Earlier this month, a16z crypto released a list of big ideas for 2025. What protocols are building in these key areas? Let's explore in this latest article.
The end of the year is always my favorite time as the brilliant minds in the Web3 industry start sharing their compelling thoughts and predictions for 2025. This is an exciting time to map out the potential landscape of crypto industry thinking for the coming year.
This time, I want to focus on the a16z crypto article: "Some of Our Expectations for the Crypto Space (2025)". By observing A16z's 7 big ideas, I've listed the projects I might add to my watchlist:
Big Idea #1: AI Can Manage Wallets
In summary, AIs have demonstrated the ability to trade independently and operate fully autonomously. Many new application scenarios may emerge in this area. AI could take on new roles in Web3, participating in transactions, investments, bridging, and executing various intents.
Watchlist:
- NEAR Protocol: Positioning itself as a "blockchain AI", NEAR recently launched key features like Near AI and Near Intents. This project is receiving significant market attention and is expected to be a leading name in this field by 2025.
- Fetch.ai: An AI-centric platform, providing tools to build, deploy, and monetize AI services. Fetch's ASI Wallet could be one of the first integrated AI wallets.
- Armor Wallet: A non-custodial crypto wallet integrated with AI to facilitate multi-chain transactions and complex operations quickly and easily. However, Armor is still a relatively early project.
- Coin98 Super Wallet: In November, Coin98 launched an AI wallet with an AI assistant to suggest tools and simplify complex tasks. This wallet also supports natural and human-friendly interactions.
Big Idea #2: Improved Information Aggregation
This concept revolves around new market-based prediction mechanisms, aiming to aggregate information more effectively and improve decision-making processes across various domains. This is a relatively new idea, and the Delphi Digital report titled "Markets Will Save the World" is recommended for further exploration in this area.
Watchlist:
- MetaDAO: The first project to implement futarchy at scale within a DAO. Futarchy combines prediction markets with democratic voting to make decisions.
- Futarchy: A similar concept to MetaDAO, using markets to govern and reflect the potential impact of policies on token value.
Big Idea #3: Stablecoin Ubiquity
The idea focuses on the widespread adoption of stablecoins, a type of cryptocurrency that has processed more transaction volume than Visa, MasterCard, or PayPal. This shift will benefit many market participants, including stablecoin issuers, crypto card providers, and crypto payment services.
To better illustrate the stablecoin ecosystem, a diagram of this ecosystem was mentioned in the research. These projects should be added to the watchlist.
In this field, it is crucial to focus on the infrastructure capable of supporting the growth in trading volume and becoming the primary beneficiaries of the wider adoption of stablecoins.
In addition to TRON, known as the famous USDT conversion engine, another notable protocol is Noble. This new project is developing liquidity infrastructure, enabling asset issuers to participate in the cross-chain economy.
Big Idea #4: Modularization of Everything
Modularity is not a new concept, but a16z predicts that there will be more widespread adoption of modules in the coming year.
Notable areas:
- RaaS: Gelato, Caldera, AltLayer, Conduit, Bison Labs.
- Cross-chain Interaction: Hyperlane, Polyhedra, Omni.
- Security: Nillion, Brevis, Automata, Fhenix, zkMe.
- Storage: Arweave, Storj, Filecoin, Zus.
- Oracle: Pyth, RedStone, Supra, Chainlink.
Big Idea #5: Seamless User Experiences
This is a promising direction. Chain Abstraction has become a hot topic this year, and now the industry is getting closer to making the user's abstract experience a reality, rather than just a concept.
A prominent example in this area is the Particle project, which has launched the first Universal Accounts, allowing users to seamlessly transact assets across all chains through the UniversalX platform.
Another promising project is Everclear, the leading payment layer for Web3. As the solver (problem solver) economy expands across abstract chains, solvers will need to rebalance assets across chains. Everclear is the most efficient tool to support this process at low cost.
Big Idea #6: Crypto App Stores
The a16z crypto article mentions several notable crypto app store developers, including the Telegram app on TON, Alchemy, the mobile dApp store on Solana (Seeker), and the Worldcoin mobile app.
In fact, many crypto wallet providers may evolve into seamless crypto app stores.
Some other projects highly regarded in this field are Glue, DeFi App, and VeBetter.
Big Idea #7: Everything Can Be Tokenized
Tokenization is a broad topic, especially when it comes to tokenizing "non-traditional" assets. Some notable projects in this space include:
- Kaito AI: Tokenizing attention (attention economy).
- GAIB: Building an economic layer for the future based on AI by tokenizing enterprise-grade GPUs.
- Compute Labs: Enabling shared GPU ownership (directly competing with GAIB).
- ShopX: Tokenizing goods and products (supporting physical assets in e-commerce).
- Eaas: Tokenizing carbon footprint.
- AI Agents and DeSci: Including projects like Dolz (tokenizing adult content creators), PsyDAO (tokenizing psychological research and art), and Molecule (a protocol for tokenizing biotech IP).
This list is a collection of notable protocols, but one should not limit themselves to these projects. The Web3 space is vast, and there are many other protocols worth keeping an eye on.