BTC will reach $250,000 in 2025 and ETH will reach $12,000.
This is a prediction I just made up that may or may not come true.
Most predictions are like this, though some have (some) data to back them up. For example, VanEck offers reasonable predictions, while Cathie Wood is known for her wild predictions with high numbers. She expects BTC to reach $500,000 by 2026 and $1 million by 2030. As for Saylor? He predicts $13 million by 2045.
Here’s a great summary of DLNews’ predictions for 2024.
But how profound and useful are price predictions? Other than making you more confident in your diamond hands, they don’t provide actionable insights.
I suggest a different mental framework that will not only make you a better investor in 2025, but will also help you succeed in investing in the future.
“What are some important truths that few people agree with you on?”
The question Peter Thiel raises is intellectually challenging because it is much easier to maintain the status quo than to think independently.
Matti offers his take on Zee Prime Capital when evaluating investments through a reframed question.
I think he wrote one of the most important articles of 2024, sparking a reflection on the current state of cryptocurrency and providing a framework for how to beat the market in 2025 and beyond.
“If you listen to the current discussion and narrative, what do you think is true and obvious? What is an obvious lie? What is not obvious truth and what is not obvious lie?” — Matti
Some examples of obvious truths from the last cycle are:
- Higher interest rates are bearish for cryptocurrencies
- War is bad for cryptocurrencies
Some obvious lies include:
- Cryptocurrency Super Cycle
- Bitcoin is an inflation hedge
- (3,3) The collaboration is sustainable and long-lasting
Obvious problems are easy to identify.
Matti explains : “The distinction between obvious and non-obvious can be redefined as popular and unpopular, or knowable and unknowable based on available data.”
“Non-obvious truths require unique insight, while obvious truths can be seen from a distance, but even then, they cannot be 100% certain, because nothing is truly certain. The line between the two is not necessarily binary, but perhaps more like a continuum.”
Non-obvious truths and lies are harder to spot, but they provide insight into what’s to come, especially when the non-obvious becomes obvious. That’s when the crowds flock in and FOMO (fear of missing out) sets in.
You want to be at the starting point of FOMO.
Some non-obvious truths from the last cycle:
- It’s only a matter of time before UST collapses
- FTX is a criminal operation
- L2 leads to liquidity fragmentation
And some non-obvious lies:
- SOL is dead
- Gaming is a natural product-market fit (PMF) for cryptocurrencies
- New shiny L1 deal is over
Here are some examples from Matti's blog post.
I really like this approach and shared my thought process in a 2022 article on “Anti-Narrative Trading.”
To outperform the market, you have to find “ideas or investments that already exist but are not widely understood or viewed favorably by many.”
I identified RWA, DeFi options, SBTs, and Instadapp (INST) as potential counter-narrative trade opportunities. While DeFi options and SBTs did not make progress, RWA and INST performed quite well.
The key here, as always, is timing. It took INST a year and a half to see a significant rise.
Aside: Keeping a trading journal is a superpower. It allows you to revisit past thoughts and understand how your thinking and investment strategy have evolved. Feel free to read my full article on anti-narrative trading.
It’s easy to identify these truths and lies in hindsight, but it’s really hard to predict the future.
Really, give it a try. I asked this question on the X platform where you can read some ideas.
Before we go any further, it might be helpful to read Matti’s full blog post for some deeper background information.
In the rest of this post, I’ll share some truths and lies about the current cycle.
I’ll start with what I think is obvious and then move on to the challenging, non-obvious parts. I also asked some people in the crypto industry for their opinions for more insights.
Below is the unified framework for 2025.
The obvious truth
A fact or result that is widely accepted and based on observable evidence.
AI and Cryptocurrency Are Here to Stay
AI has dominated the cryptocurrency community’s thinking over the past year and is likely to continue to do so in 2025.
Crypto diehards have been craving AI tokens but have had few to choose from, with TAO being the leading choice.
That all changed with the explosion of AI agents. Now we have crypto-native AI agents that publish content on platform X or trade on platforms like Polymarket, along with tools to help launch these AI agents.
I believe that the combination of AI and cryptocurrency is a palpable truth that is here to stay.
This does not mean that AI proxy tokens will continue to soar. The current AI proxy is relatively simple (for example, AIXBT just scans data and other people's opinions and re-presents them). In addition, it is also an obvious lie that 2025 will be the AI proxy super cycle.
But bubbles ultimately incentivize innovation, so just as DeFi continues to mature after the DeFi bubble bursts, AI agents will persist.
Spot ETFs are bullish
I am still surprised by how many people think ETFs are bearish. Some people think that “Bitcoin (BTC) in an ETF is part of a traditional finance (TradFi) wrapper and is a Trojan Horse that will destroy Bitcoin from the inside.”
For Ethereum (ETH), an ETF could potentially provide stronger bullish momentum than all the ETH locked in L2, as traditional finance will allocate a portion of its cryptocurrency portfolio to BTC and ETH.
The numbers are going up, brrrrr.
Stablecoins are the killer app/product-market fit (PMF) for cryptocurrencies
This is Stacy Muur's insight, continuing from the previous cycle.
However, in this cycle, stablecoins may eventually move beyond crypto trading and expand into the fintech sector.
PayPal already has a stablecoin, Revolut is launching its own, and even Visa may launch a stablecoin, although this may affect their profit margins. As Delphi Digital researcher Robbie predicted, this move is " overshadowed by the risk of disruption ."
Many projects are better before TGE
This view was also proposed by Stacy Muur.
“My thinking is that most protocols have much better overall metrics before launching their tokens ($HYPE and $F are exceptions). So the demand for the product is stronger before the token is launched than after the TGE.”
DeFi Made Here agrees with this. He cleverly stated:
“9/10 chains/projects are garbage, no organic usage, fake TVL propped up by private transactions.”
I share this perspective to remind you that we are in a very niche industry. Just like venture capital (VC), we cannot expect all investments to soar to the moon.
The reality is that most tokens will not survive for long and will trend downwards. Our mission is to find those exceptional tokens that are game-changers.
An obvious lie
Airdrops are dead
Token launches with low circulation and high FDV have done a lot of damage, making the investment in an otherwise good protocol not worthwhile.
But I am bullish on the airdrop in 2025 because expectations have returned to rationality and discussions about airdrops are no longer popular.
Hyperliquid may not be the last great airdrop of this cycle. And, now is not the time to stop clicking buttons.
This view is also shared by Aylo.
Crypto projects need venture capital to succeed
This is another lesson we learned from low float, high FDV offerings. VC moats have been shrinking year after year. With the rise of public-private placement platforms like Echo and Legion, projects can now raise funds from a diverse group of crypto-native investors.
Many VCs contribute little beyond funding and a logo. In contrast, getting crypto-native investors involved gives them a stronger stake in the success of their investment.
However, lesser-known projects will still rely on VC funding. However, finding “that 100x” opportunity is no longer the exclusive domain of VCs.
Bullish.
(Memecoin, AI agents…) Supercycle
There’s one word that should always keep you on your toes: “supercycle.”
The Memecoin supercycle was hot until some older coins, including “dead” coins like XRP and Litecoin, started to rise.
Right now, AI agents are the main story. But that narrative will eventually lose steam and be replaced by a new one that’s not yet on most people’s radar.
Next, transition directly from this lie to the following...
Retail investors prefer memecoin
This view comes from CryptoKoryo, who tracks narrative price performance and rotation.
His conclusion is very simple: "Rotations always happen after everyone is already in." Simply put, whenever someone says "project x, y, z (such as sol, tao, hype, etc.) will dominate this cycle", it is likely a lie.
To track this rotation, you can check out his new analytics tool dexu.ai.
Moreover, retail investors are now less stupid: they can get a Phantom wallet and find new narratives on Reddit, TikTok, and elsewhere.
In fact, the non-obvious truth is that crypto-native users may end up buying tokens that originate from TikTok’s “dumb retail” holdings rather than tokens from the crypto community (CT).
DAO is decentralized, efficient, "smart" and transparent.
In 2024, I started a new journey: becoming a representative of multiple DAOs, including Aave, Lido, Instadapp, Arbitrum, Paraswap and Uniswap.
The turning point was the Compound DAO attack, where the attacker managed to pass a vote to distribute $24 million in COMP tokens.
What was the problem? The DAO was so apathetic that token holders were not even aware of the vote. How sad.
In order to increase the power of DAOs, highlight key votes, and explore this as a potential career path, I decided to become a DAO representative.
In the process, I learned many lessons that are worth future blog posts. But I also reached out to Doo (from Stablelabs) for additional insights, as he has been running DAOs on behalf of companies for several years.
His insights confirmed what many of us suspected was true:
- DAOs are not truly decentralized, efficient, transparent, or run by “smart money.”
- Furthermore, the DAO’s financial reserves are limited and it could go bankrupt.
- Most DAOs are still led by a founder or core team and are relationship-based.
- They also have protectionist tendencies.
- DAOs can be protectionist
For example: Uniswap DAO had no idea Unichain was being developed. Hahahaha :(
Why is this important?
We can’t continue to deceive ourselves and the community; the current DAO model is unsustainable and needs to be overturned. Whoever can fundamentally improve the DAO model will be able to create a new successful business.
The non-obvious truth
Insights that are not easily perceived or widely shared often require deeper understanding or unique analysis.
Bitcoin is a hedge against macroeconomic uncertainty
The head of Blackrock’s crypto division ridiculed crypto-native commentators/researchers who insist that BTC is a risk-on asset and trade based on data such as unemployment, non-farm payrolls or the ISM manufacturing index.
Bitcoin cannot be both digital gold and a risky asset at the same time.
In its 2024 study, Blackrock claims that Bitcoin is a uniquely diversified asset with the following characteristics:
Bitcoin, by virtue of its high volatility, is clearly a “risk” asset. However, most of the risks and potential drivers of return facing Bitcoin are fundamentally different from those of traditional “risk” assets, making it ill-suited for most traditional financial frameworks – including the “risk-on” vs. “risk-off” framework adopted by some macro commentators.
Bitcoin’s status as a scarce, non-sovereign, decentralized global asset has led some investors to view it as a safe-haven option during times of panic or when certain geopolitical turmoil occurs.
Over the long term, Bitcoin’s adoption trajectory will likely be driven by concerns about global monetary stability, geopolitical stability, U.S. fiscal sustainability, and U.S. political stability. This is the opposite of how traditional “risk assets” relate to these forces.
Bitcoin sometimes sells off at the start of major macro events. However, chaos, volatility, and possible money printing are bullish for Bitcoin.
The danger is that commentators continue to portray Bitcoin as a risk-on asset, which leads traditional finance (TradFi) to mistake Bitcoin for digital gold.
Perception may become reality.
Tokens do not need to be useful
Almost all crypto projects will eventually release a token.
Think about it: Which DeFi protocol can’t function without tokens?
Uniswap can operate normally without UNI, Aave, Maker, Fluid, Ethena... they can all operate normally without tokens.
Yet they all have tokens. Why? For governance? Community? Fundraising? …
I actually answered this question in a 2022 post.
A few years ago, issuing a token required some proof of use. This is no longer the case.
Memecoin most changed that perception, but the launch of Arkham’s $ARKM token was a pivotal moment.
If an analytics platform can issue a token, so can any crypto project: wallets, extensions, marketing agencies…
This trend continues, with future token launches from Nansen and Kaito, but 2025 promises to be even crazier. Anything that attracts attention can be tokenized. Utility doesn’t matter; attention, community, and users are key.
In fact, this is an insight Aylo shared with me: attention and price are related.
My advice would be similar to DeFi protocols: click the button, sign up for whatever analytics tool is gaining traction, share your referral link, and avoid the “why does it need a token” discussion.
It needs tokens because that’s what makes us (early users and founders) rich.
DeFi is more decentralized than CeFi
This is a spicy point brought by Defi Made Here.
Centralization here does not mean that the blockchain is decentralized or self-hosted.
As DMH put it, “few protocols have the majority of TVL, few risk providers work for the same projects and have a vested interest in every project, etc.”
Here are the unedited quotes:
JP Morgan’s market share in the US is around 12%, while Aave’s is 50-70%.
L2 is a multi-billion scale, uncustodial multi-signature wallet.
Tether is a multi-signature wallet with a market value of hundreds of billions.
Chainlink controls almost complete control of all value in DeFi.
The same risk assessment team was being paid on different protocols and there was clearly a conflict of interest.
And so on and so forth.
Therefore, the argument goes, there is a higher concentration of businesses and TVL in DeFi than CeFi. As the USDC crash showed, reliance on a few players can be detrimental to DeFi.
I am optimistic about DeFi. As the market develops, more participants will enter the industry and risks will decrease over time.
Tether’s USDT dominance is over
USDT’s dominance in the crypto stablecoin market is coming to an end as the market landscape continues to change with the emergence of new players and new use cases. Currently, Tether leads in terms of trading and collateralization.
However, future trends will focus on two fast-growing areas: savings products and payments.
Traditional finance is entering the on-chain savings market, while FinTech and Web2 companies are entering the crypto payment space (if Visa launches a stablecoin, it will become an important player).
Although these categories are relatively small today, they could drive more than $50 billion in new capital inflows over the next two years (Ethena’s forecast).
While Ethena and Sky are already leading the way in the savings space, sUSDe is poised to benefit from the integration of traditional finance.
In the payments space, the TON ecosystem is leveraging Telegram’s network to build seamless crypto-native solutions.
Therefore, the war of stablecoins is shifting from being dominated by transactions and value storage to innovations in savings and payments, marking the beginning of a new era in the crypto space.
Additionally, crypto regulations like MiCA are pushing Tether out of the EU and other markets. As an EU citizen, I no longer use USDT, although it is still an option in DeFi.
Non-obvious lies
Fee switching is bullish for token prices
“Be careful what you wish for, you might get it.”
Token fee switching is often the top demand of token holders. However, revenue sharing is not a panacea for token prices; it is just one of the bullish narratives for a token.
Remember the #realyield narrative from two years ago?
In fact, revenues for most protocols are not enough to generate significant price appreciation for their tokens, as revenue/market cap ratios are unusually high among cryptocurrencies.
However, fee switching is not bad. It becomes problematic when the protocol generates significant revenue but the token is trading below the market value of the DAO treasury assets. This has led to the closure of some DAOs.
I don’t think the fee switch will affect how high the token can go; instead, it sets a floor on the minimum price the token can trade at. If the revenue share works and the revenue is significant, then at some point the token will become worth buying.
The bull run will continue into next year and is expected to end in the fourth quarter.
I agree. This is more of a prediction than a fact/lie.
I mention this because there is a strong consensus in CT that 2025 will be a year to sell, probably in early Q4. It is worth noting that Delphi predicts a new Bitcoin all-time high in Q4 2024.
But is it really that simple?
In 2023, the general consensus is that Ethereum will outperform Bitcoin in 2024, while Solana will continue to “die.”
However, like most consensus trades, I think there will be certain factors that break this bull cycle, possibly delaying or prolonging it.
It’s going to be an interesting year indeed.
Ethereum L2 UX/UI fragmentation will persist
I believe that Ethereum’s underperformance is largely due to its inferior user experience compared to Solana. The problem is obvious.
- Ethereum is slower and more expensive than Solana.
- The increase in the number of L2s has led to fragmentation in liquidity and user experience.
- Developers must choose a specific L2 for their application to succeed, unlike building on the unified Solana .
This poor UX is very noticeable if you use Metamask, but the UX/UI is improving over time.
OP Superchain and similar alliances such as Polygon and zkSync are improving the backend user experience. However, if Delphi Digital’s predictions about the “Fat Wallet” theory hold true, the user experience problem may be solved by 2025.
The “Fat Wallet” theory addresses the inefficiencies of Ethereum L2 by positioning the wallet as the key to solving Ethereum L2’s user experience issues.
As protocols and applications become “thinner,” wallets become front-end aggregators, simplifying interactions like bridging and liquidity management through chain abstraction.
By integrating Payment for Order Flow (PFOF) and offering Distribution as a Service (DaaS), wallets can simplify access to decentralized applications (dApps), reduce friction and improve trade execution.
Wallets also leverage their close ties to users to create a more intuitive and seamless experience, address high switching costs, and establish a smoother L2 onboarding process, which ultimately promotes user adoption.
Now, with the rise of AI agents, the user experience is enhanced as agents can perform all the necessary bridging work for humans.
NFTs Are Already Dead
This is an interesting point. Some people find it obviously false, while others find it true. That's why I put it in the "not obviously false" category.
At the moment, NFTs seem to be an obvious lie, especially due to the PENGU airdrop and its significant impact on the entire NFT space. But with a few exceptions, NFTs have been losing money over the past year.
However, I am looking ahead to the next big trend in NFTs.
For me, 2024 is the year Bitcoin Ordinals and PENGU come out. I hope NFTs can go beyond avatars and cultural icons.
Perhaps NFTs can evolve in the age of AI, providing indisputable proof that a photo is original and not created or altered by AI.
One thing is for sure: NFTs may feel stagnant, but they are not.
Something revolutionary needs to be built.
What are your non-obvious truths and lies?
You may not agree with me, and that’s great! It means you can potentially make money from things that aren’t consensus yet, but will soon be.
Builders need to look beyond the “obvious” to seek non-obvious truths to build lasting and meaningful projects. Buzzwords and trending narratives (such as “hot topics” in crypto) often lead to superficial efforts that lack true innovation.
Matti gives great advice in his blog.
For founders:
- Align your efforts with genuine curiosity and first principles thinking.
- Avoid building solely on popular trends or narratives.
And for most of my readers, as investors:
- Assess whether the founder’s vision is based on surface-level, obvious truths or on deeper, unique insights.
- Non-obvious truths are more likely to lead to breakthrough products and companies.
The ability to distinguish obvious/non-obvious truths from lies helps investors back ideas that have real potential and are not just hype.
So, please share your thoughts in the comments!
