From Bitcoin’s historic rise to $100,000 to the emergence of artificial intelligence-driven crypto projects and tokenized real-world assets (RWAs), 2024 reshaped the landscape of crypto investments.
With favorable regulatory changes and institutional interest on the rise, 2025 promises to offer significant opportunities for investors.
To help investors prepare for 2025, Cointelegraph spoke with industry experts to outline the best ways to navigate the crypto market.
The safe bet: Bitcoin
Coming as no surprise, the world’s first cryptocurrency, Bitcoin (BTC), is considered the least risky bet in the crypto industry due to its inherent decentralization, robust security and growing institutional adoption.
BTC/USD, 1-year chart. Source: Cointelegraph
Thanks to its fixed monetary policy and inherent decentralization, Bitcoin is increasingly viewed as a hedge against monetary debasement.
More institutions are recognizing Bitcoin as a hedge against inflation, partly thanks to the United States’ spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Institutional investors owned 27% of Bitcoin ETFs by the end of the second quarter of 2024, Cointelegraph reported.
In 2024, Bitcoin generated an impressive 110% return on investment for holders, outperforming most major asset classes, including China equities, which rose 29% and US equities at 21.7%, BlackRock data shows.
Asset classes by 2024 returns. Source: BlackRock
Analysts expect improved macroeconomic conditions and more crypto-friendly regulations fueled by the incoming pro-crypto administration of President-elect Donald Trump.
Bitcoin is set for another year of robust gains based on the four-year Bitcoin halving cycle, which sets the cycle top for the third quarter of 2025.
According to some analysts, Bitcoin could reach $160,000 in 2025, gaining over 72% from the current price tag, according to a Matrixport report.
According to Blockstream co-founder and Hashcash inventor Adam Back, BTC could hit $1 million if the Trump administration approves a strategic Bitcoin reserve.
Still, investors should be mindful of a potential correction in the first part of 2025. Based on Bitcoin’s correlation with the liquidity index, BTC could see a “local top” of $110,000 in January before staging a temporary correction to $70,000.
Bitcoin Could Explode After $100K—Here’s Why. Source: YouTube
The speculative investment: AI-crypto projects
While Bitcoin remains the safest bet in cryptocurrency, some traders are looking for riskier investment opportunities that present more upside potential, like the emerging field of AI cryptocurrencies.
The current Bitcoin correction under $100,000 is driving more interest in AI-crypto projects, such as AI platform ai16z and decentralized trading protocol Hyperliquid, according to Alvin Kan, chief operating officer of Bitget Wallet.
Both ai16z and Hyperliquid are “poised for growth in 2025,” Kan told Cointelegraph:
“Emerging narratives like AI-driven investments, decentralized AI agents, and tokenized assets hint at a tech-driven shift, though with added risk.”
Ai16z is considering creating a platform similar to Pump.fun for launching AI agents, according to a post on its governance forum. It is also contemplating “[p]ositioning ai16z as an L1 blockchain for AI,” the post added.
Showcasing the lucrative financial opportunity, onchain AI agents generated a cumulative $8.7 million worth of revenue in the five weeks leading up to June 2024, according to VanEck data.
Total revenue for AI agents in five weeks. Source: VanEck
The industry surpassed 1 million blockchain-based AI agents on June 12, 2024.
AI algorithms on the blockchain can generate data-driven decisions, automate processes and drive more efficiency for decentralized financial systems, Edwin Mata, co-founder and CEO of Brickken, told Cointelegraph:
“Projects leveraging AI to optimize financial operations, analyze onchain data, or create new monetization models are likely to gain traction […] Emerging areas such as decentralized identity, gaming and innovative infrastructure solutions may present cyclical growth depending on market sentiment.”
The intersection of blockchain and AI is seen as a transformative technological paradigm due to their complementary nature. While AI is dependent on reliable data sets, blockchain can ensure the transparency and trustworthiness of the data source for AI algorithms.
The blockchain infrastructure play: RWAs
Increasingly more industry watchers are pointing to the growth potential of the real-world asset (RWA) tokenization sector.
RWA tokenization refers to financial and other tangible assets minted on the immutable blockchain ledger, increasing investor accessibility and trading opportunities around these assets.
The RWA industry may be the next key narrative in the crypto space in 2025, wrote Brickken’s Mata:
“Real-world asset tokenization is transforming traditional markets by enabling assets like real estate, debt, and equity to be digitized and traded on the blockchain. This evolution brings greater transparency, efficiency, and accessibility to investments that were historically illiquid and limited to a select audience.”
Showcasing the growth of the sector, BlackRock’s tokenized treasury fund surpassed $500 million market capitalization as the first such fund to reach this milestone in July 2024.
The RWA sector could see more than 50-fold growth by 2030, according to predictions from some of the largest financial institutions and business consulting firms compiled in a Tren Finance research report.
Most firms predict that the RWA sector may reach a market size of between $4 trillion and $30 trillion.
RWA tokenization, market size predictions by 2030. Source: Tren Finance
If the sector achieves the median prediction of about $10 trillion, it would represent more than 54 times growth from its current value.
Tokenization is gaining increasing traction thanks to solving the inefficiencies of traditional financial markets. Tokenized financial products can offer investors greater accessibility via fractionalized ownership, improved liquidity and 24-hour trading.
Looking ahead to 2025
The incoming Trump administration is seen as a net positive for the crypto industry, partly due to the choice of Paul Atkins for the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) chair.
More favorable economic policy in the US, along with a more innovation-friendly SEC leader, have bolstered analyst expectations of another year of upside for the wider crypto market beyond Bitcoin.
Increasingly, more investors are also expecting an altcoin rally, bolstered by VanEck’s predictions of an over $6,000 cycle top for Ether (ETH) price during 2025, which may attract more Bitcoin profits into smaller cryptocurrencies.
Magazine: Will ETH outperform BTC in Jan? IRS DeFi broker rules, and more: Hodler’s Digest, Dec. 22 – 28
