I neglected research and attention on platform coins, and the recent surge in BGB has been quite enticing. I will consider allocating some to it going forward.

Biteye: The most successful investment would be Ondo. As a project launched on CoinList in 2022, despite the market being in a state of panic due to the Luna incident at the time, causing Ondo's initial sale to not be "fully sold out", in the second round of sales, Ondo allowed a maximum individual purchase limit of $2,000, but users found they could actually exceed this limit, raising questions about whether their sales strategy was too aggressive, as truly high-quality projects usually don't have trouble selling out.

Ondo's tokens were unlocked a year later. However, in May 2023, the project team decided through a vote to delay the unlock by six months to January 2024. This "centralized" move sparked discontent in the community, as it was more concerning than launching tokens during a market downturn. Nevertheless, despite these turbulences, Ondo's price surged to $2 in 2024, a 36x increase from the $0.055 public sale price. This success can be attributed to the market's confidence and patience in the RWA investment logic.

In contrast, the performance of LKY was full of regrets. As an "ancient" Meme coin closely related to Doge, the relaunched LKY was quietly traded at $0.05 on non-KYC platforms, before skyrocketing to $17 within two months, a 340x gain. However, due to a network replay attack, LKY plummeted from $17 to less than $1, causing many holders to experience a real roller coaster ride.

The regret with LKY is not having the courage to add more positions at the low price points, even though the profit-taking performance was still decent. The lack of sufficient conviction to heavily position in a project ultimately meant missing out on greater gains.

Crypto Market Observer: The most successful investments were holding BTC and Solana throughout the year, and even adding more positions in August. The biggest regret is that many Meme coins were too ambitious in their scope, leading to significant drawdowns in Meme coin returns.

Centreless: My personal experience in the investment field is not very extensive. In 2024, the relatively successful crypto investments were still BTC, as well as RWA and Meme IP projects. These investment targets have also quickly and directly attracted the attention of the majority of people, becoming hot investment topics in the media and the industry. Crypto investment, of course, is not limited to cryptocurrencies and Memecoins, although they occupy most people's impressions of crypto investment. Investments in projects like RWA, DePIN, Web3 social, and blockchain games are also an important part.

As for the most regrettable crypto investments, I can't really say there are any. It's just that I wasn't able to be aware of some projects in a timely manner, and didn't have much energy and time to discover good crypto projects, which would be the most regrettable part.

On-Chain Expert: The most successful investment was stubbornly holding Pengu + deeply participating in the Pengu Chain Abstract community, which allowed me to buy a house in a good school district through $PENGU airdrops.

The biggest regret is that I was researching Desci last October, sensing that BIO would become the leader in this track (when Binance hadn't officially announced their investment yet), but for various reasons, I didn't participate in the public offering.

Tangyuan Finance: The entire year of 2024 was focused on Meme coins. It started with the pump of SOL, followed by Base, TRON, Sui, APT, and so on. Even the current hot AI concept, the only ones that have broken out are Meme coins. So most of this year's profits came from on-chain, with a GIKO giving over 300x returns and a HUAHUA over 100x. I was involved in the Meme dragons on various chains, but the entry was not early enough, so the profits were not that large. The regret is that I sold too early on many occasions, with Billy's impression being the most profound, where I sold off several million dollars too early. Secondly, the rotation of hot spots was a bit too fast, and I couldn't grasp the first-mover advantage.

Klein Labs: The most successful investment was cohuman/digimon, a team invested in by a16z. We got in at the same round as a16z. Then the team launched a side project called digimon, a project related to the AI agent worldview, and we got in at a $100k FDV and it has since increased around 200x. We remain bullish on its future.

The biggest regret is Virtual. I was bullish on its AI Agent narrative and logic early on, but did not position heavily enough.

Ethean: The most successful crypto investments in 2024 were a16z and Swarms. The biggest regrets were missing out on Virtual and Game.

2. What tracks will you focus on in 2025? How do you plan to position yourself?

Zero Difference Research Institute 0xSpread: As a potential next trillion-dollar market, AI Agents will still be my core focus area. However, the sector has already seen significant price appreciation recently, and some will choose to cash out their gains after achieving their desired returns. Our task is to hold onto the bottom positions, continue to deeply analyze the technically-driven and empowering projects in the market, focus on their medium to long-term development potential, and wait for the "paper hands" to exit before systematically deploying capital.

Biteye: In 2025, Biteye will focus on the AI track, closely following industry trends and making strategic deployments, prioritizing projects with practical utility and focusing on community and economic models. Market attention is easily diverted, and we will decisively adjust our holdings when necessary. To help users keep up with the changes in the AI track, we will launch a daily report on the AI track to help the community members seize the new developments in the AI track. Although AI Agents initially became popular due to Memes, in this high-tech track, relying solely on Memes cannot sustain success. It can be foreseen that the AI field will have new narratives and breakthroughs. We are closely tracking unissued projects such as Story, Hyperbolic, and Nillion, and are keeping an eye on their potential. In addition, we will use our self-incubated research tool Cryptohunt AI to deeply explore excellent early-stage projects. In the RWA track, as the DeFi project ecosystem continues to mature, the support of protocols like Pendle has significantly increased market attention to RWA. We will closely monitor the development of ENA and Usual, and evaluate their potential in asset tokenization and yield optimization. In addition, we are also paying attention to Plume, an L1 focused on RAW. At the same time, for PoW Meme coins like LKY, we will focus on the progress of projects such as BELL and JKC. The market performance of these PoW tokens, especially those like FB, will be worth continuous tracking when their circulation reaches a certain level. As the market's interest in PoW tokens increases, monitoring the technical and community development of these projects will be an important part of future investment strategies. Crypto Market Observation: Focus on North American policies and the AI-related track. Specifically, follow the lead of North American VC giants. Centreless: In 2025, the focus will be on crypto projects related to RWA, chain games, Bitcoin and Ethereum, AI automated agents, and how to make progress in these areas domestically. On-chain Influencer: DeSci, chain abstraction, emerging L1/L2, modularity. The focus is to obtain high-quality project tokens at the level of shaving + participating in community contributions; closely follow the industry hotspots in these tracks, and explore and participate in opportunities such as Memes and equity NFTs. Tuan Zi Finance: In 2025, I think there are three tracks that can explode: First is the AI sector. Currently, AI is mostly still Meme concepts, without any really eye-catching big projects. There will definitely be a project that breaks out and triggers the wealth effect after a year-long hot spot. Second is the DeFi sector. As infrastructure, it is indispensable in a bull market. Especially now that Trump is in office, the more compliant current environment is extremely favorable for the development of DeFi, especially for some revenue-generating projects like AAVE and UNI. The Trump family's continued buying of DeFi sector coins is a very favorable proof. Next is the RWA sector. Institutions like BlackRock are accelerating their deployments, and for traditional assets, it provides a new way of liquidation, allowing illiquid assets to be arbitraged or liquidated quickly. The influx of funds brought by ETFs has already fully demonstrated the interest of external capital in the crypto market. Once the RWA trend explodes, the amount of capital is unimaginable. Compliance and practicality will be the main theme of this bull market. Klein Labs: Focus on Web3+AI, in the field of artificial intelligence, the potential in 2025 is huge, and the continuous updates of frameworks and learning methods will lead to transformations. At the same time, pay attention to some potential mainstream DeFi currencies. For DeFi, focus on protocols that can bring capital efficiency innovations, such as innovations from scratch. There are also tracks like RWA, which will continue DeFi and create sustainable yields for DeFi. At the same time, DeFi offshoots like BTCFi are also very optimistic. Continuous investments will be made at both the primary and secondary levels. Ethean: In 2025, the focus will be on the AI and Bitcoin tracks. The iteration and update speed of AI is very fast. My approach is to hold about 30% of the position in leaders like a16z and Swarms, and hold them until the basic narrative changes. The other positions will closely track market dynamics and follow new potential narratives. Currently, the highest-yielding AI are platforms and frameworks like a16z, ARC, Virtual, and Game, and I believe the DeFi and gaming sub-tracks will explode with new 100x targets. There is still a lot of skepticism about the Bitcoin track in the market. It's a strange thing that this cycle, the traditional finance company Microstrategy is the one that has grasped the Bitcoin dividend. The huge purchasing power has brought an exciting Bitcoin price surge, but we have to face a problem: traditional finance participants simply buy and hold Bitcoin, and the liquidity of these assets is idle and cannot flow into the on-chain. Their "hoarding" model will further exacerbate the liquidity segregation between Bitcoin and the DeFi world. Bitcoin can only unleash its full potential by going on-chain, and the crypto market needs and may see a Bitcoin opportunity. 3. Which tracks or projects are not optimistic about? Zero Difference Research Institute 0xSpread: This year I hold a relatively conservative attitude towards the prospects of NFTs, mainly for the following reasons: First, the narrative is aging. NFTs, as the hot spot of the previous bull market, currently rely more on short-term speculation for market momentum, lacking continuous innovation. Second, the market preference is switching. The crypto market has always been "playing new, not playing old", and each bull-bear cycle will give birth to new hot spot narratives. If the old tracks cannot keep up with the times, their heat and capital inflow will gradually decline. Therefore, I will maintain a cautious attitude overall at this stage. Biteye: The Rune track was initially dominated by Eastern players, with almost no Western players involved, and this has created many wealth myths. However, with the decline of market heat, Rune holders have suffered severe losses. Although capital may flow back into the Bitcoin ecosystem, the Rune narrative may be difficult to continue. Among the many narratives, Rune as a "digital gold" decoration seems a bit hollow and powerless. The lack of participation from players in other languages means insufficient buying power, and the market vitality is also limited. Whether it can attract large capital to re-layout and hype is still unknown. Rather than waiting for a savior, it is better to invest the capital in more vibrant and potential targets to seek more stable returns. Crypto Market Observation: The Ethereum ecosystem is quite dangerous, especially the various Layer2s. Centreless: Projects that are not fundamentally decentralized are not very optimistic about. Decentralization means that the project is anchored on the spirit of blockchain and maximizing user interests. I'm also not optimistic about some short-term, capital-driven projects that exploit user interests. The chain game track may still have a long way to go, as there hasn't been much progress in this area in the past. DeSocial is still in its infancy, and how to gain the attention of mainstream users is still too early to say. On-chain Influencer: I'm not optimistic about projects that sell hardware under the guise of DePIN, which is just blowing hot air and a serious waste of resources. Tuan Zi Finance: I feel that NFTs and chain games will be hard to revive. Speculating on small pictures and gold farming have no advantages in this market where on-chain memes are flying all over the sky. GameFi has not yet produced any eye-catching products, only the sneaker craze that was hot for a while. Currently, the returns from gold farming can no longer satisfy most of the retail investors (this is also a slight drawback of Memes, the market has become inflated).

Klein Labs: A project that aims to be listed on top-tier centralized exchanges (CEXs). With the widespread adoption of the "everything can become a Meme" concept and the dominance of the Pump.fun rapid asset issuance model, Meme projects can quickly rise from nothing. Even without listing on top-tier CEXs, the market cap of on-chain assets can reach around $1 billion. For ordinary investors, there is already a huge profit space on-chain, and listing on top-tier CEXs becomes the final step to exit the on-chain investment. The contradictions between VCCoin and its community are constantly intensifying, and newly listed assets often perform poorly on top-tier CEXs, while older projects that have already been listed also often perform flat. These older projects usually lack team motivation or cannot adapt to market changes, and often adopt a passive strategy while waiting for unlocking. Ethean: Personally, I don't have a negative outlook on any track, I keep an open mind, and anything is possible. 4. Please provide three predictions for the industry development in 2025. Zero Difference Research Institute 0xSpread: 1) Deep integration of AI and blockchain, giving rise to a new generation of applications I firmly believe that AI Agents and decentralized data markets will become important tracks in 2025. Blockchain can provide the underlying support for AI in terms of data storage, privacy protection, and value capture, and the potential in this field is very large. This year, there may be AI+ blockchain projects that can be widely deployed in the real world, which is also my expectation. 2) The global regulatory framework is gradually being implemented Over the past year, many countries have been accelerating the introduction of regulatory policies for the crypto industry. 2025 may be a critical year for the crypto industry to welcome clearer regulations. Especially the regulatory progress in Europe and the United States will be more clear, covering asset classification, tax regulations, anti-money laundering measures, etc. This process will attract more institutional capital, and non-compliant projects will be gradually eliminated. 3) Bitcoin as a strategic reserve asset After Trump promised to list Bitcoin as a strategic reserve asset, this trend may expand to more countries in 2025. For example, Switzerland has already been discussing writing Bitcoin into the constitution and wants to establish a national reserve; the former German finance minister has also suggested that the European Central Bank consider including Bitcoin in the reserve system. The role of Bitcoin is upgrading from "digital gold" to a truly global reserve asset. Biteye: If Trump fulfills his promises to the crypto industry, the regulatory environment will become more friendly, which will form a long-term positive impact on the crypto currency industry and promote the healthy development and innovation of the market. With the rapid progress of AI technology, the AI sector of Web3 will usher in a large-scale outbreak, providing utilities that Web2 AI does not have, and becoming an important driving force for industry development. In addition, Meme coins, as the eternal theme of the crypto bull market, their unique culture and community driving force can always ignite enthusiasm in the market and attract widespread attention. (Biteye founder Teddy) Crypto Market Observer: - BTC breaks through $150,000 - The FIT21 Act is passed, clarifying the standards for tokens being commodities or securities - AI giants launch their own tokens Centreless: First, AI as an advanced tool will drive efficiency improvements, and AI automated agents will usher in a spring. This includes data analysis, process operation, automated agency, and 24/7 uninterrupted operation for projects. Like which Meme IP is worth investing in, when to buy and sell, can all benefit from the advantages of AI to get good advice. Second, the trend of on-chain and off-chain integration, such as RWA and DePIN, will move closer. In 2024, we saw some real-world projects using blockchain for RWA practices, and this trend will continue in 2025. The essence behind them is the result of the trend of on-chain and off-chain integration, which is to minimize the fragmentation of rights, confirmation, uniqueness, immutability, and efficient circulation, which are part of the needs of physical assets. Third, more projects will enter the crypto field and decentralization. In 2024, we saw the rise of decentralized scientific research (DeSci), proving that more fields not involving crypto are gradually joining in. The essence of crypto is to achieve privacy, confirmation, and data sovereignty through technology, and in the future era of data as an indispensable "oil", this trend will become more mainstream. This may also be the era when Web3 replaces Web2 as the mainstream. On-Chain Celebrity: - Crypto×AI unleashes endless possibilities - Meme is more closely integrated with niche tracks - The asset issuance end will produce a few relatively impressive projects Tuan Zi Finance: - The market will usher in a new round of upward trend in the first half of the year. BTC price may break through the $150,000 mark during this period, and if the capital situation is strong, the bull top can reach $18-20,000. - The conservative estimate for ETH is $6,000, and the bull top is $8,000-10,000. - Be alert to the risk of a top reversal in the fourth quarter, and grasp the right time to exit. Klein Labs: - More users will turn to on-chain platforms. - There will be more vertical launch tracks based on Pump.fun, the Meme coin field will continue to expand, the demand for niche markets will be stronger, and vertical Pump.fun platforms will also appear (such as DeSci/AI Agent). - RWA becomes the main track to break through and attract Web2 users. Ethean: - Bitcoin breaks through $150,000. - AI and DeFi will show a trend of integration, there will be AI Agents in niche DeFi tracks, and DeFi protocols will also actively embrace AI. - Changes in token issuance models, more and more protocols will choose on-chain fair launches.