Cryptocurrency Institutions Outlook for 2025: Stablecoins and AI become the biggest consensus

TechFlow: 2024 is about to end, and 2025 is coming with anticipation.

Amid the clamor of the bull market, major crypto institutions around the world have released their market outlook for 2025. According to the published content, institutions generally believe that 2025 will be a critical year for the crypto market: Bitcoin is expected to break through the $200,000 mark, crypto assets will further move towards mainstream adoption, and several crypto unicorn companies may go public in the US.

It is worth noting that many institutions expect the peak of this bull market cycle to arrive in 2025, with the inflow of Bitcoin ETF funds, the opening of traditional financial institutions to crypto asset allocation, and AI-empowered innovative applications becoming important drivers for market development.

Let's review the core predictions of major institutions for the crypto market in 2025.

VanEck: The crypto market will hit a new high by the end of 2025, and the NFT market will recover

• The crypto bull market will reach a mid-cycle high in the first quarter and set a new high by the end of the year;

• The US will further embrace Bitcoin through strategic reserves and policy support;

• The total value of tokenized securities will exceed $50 billion;

• The daily trading settlement volume of stablecoins will reach $300 billion;

• The on-chain activity of AI agents will exceed 1 million;

• The total locked value (TVL) of the Bitcoin second-layer network will reach 100,000 BTC;

• Ethereum's Blob space fee revenue will reach $1 billion;

• DeFi trading volume will hit a new high of $4 trillion, with a total locked value of $200 billion;

• The NFT market will recover, with an annual trading volume of $30 billion;

• The performance of decentralized application (DApp) tokens will gradually catch up with mainstream public chain tokens.

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Bitwise: Bitcoin breaks $200,000, Ethereum breaks $7,000

• Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana will hit new highs, with Bitcoin trading above $200,000;

• The inflow of funds into Bitcoin ETFs in 2025 will exceed that of 2024;

• Coinbase will surpass Charles Schwab to become the world's most valuable brokerage company, with its stock price exceeding $700 per share;

• 2025 will be the "Year of Crypto IPOs", with at least five crypto unicorn companies going public in the US;

• Tokens issued by AI agents will lead an even larger MEME coin frenzy than in 2024;

• The number of countries holding Bitcoin will double;

• Coinbase will enter the S&P 500 index, and MicroStrategy will enter the Nasdaq 100 index, adding crypto exposure to (almost) every American investor's portfolio;

• The US Department of Labor will relax its guidance on the inclusion of cryptocurrencies in 401(k) plans, allowing trillions of dollars to flow into crypto assets;

• With the long-awaited stablecoin legislation in the US, the stablecoin asset size will double to $400 billion;

• As Wall Street's acceptance of cryptocurrencies deepens, the value of real-world asset (RWA) tokenization will exceed $50 billion.

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Coinbase: The stablecoin market will continue to experience explosive growth

Macro:

• The Federal Reserve's monetary policy will be somewhat relaxed, which may provide a favorable background for the development of the crypto currency market;

• The new US Congress will bring a clearer regulatory environment for the crypto industry and may see the emergence of a "strategic Bitcoin reserve";

• The ETFs of Bitcoin and Ethereum will reshape the market ecosystem, and in the future, ETFs covering more assets may emerge;

• The stablecoin market will continue to experience explosive growth and may expand to global capital flows and commercial payments;

• RWA will further optimize the construction and management process of investment portfolios;

• The DeFi ecosystem is expected to recover and further integrate with traditional finance.

Disruptive:

• Telegram trading bots have become one of the most profitable crypto applications;

• Prediction market platforms have outperformed traditional polls, demonstrating the unique advantages of blockchain technology;

• Crypto games are shifting from "earning money" to providing high-quality gaming experiences and lowering the usage threshold for new users;

• Decentralized physical infrastructure networks (DePIN) may solve the problem of physical resource allocation, but the long-term sustainability of revenue remains to be evaluated;

• AI applications in the crypto field are constantly being explored, but how to convert their value into persistent liquid Tokens remains a challenge;

• A multi-chain ecosystem may become the future mainstream pattern, with each chain providing differentiated advantages for coexistence and development;

• Improving the user experience, including simplifying the registration process, optimizing wallet functions, and enhancing cross-chain experiences, is one of the key factors in driving the widespread adoption of crypto technology;

• Decentralized identity authentication can help meet regulatory requirements and become a core element of future on-chain experiences.

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Hashed: Asia will become the core engine of blockchain innovation and adoption

• Hashed believes that 2025 will mark the true entry of blockchain into the stage of mass adoption, with Asia becoming the core engine of blockchain innovation and adoption. The tech-friendly environment in the Asian market will drive innovative consumer experiences;

• Stablecoins will be further integrated into the traditional market;

• Smart creators will be able to continuously generate high-quality content, and in the future, these will be dominated by smart entities (AI AIGENT) that convert user attention into economic value through smart contracts. This mechanism will redistribute profits to Token holders, building a self-reinforcing attention economy system;

• Blockchain can ensure data ownership and source traceability, protect privacy while securely using sensitive data, and incentivize data sharing through transparent economic models. Specifically, Zettablock and Story Protocol are mentioned;

• The next wave of blockchain growth will be driven by consumer-centric applications that make the use of crypto technology as simple and smooth as traditional applications;

• Telegram and TON's open ecosystem are still in the early stages, with rapid user growth but low activity and retention rates. Compared to WeChat's centralized ecosystem, Telegram and TON face the problem of insufficient infrastructure and need to build an intermediate layer to improve platform scalability and support ecosystem development.

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Blockworks: The ICO model will make a comeback, and Base becomes a dark horse

• The US will re-emerge as the global center of cryptocurrency;

• More than 10 DeFi protocols will officially launch fee switches, including Uniswap;

• DeFi protocols will gradually adopt client asset rehypothecation as a new business model;

• The Ethereum community's debate on the "North Star" roadmap will reach a conclusion, and the Rollup-centric roadmap will be reaffirmed, with Max's scaling proposal ultimately failing. This result will bring much-needed cohesion to the Ethereum community and improve overall market sentiment;

• The ETH token price is expected to perform strongly;

• Rollup-based solutions will still struggle to achieve major breakthroughs by 2025;

• Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) will gradually become an important component of L2 infrastructure and eventually become a permanent feature;

• Solana's growth momentum will continue in this cycle, but problems will gradually emerge by 2025;

• The Firedancer client will be officially launched in the fourth quarter, at which point Solana's network will achieve a processing capacity of 100,000 TPS.

may adjust its Token issuance policy to reduce inflation, while will not make similar changes; will become a dark horse in the Rollup ecosystem and become the main competitor of ; will also become the preferred chain for AI Agents and other AI applications; Stablecoins will gradually become the dominant asset on L2 networks, and their number is expected to exceed twice that of ; the stablecoin market will see a breakthrough growth in the coming year; More than 5 major fintech companies or traditional financial institutions will launch their own stablecoins by 2025; More than 10 companies (including banks and Web2 giants) will launch their own L2 networks by 2025; Leveraging its large user base and strong brand influence, will become one of the dominant forces in the industry by 2025; Investment opportunities in L1 Blockchains still exist and will not disappear in the short term; The ICO model will return, but will not dominate as it did in 2017; Crypto companies will see an IPO window, but there will not be a large-scale IPO wave; The mainstream trend in 2025 will be the integration of AI and Crypto; The application scenarios of AI will become more diversified, not limited to Agents; 's influence in the crypto field will reach an unprecedented high; 's L2 solutions will still be difficult to achieve a breakthrough in 2025. : Deep integration of DeFi and AI, the market reaches a cycle high in 2025 Clarification of the regulatory environment; DeFi and Web3 may return to the US; Stablecoins will become the main force in the payment field; The market may reach a cycle high in 2025; will continue to explore new development narratives; Token fever sweeps Web3; The focus of crypto infrastructure investment shifts; Deep integration of DeFi and AI; New Token distribution and fundraising models; NFT 2.0: Towards dynamization and efficiency. : and will continue to dominate the DEX market share The macroeconomic environment will provide strong support for crypto assets, the depth and breadth of institutional participation will further expand, no longer just viewing crypto as an investment asset, but beginning to focus on its potential as financial infrastructure; The inflow of ETFs has greatly exceeded expectations, and over time, institutions are likely to gradually become the main driver of daily price movements; The Layer 2 ecosystem will be more advantageous than Layer 1, facing two value capture paths: a token valuation model based on "security demand" and fee capture enhancement through native Rollups; The development of is expected to go beyond pure speculative use cases, possibly launching a spot ETF, and the AI x Crypto field will continue to lead innovation in the ecosystem; and will continue to dominate the DEX market share; Prediction markets and Real-World Assets (RWA) will continue to develop; AI Agents may surpass traditional coins and become a new speculative hotspot; Mobile applications will become a decisive trend, and will continue to dominate coin trading activity; Exchanges will accelerate the integration of on-chain and off-chain services, and the new government may relax restrictions on exchange listings. : The capital inflows of and ETFs will reach the same level Trump will formulate a new global monetary framework, similar to the 1985 Plaza Accord. This framework will gradually drive a significant devaluation of the US dollar, thereby promoting the return of manufacturing to the US and directing liquidity to the US market and high-risk assets such as cryptocurrencies; Major global armed conflicts are expected to end in the first half of 2025, after which a period of peace and security will begin; The capital inflows of and ETFs will reach the same level in the second half of 2025, with a daily capital inflow of $1 billion respectively. This trend is mainly due to the launch of portfolio ETFs; The listing plans of ETFs for cryptocurrencies other than and will be postponed to 2026; The combination of gaming and artificial intelligence (AI) will become the vertical field with the most users (MAUs/DAUs), benefiting from the significant improvement of AI technology in game experience and interaction; coins will be subdivided into multiple categories, including ephemeral, AI-driven, factory-produced, and large-cap types, with increased market segmentation but still fierce competition; The total fee revenue of decentralized finance (DeFi) will exceed $10 billion in 2025, and the supply of stablecoins is expected to reach $500 billion by the end of the year; The assets of large banks are beginning to be tokenized, a trend that will significantly reduce resource waste in the US financial system and improve efficiency.