Written by: Sandy Carter, COO of Unstoppable Domains
Compiled by: BitpushNews
Though it has been a long wait, Bitcoin finally achieved the predictions of countless people by successfully breaking the $100,000 barrier at the end of 2024. If you want, feel free to pop some champagne to celebrate. But I believe that Bitcoin breaking this historic threshold is just the beginning, and more significant events are on the horizon. I firmly believe that 2025 will be the long-awaited year of decentralization.
The reasons are not closely related to Bitcoin's skyrocketing valuation. Anyone who has been paying attention to the prospects of decentralized technologies over the past year would witness an explosive growth of new use cases. Some use cases are quirky, others are cool, and some promise to tackle some of the biggest challenges facing humanity today. Together, they push the utility of decentralization into the stratosphere through measurable impact rather than mere speculation. More importantly, they provide compelling reasons for people to adopt and engage with decentralization in 2025.
Buckle up, here are my top five predictions for the coming year.
1. Bitcoin is expected to soar
Without bold predictions for Bitcoin's price, December would feel a bit lacking. But rather than throw out another $250,000 or $500,000 figure like everyone else, let's explore a more radical possibility: Bitcoin becoming the basis for global strategic reserves.
Fundamentals support this possibility. If a world power (or an unexpected power) formally adopts Bitcoin as part of its treasury reserves, the current price predictions could be thrown into disarray. We're not just talking about $500,000; prices of $1 million or higher could become the new norm as countries race to acquire the world's rarest digital asset.
Even without geopolitical adoption, Bitcoin's scarcity makes it a unique asset in itself. The total number of Bitcoins will always be 21 million, far fewer than the 60 million millionaires in the world. As institutions and potentially governments buy up large reserves of Bitcoin, it will soon become a desire for a very few to own one Bitcoin—unless they are smart enough to invest early.
Coupled with the ongoing utility of Bitcoin as a decentralized network and its role as an unstable fiat alternative, we are witnessing exponential growth.
But here’s an unknown: what happens when Bitcoin's price is no longer just driven by the market, but rather hedged against each other by countries vying for digital dominance? This is where things get really tricky. With several countries already trialing Bitcoin fiscal programs, $500,000 might just be the starting point.
2. Depinners get rich quickly
It must be admitted that the cryptocurrency industry sometimes struggles to communicate its vision to the outside world: slogans like 'financial sovereignty' are almost meaningless to the average person, unless their bank accounts are frozen.
So, what if we look at it from a different angle? Imagine: decentralization allows you to earn money without doing anything. Don't think this is a fantasy, because 'Depinners' have already done it. By leveraging and 'farming' your computer resources, like mobile processors, anyone can earn passive income by contributing to decentralized physical infrastructure (DePIN).
The DePIN revolution perfectly demonstrates how decentralization is changing the concept of ownership and empowering people with (profitable) power. Equally important, it is giving rise to incredible new use cases, from addressing noise pollution to managing energy networks to natural disaster warnings, solving a wide array of problems. Although DePIN is still in its infancy, its almost limitless application possibilities mean that by 2025, early adopters could quickly earn passive income equivalent to 5% of the average person's income—without much effort.
3. Memecoins become serious
I predict that in 2025 there will still be 'serious' financial commentators who do not recognize any practical value in meme coins, viewing them as nothing more than overhyped internet jokes. However, the views of these financial commentators are not just wrong, but laughably so.
In some ways, I can't really blame them: on the surface, most memecoins seem like a joke, especially the typical and ubiquitous DOGE. But ignoring them could be dangerous: memecoins are growing rapidly, and their development has surpassed their origins. The value of these tokens is driven not by speculation but by their ability to bring people together for various projects, from entertainment to politics.
In fact, memecoins can teach us a lot about the essence of community and participation in a decentralized world. By 2025, we will see brands recognizing the extraordinary potential of memecoins to attract new audiences, nurture new communities, and reimagine the relationship between businesses and consumers. It is certain that memecoins can generate profits—but in the long run, their value to forward-thinking brands will far exceed their token prices.
4. The Time Person of the Year could be a robot
I predict that the Time magazine Person of the Year for 2025... will no longer be a single individual. For the first time in its 98-year history, this annual award will be given to what I call 'Mrs. Humanoid'—a composite figure symbolizing the rise of artificial intelligence and robotics and their integration into human society.
This humanoid robot (sometimes referred to as a 'gynoid') will embody the tremendous impact AI and robotics have had across various fields such as healthcare and education, highlighting machines' ability to blur the lines between human and machine labor. Time magazine has previously selected some controversial figures (like the Person of the Year in 1938), but I believe there's nothing inappropriate about choosing a robot. I even think that failing to put a robot on the cover would be an irresponsible act towards society.
The rapid rise of robots should trigger a global discussion focused on the ethics of artificial intelligence, ways of working, privacy, and the redefinition of human identity. Many of these changes are positive, but there are also moral gray areas and potentially concerning situations. Therefore, how to address these challenges and seize opportunities while establishing new regulatory frameworks should be one of the most important issues of this century, alongside climate change. Placing Mrs. Humanoid on the cover of Time magazine would be an important step in drawing attention to this issue, especially among regulators and lawmakers.
5. Traditional search loses to AI
Will 2024 be our last chance to 'Google' something we don't know? With the emergence of Gen AI applications, we have good reason to think so.
Tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity represent the biggest change in the search field since Google's emergence 25 years ago. Leveraging the power of artificial intelligence not only provides more accurate results (thanks to its ability to understand semantics) but also changes the dynamics of search.
These new applications have excellently passed the Turing test, enabling meaningful conversations on a wide range of topics, from cooking to philosophy. Therefore, they represent a fundamental change in our emotional relationship with technology, making 'traditional' search (with Google's long-standing near-total monopoly as an example) seem quite outdated.
Just as the emergence of the internet sparked an 'SEO arms race' among brands to capture the first page of Google search results, in 2025 we will witness businesses start to explore how to maintain their relevance in an AI-driven search era.
One of the biggest changes will be the evolution of websites, which will increasingly cater to AI agents rather than human users. In 2025, we will see domain names take on new significant meanings, with the most successful brands being those that can leverage on-chain domains to protect consumer data, integrate AI capabilities, and provide revolutionary online experiences for their audiences.
Regardless of whether these predictions are partially or completely off the mark, one thing is indisputable—as we step into the latter half of the 2020s, decentralization is no longer a distant future but is about to become an inescapable and integral part of everyone's present.
