Original Coinbase Vernacular Blockchain December 20, 2024 12:27 Anhui
This is the 2110th sharing of the Vernacular Blockchain
Author | Coinbase
Compilation｜Vernacular Blockchain (ID: hellobtc)
In the past year alone, the United States approved Bitcoin and Ethereum spot ETFs, and significant progress has been made in the tokenization of financial products, the growth of stablecoins, and the integration of global payment frameworks. These achievements did not happen overnight, and while they appear to be the culmination of years of hard work, there are more signs that this is just the beginning of greater change.
From a market perspective, the upward trend in 2024 is different from previous bull markets. On the surface, "web3" is gradually replaced by the more appropriate "onchain"; at a deeper level, fundamental demand gradually replaces narrative-driven investment, which is closely related to the deepening participation of institutional investors.
Bitcoin’s market dominance has increased significantly, and decentralized finance (DeFi) has broken the boundaries of blockchain technology and promoted the formation of a new financial ecosystem. Global central banks and major financial institutions are also exploring how to improve the efficiency of asset issuance, transactions and recording through Crypto.
Looking ahead to 2025, the crypto market is experiencing transformative growth. Coinbase covers all aspects of the crypto ecosystem, from altcoins, ETFs, staking to gaming, and provides a comprehensive and in-depth analysis of the crypto market outlook for 2025. The following are key excerpts.
01
Macroeconomic trends in 2025
1) The Fed’s needs and goals
Donald Trump’s victory in the 2024 U.S. presidential election served as the biggest catalyst for the crypto market in Q4 2024, driving Bitcoin prices sharply higher by 4-5 standard deviations above the three-month average.
Looking ahead, we believe that the impact of fiscal policy in the short term may not be as great as the long-term trend of monetary policy, especially as the Fed is approaching a critical decision moment. It is expected that the Fed may continue to ease monetary policy by 2025, but the pace of easing may be affected by future fiscal expansion, such as tax cuts and tariffs that may push up inflation. Although the overall CPI (consumer index) has fallen to 2.7%, the core CPI is still around 3.3%, which is higher than the Fed's target.
The Fed hopes to achieve a slowdown in price growth through "de-inflation" while maximizing employment, that is, controlling the pace of price increases. However, American families prefer to see prices fall, but deflation may lead to an economic recession and bring greater risks.
The most likely scenario at present is a soft landing, thanks to the decline in long-term interest rates and the unique advantages of the United States. The Fed's interest rate cuts are almost a foregone conclusion, and the easing of credit conditions will also support Crypto's performance in the next 1-2 quarters. In addition, if the next government pursues budget deficit spending, risk appetite (including buying Crypto) may rise further as more US dollars circulate in the economy.
2) The most pro-crypto U.S. Congress in history
After years of political ambiguity, we believe the next legislative session could be the moment when the U.S. finally establishes regulatory clarity for the crypto industry. This election sent a strong signal to Washington that the public is dissatisfied with the existing financial system and is eager for change. From a market perspective, bipartisan support for crypto majorities in the House and Senate means that U.S. regulation is expected to shift from a drag on the crypto market to a driving force, becoming a positive factor for Crypto performance in 2025.
The new focus of discussion is to establish a strategic Bitcoin reserve. In July 2024, after the Bitcoin Nashville Conference, Wyoming Senator Cynthia Loomis proposed the (Bitcoin Act), and Pennsylvania also introduced a similar bill, allowing up to 10% of the state general fund to be invested in Bitcoin or crypto assets. Michigan and Wisconsin have included Crypto in pension investments, and Florida is following suit. However, creating a strategic Bitcoin reserve may face some challenges, such as the Federal Reserve's legal restrictions on holding crypto assets on its balance sheet.
At the same time, the United States is not the only region making progress in regulation. The rise in global demand for encryption is also changing the landscape of international regulatory competition. Looking overseas, the EU's (Markets in Crypto Assets Regulation) (MiCA) is being implemented in stages to provide a clear regulatory framework for the industry. Many G20 countries and major financial centers, such as the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, Hong Kong and Singapore, are also actively formulating regulatory rules that adapt to digital assets to create a more favorable environment for innovation and growth.
3）Crypto ETF 2.0
The US approval of spot Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs is an important milestone for the crypto market. Since its launch, these products have received net inflows of $30.7 billion (about 11 months), far exceeding the performance of the SPDR Gold ETF in its first year of $4.8 billion in 2004. According to Bloomberg data, this puts crypto ETFs in the top 0.1% of the approximately 5,500 ETFs launched in the past 30 years.
These ETFs have created new demand points for Bitcoin and Ethereum, increasing Bitcoin's market share from 52% at the beginning of the year to 62% in November 2024. The latest 13-F reports show that almost all types of institutional investors - such as endowments, pensions, hedge funds and family offices - have participated in these products. At the same time, the US options products launched in 2024 provide investors with lower-cost risk management tools.
Looking ahead, the industry's attention is focused on the possibility that issuers may expand the asset range of ETFs to include more tokens such as XRP, SOL, LTC, and HBAR, but we believe that these potential approvals may only benefit a limited group of assets. More importantly, what will happen if the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) allows ETFs to use pledge functions, or relaxes restrictions so that ETF shares can be created and redeemed in kind rather than just cash? The current cash model leads to settlement delays, deviations between share prices and net asset value (NAV), and higher transaction costs. The physical model is expected to improve price alignment, narrow bid-ask spreads, reduce transaction costs, and reduce price volatility and tax impacts, thereby improving market efficiency.
4) Stablecoin: Crypto’s “killer app”
In 2024, the stablecoin market has seen significant growth, with its total market capitalization increasing by 48% to $193 billion as of December 1. Some market analysts believe that the stablecoin market is expected to grow to nearly $3 trillion in the next five years, based on current trends. Although this forecast seems too radical, almost the same size as the entire current crypto market, it only accounts for about 14% of the U.S. $21 trillion money supply and liquidity, which means it is not impossible.
We increasingly believe that the next wave of real Crypto adoption may come from the stablecoin and payment space, which helps explain why stablecoins have received so much attention over the past 18 months. Stablecoins are able to offer faster, lower-cost transactions than traditional payment methods, making them increasingly used in digital payments and remittances, and many payment companies are stepping up efforts to build stablecoin infrastructure. In fact, we may be approaching a moment when the primary use of stablecoins will no longer be limited to transactions, but will expand to global capital flows and commercial transactions. In addition, the widespread financial applications of stablecoins have also attracted political attention, especially in their potential to help solve the US debt problem.
As of November 30, 2024, the total transaction volume of the stablecoin market has reached 27.1 trillion US dollars, almost three times the 9.3 trillion US dollars in the same period (11 months) in 2023. This includes a large number of peer-to-peer (P2P) transfers and cross-border business-to-business (B2B) payments. More and more companies and individuals are beginning to use stablecoins like USDC to meet compliance requirements and deeply integrate with payment platforms such as Visa and Stripe. In fact, Stripe acquired the stablecoin infrastructure company Bridge for $1.1 billion in October 2024, which is also the largest deal in the crypto industry to date.
5) Tokenization Revolution
Tokenization has made significant progress in 2024. According to data from rwa.xyz, tokenized real-world assets (RWA) grew from $8.4 billion at the end of 2023 to $13.5 billion on December 1, 2024, an increase of more than 60% (excluding stablecoins). Predictions from various analysts indicate that this market may grow from a minimum of US$2 trillion to a maximum of US$30 trillion in the next five years, an increase of nearly 50 times. Asset management companies and traditional financial institutions, such as BlackRock and Franklin Templeton, are increasingly adopting the tokenization of traditional assets such as government bonds on public and permissioned chains, enabling cross-border Settlement is almost instantaneous and trading is possible around the clock.
Some companies are trying to use tokenized assets as collateral for other financial transactions (such as derivatives trading), which can not only simplify operations (such as margin calls) but also reduce risks. In addition, the trend of RWA tokenization has expanded from U.S. Treasuries and money market funds to private credit, commodities, corporate bonds, real estate, and insurance. Ultimately, tokenization is expected to transfer the portfolio construction and investment process to the blockchain, thereby further simplifying the entire investment process, but this goal may take several years to achieve.
Of course, these efforts also face some unique challenges, including liquidity fragmentation across multiple blockchains and an ever-changing regulatory environment, both of which have seen significant progress.
Overall, we expect tokenization to be a gradual and ongoing process, but its benefits are widely recognized. Now is the best time for companies to experiment and ensure they stay ahead of the curve.
6) The resurgence of DeFi
"DeFi is dead, long live DeFi." Decentralized finance (DeFi) suffered a major blow in the last market cycle because some applications relied on token incentives to attract liquidity, with high but unsustainable returns. However, over time, a more sustainable financial system has gradually emerged, which includes not only real-world application cases but also a transparent governance structure.
In our view, changes in the U.S. regulatory environment could be key to reigniting the prospects for DeFi. Specifically, this could include establishing a regulatory framework for stablecoins and providing a path for traditional institutional investors to enter the DeFi market, especially as synergies between off-chain and on-chain capital markets continue to deepen. In fact, DEXs now account for about 14% of CEX trading volume, up from 8% in January 2023. Even more, the possibility of decentralized applications (dApps) sharing protocol revenue with token holders is becoming increasingly likely, which has become a reality in a more friendly regulatory environment.
In addition, Crypto's disruptive role in the financial services sector is being recognized by more and more key figures. In October 2024, Christoper Waller, a director of the Federal Reserve, gave a speech on how to make DeFi complement centralized finance (CeFi). He believes that distributed ledger technology (DLT) can make CeFi's record keeping more efficient and faster, while smart contracts can enhance CeFi's capabilities. He also said that stablecoins may bring benefits in terms of payments and as "safe assets" on trading platforms, although they need to take corresponding measures to deal with risks such as runs and illegal finance.
All of this suggests that DeFi is likely to no longer be limited to the crypto user group, but will extend to the traditional financial (TradFi) field.
02
Disruptive Paradigm
1) Telegram trading bots: the hidden profit center in the crypto space
After stablecoins and native L1 transaction fees, Telegram trading bots have become the most profitable part of the Crypto space in 2024, even surpassing the net protocol revenue of major DeFi protocols like Aave and MakerDAO (now known as Sky). This trend has mainly benefited from the increase in trading and Memecoin activity. In fact, Memecoin has become the strongest performing crypto space in 2024 (measured by market capitalization growth), and Memecoin trading activity (on the Solana DEX platform) has also risen sharply in Q4 2024.
Telegram trading bots are chat-based trading tools. Users can create custodial wallets directly within the chat window and recharge and manage them through buttons and text commands. As of December 1, 2024, users of Telegram trading bots are mainly concentrated in Solana (87%), followed by Ethereum (8%), and then Base (4%). (Note: Most Telegram trading bots are not associated with The Open Network (TON), which is integrated with Telegram's native wallet.) In other words, the users served by these bots tend to use the Solana blockchain for transactions or other operations.
Like most trading platforms, Telegram trading bots typically charge fees of around 1% per trade. However, due to the high volatility of the assets traded, users are not unhappy with these higher fees. By December 1, 2024, the highest-earning Photon bot had accumulated fees of $210 million, close to the $227 million collected by Solana's largest Memecoin launch platform Pump. In addition, other major bots like Trojan and BONKbot also earned $105 million and $99 million in revenue, respectively. In comparison, Aave's protocol revenue for the entire year of 2024 was $74 million (net income after deducting fees).
We believe that the appeal of these bots mainly comes from their convenience in DEX trading, especially for tokens that have not yet been listed on CEX. Many bots also provide additional features, such as the "sniping" function when the token is listed and integrated price alerts. The Telegram trading experience is very user-friendly, and nearly 50% of users of Trojan bots use it for more than four days (while only 29% of users stop using it after one day), which also makes the average revenue per user reach $188.
While increasing competition among Telegram trading bots may eventually lead to lower transaction fees, we believe that Telegram bots (and the other core interfaces discussed below) will continue to remain the leading profit center through 2025.
2) Prediction Market: Open Betting
Prediction markets could be one of the biggest winners of the 2024 U.S. election cycle, with platforms like Polymarket outperforming traditional polling data that predicts election outcomes. We believe that this is a victory for Crypto, because the prediction market based on blockchain shows significant advantages over traditional polling data and reflects the unique application potential of blockchain technology. Prediction markets not only demonstrate the advantages of transparency, speed, and global access brought by cryptography, but their blockchain foundation enables decentralized dispute resolution and outcome-based automated payment settlement, thus distinguishing themselves from traditional non-blockchain Chain prediction platform.
Although many believe that these decentralized applications (dApps) may lose popularity after the election, we have seen their use expand into other areas such as sports, entertainment, etc. In the financial field, they have been shown to be more accurate than traditional surveys in reflecting economic data such as inflation and non-farm payrolls, which also means that they may continue to develop after the election.
3) Games: Controversy attracts attention
Gaming has always been one of the core themes in the Crypto space due to the potentially transformative impact of on-chain assets and markets. However, attracting a loyal user base, especially those loyal players that traditional games have, has always been a challenge for crypto games. Many crypto game players are more focused on profit rather than pure entertainment, which makes it difficult to attract more non-crypto users. In addition, many crypto games rely on web browsers for distribution and require the use of self-hosted wallets, which limits their audience and mainly attracts crypto enthusiasts rather than mass gamers.
However, crypto-integrated games have improved significantly compared to the previous cycle. The key change is the shift from the original concept of "fully owning the game on the chain" to selectively placing assets on the chain, which unlocks new features without affecting the overall gaming experience. In fact, we found that many high-profile game developers now view blockchain technology as an auxiliary tool rather than a core marketing selling point.
Off the Grid is a representative of this trend. Although its core blockchain component, the Avalanche subnet, was still in beta when the game was released, it still became the number one free game on the Epic Games platform. The core appeal of the game lies in its unique gameplay, not the blockchain token or item trading market. More importantly, we believe that this game paves the way for crypto-integrated games to enter a wider market, and it is now available on Xbox, PlayStation, and PC (via the Epic Games store).
Mobile has also become an important distribution channel for crypto-integrated games, including native applications and embedded applications (such as Telegram mini-games). Many mobile games also selectively integrate blockchain functions, but most activities are actually run on centralized servers. Often, these games can be played without the need for external wallets, reducing the barrier to entry and allowing users who are not familiar with crypto to participate.
In our view, the line between crypto games and traditional games is likely to continue to blur. Upcoming "crypto games" are likely to be crypto-integrated games rather than fully crypto-focused games, and we believe they will focus more on gameplay refinement and distribution channels rather than a "play to earn" mechanic, which may drive wider adoption of crypto, but we are unsure how it will directly drive demand for liquid tokens. In-game tokens will likely be segregated between games, and we believe that non-crypto enthusiast gamers may not want outside investors to influence the in-game economy.
4)FromPIN
Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks (DePIN) have the potential to solve "real world" allocation problems by guiding the construction of resource networks. In simple terms, DePIN can theoretically overcome the initial scale economy problems common to such projects. DePIN projects range from computing power, communication towers to energy, aiming to provide a more efficient and cost-effective way to aggregate these resources.
The most typical example is Helium, which operates by distributing tokens to individuals who provide local cellular hotspots. By issuing tokens to hotspot providers, Helium has successfully built a network covering most cities in the United States, Europe, and Asia without incurring the high cost of building and deploying communication towers or investing a lot of upfront capital. Instead, early users gain early access and rights to the network through tokens, which incentivizes them to participate.
However, the long-term revenue and sustainability of these networks need to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. That said, we do not believe that DePIN is a universal solution for resource allocation, as the pain points of different industries may vary greatly. For example, a decentralized strategy may not be applicable to certain industries, or it may only solve a small part of the problem in a certain industry. The differences in network adoption, token usage, and revenue sources in this field depend more on the industry being targeted than on the technology network it relies on.
5) Artificial Intelligence and Real Value
Artificial intelligence (AI) has become an investment focus in both traditional and crypto markets, while its impact in the crypto space is diverse and its narrative is constantly evolving. Initially, blockchain technology was thought to solve the problem of tracking AI-generated content and user data to ensure data authenticity. At the same time, AI-driven intent architectures were proposed to improve user experience in the crypto market. Subsequently, the focus shifted to decentralized AI model training and computing networks, as well as crypto-driven data generation and collection. Recently, the focus has shifted to autonomous AI agents that can control crypto wallets and interact through social media.
The full impact of AI on the crypto market remains unclear, as evidenced by the changing narrative. However, this uncertainty does not diminish the potential changes that AI will bring to the crypto market. After all, AI technology will continue to break through and bring new developments, and AI applications will become increasingly accessible to non-technical users. We believe this will further accelerate the emergence of creative applications.
The big question is how to translate these changes into lasting value accumulation between liquid tokens and company equity. For example, many AI agents run on traditional technology frameworks, and recent "value accumulation" (i.e. market attention) has flowed more to Memecoin than to any underlying infrastructure. Although liquid tokens associated with the infrastructure layer have also seen price increases, their usage growth generally lags behind price increases. We believe this trend of price outpacing network metrics, coupled with the rotational attention to AI memecoins, reflects a lack of consensus among investors on how to capture AI growth in the crypto market.
03
Blockchain Ecosystem Games
1) Is the future of multi-chain still a zero-sum game?
A major returning theme during the last bull run was the popularity of alternative layer 1 networks. Emerging networks are increasingly competing by reducing transaction costs, redesigning execution environments, and reducing latency. We believe that the Layer 1 space has grown to a new high, and now, although high-value block space is still scarce, the overall general block space is in excess.
That said, additional block space itself is not necessarily more valuable. However, a vibrant protocol ecosystem, combined with an active community and dynamic crypto assets, still enables certain blockchains to charge a premium. For example, despite Ethereum’s mainnet execution not improving since 2021, it remains a hub for high-value DeFi activity. And investors remain attracted to the potential for differentiated ecosystems on these new networks, even if the bar for differentiation is rising. High-performance chains like Sui, Aptos, and Sei are competing with Solana for market share, and the upcoming launch of Monad is seen as a strong competitor with strong developer appeal.
Historically, DEXs have been the primary source of on-chain fees. For this to happen, strong user onboarding, wallets, interfaces, and capital support are required to establish a cycle of increasing activity and liquidity. This concentration of activity often leads to certain chains winning out over the competition.
However, we believe that the future will still be multi-chain, as different blockchain architectures have unique advantages that can meet different needs. Although application chains and second-layer solutions can provide customized optimization and cost reduction for specific use cases, multi-chain ecosystems can enjoy the network effects and innovation of the entire blockchain field while specializing.
2) Improve Layer 2 network
Despite Layer 2’s significant scalability, controversy remains over Ethereum’s “rollup centralization” roadmap. Criticisms mainly focus on L2’s “extraction” of L1 activities, as well as its mobility and fragmentation of user experience. In particular, L2 is believed to be responsible for the decline in Ethereum network fees. As the discussion deepens, new controversial points also emerge, including the trade-offs of decentralization, different virtual machine environments (which may lead to EVM fragmentation), and the difference between "based" and "native" Rollup.
Layer2 has been a huge success from the perspective of increasing block space and reducing costs. In March 2024, Ethereum's Dencun (Deneb+Cancun) upgrade introduced binary large object (blob) transactions, and the average cost of Layer2 dropped by more than 90%, while also promoting a tenfold increase in Ethereum L2 activity. More importantly, the ability to experiment with multiple execution environments and architectures on top of Ethereum is a long-term advantage of the L2 roadmap.
However, this development also brings short-term drawbacks. Interoperability and overall user experience across Rollups become more complicated, especially for users who do not fully understand the differences between different Layer2s, or do not know how to bridge. Although bridge speed and cost have improved, we believe that users still need to interact with the bridge, which itself affects the overall on-chain experience.
Although this is an urgent problem to be solved, the community is actively exploring multiple solutions, such as
(1) Hyperchain interoperability in the Optimism ecosystem,
(2) zkRollup’s real-time proof and super transactions,
(3) Sorting-based models,
(4) Resource locking,
(5) Sorter network, etc.
While these issues are mostly being addressed at the infrastructure and network level, it may take some time for them to be reflected at the user interface level.
At the same time, the complexity of the Bitcoin Layer2 ecosystem has increased due to the lack of a unified Rollup security standard and roadmap. In contrast, Solana's "network expansion" focuses more on application scenarios and may interfere less with existing user workflows.
Overall, despite their different forms, L2 is gradually being implemented in multiple mainstream crypto ecosystems.
3) Everyone has their own blockchain
As the difficulty of custom network deployment continues to decrease, more and more applications and companies are starting to build blockchains that they can control. Major DeFi protocols such as Aave and Sky (formerly MakerDAO) have made it clear that they will launch their own chains in their long-term development plans, and the Uniswap team has also announced plans to launch a Layer2 chain focused on DeFi. Even some traditional companies are starting to get involved. For example, Sony announced plans to launch a new chain called Soneium.
As blockchain infrastructure matures and becomes more commoditized, owning block space becomes increasingly attractive, especially for regulators or applications with specific use cases. The technology stack that enables this is also changing. In past cycles, application-centric chains have relied primarily on Cosmos or Polkadot's Substrate SDK. In addition, companies like Caldera and Conduit represent a rapidly growing "Rollup as a Service" (RaaS) industry that enables more projects to launch their own Layer2. These platforms easily integrate with other services through the marketplace. Similarly, Avalanche's subnets are also likely to gain more adoption due to its managed blockchain service AvaCloud, which simplifies the launch of custom subnets.
The growth of modular chains may have a corresponding impact on Ethereum's blob space requirements, and data availability solutions like Celestia, EigenDA, or Avail may also be promoted. Since the beginning of November, Ethereum's blob usage has reached saturation (3 blobs per block), an increase of more than 50% from mid-September. Moreover, demand does not seem to be slowing down, and existing Layer2s such as Base continue to expand throughput, and new Layer2s are also launched on the mainnet. The Pectra upgrade expected in the first quarter of 2025 may increase the target blob number from 3 to 6.
04
User Experience
1) Improvements in User Experience (UX)
We believe that simplifying the user experience is one of the most important factors driving mass adoption. While the crypto industry has historically focused on technical onboarding, largely due to its cypherpunk roots, the focus is now rapidly shifting to simplifying the user experience. In particular, the industry is pushing to hide the complexity of cryptography behind the scenes of applications. This shift is made possible by recent technical breakthroughs such as account abstraction to simplify user onboarding and the use of session keys to reduce signing friction.
Adoption of these technologies will make security components in crypto wallets (such as mnemonics and recovery keys) invisible to most end users, similar to the seamless security experience of the Internet today (such as https, OAuth, and Password Key). We expect to see more Password Key access and in-app wallet integrations in 2025. Early signs include Password Key access for Coinbase Smart Wallet and Google login integration for Tiplink and Sui Wallet.
Nonetheless, abstraction of cross-chain architectures may still be the biggest challenge facing the crypto experience in the near term. While cross-chain abstractions continue to be a research focus at the network and infrastructure level (such as ERC-7683), they are still far from front-end applications in our opinion. Improvements in this area require improvements both at the smart contract application level and at the wallet level. Protocol upgrades are critical to unifying liquidity, while wallet improvements help provide users with a more streamlined experience. The latter is ultimately critical to scaling adoption, although the current focus of research and industry debate is mainly on the former.
2) Control interface
The most critical shift to the crypto user experience will come from taking “ownership” of the user relationship through better interfaces. We believe this will happen in two ways:
The first is the improvement of the aforementioned independent wallet experience. The user access process is becoming more and more simplified to adapt to user needs. Applications directly integrated into wallets (such as exchanges and borrowing) may also make it easier for users to stay in a familiar ecosystem.
Second, applications are also competing to “own” the user relationship by integrating wallets by abstracting blockchain technology components into the background. This includes trading tools, games, on-chain social and membership applications, where users automatically get a wallet after registering through familiar methods such as Google or Apple OAuth. Once connected, on-chain transactions are funded by payment providers, and the fees are ultimately borne by the application owner. This brings a unique dynamic: the income of each user needs to match the cost of paying for their on-chain behavior. As blockchains scale, this part of the cost continues to decline, but it also forces crypto applications to consider which data components to submit on the chain.
Overall, the crypto space will face fierce competition in the future, and attracting and retaining users is key. As shown by the average revenue per user (ARPU) of Telegram trading bots mentioned above, many retail crypto traders tend to be less sensitive to price changes than institutions in the traditional financial sector. It is expected that in the coming year, mastering user relationships will become a greater focus of protocols outside of the trading field.
3) Decentralized identity
As regulatory transparency improves and more assets are tokenized off-chain, simplifying customer identification (KYC) and anti-money laundering (AML) processes becomes increasingly important. For example, some assets are only available to accredited investors in specific regions, making identity verification and qualification certification key elements in future on-chain operations.
In our view, the construction of decentralized identity can be divided into two key parts. The first is to create an on-chain identity. The Ethereum Naming Service (ENS) provides a standard for mapping readable ".eth" names to multiple cross-chain wallets. Similar services have also appeared in other networks, such as Basenames and Solana Name Service. As mainstream payment platforms such as PayPal and Venmo also begin to support ENS address resolution, the popularity of on-chain identity services has accelerated.
The second core part is to build attributes for on-chain identities. This includes confirming KYC verification and regional information, which other protocols can view to ensure compliance with relevant regulatory requirements. The core of the technology is the Ethereum Attestation Service, a flexible service that allows different entities to provide verification for other wallets. These verifications are not limited to KYC and can be expanded according to the needs of the authenticating party. For example, Coinbase uses the service for on-chain verification to confirm that the wallet is associated with a user with a Coinbase account and is located in a specific jurisdiction. Some new permissioned lending markets based on Base will also limit user access through these certifications.
05
summary
Looking back over the past year, although the crypto market has been volatile due to interest rate hikes, regulatory pressure and uncertain prospects, today's progress marks a turning point, which also proves the resilience of Crypto: it has continued to grow steadily in the face of various challenges and has gradually become a mature and lasting alternative asset.
Looking ahead, the crypto market presents multiple promising development directions. From peer-to-peer DEX, decentralized prediction markets, to artificial intelligence (AI) agents equipped with crypto wallets, these cutting-edge technologies are gradually emerging. At the same time, the integration of stablecoins and payments, unsecured on-chain lending, and the formation of compliant on-chain capital also show huge room for development.
Although the popularity of the crypto industry has increased significantly, it is still poorly understood by many due to its novel technical structure. But as more and more projects make progress in optimizing user experience, simplifying the complexity of blockchain technology, and enhancing smart contract functions, the situation is expected to change, which will help attract more new users to join and accelerate the development of Crypto. universal.
Moreover, the United States laid the foundation for a clear regulatory framework in 2024, and 2025 is expected to bring more progress, further consolidating the position of crypto assets in mainstream finance. We foresee that 2025 will be a key year for the Crypto industry, and breakthrough progress may lay the foundation for development in the next few decades.
Original title: 2025 Crypto Market Outlook
Original link: https://www.coinbase.com/institutional/research-insights/research/market-intelligence/2025-crypto-market-outlook
Compiled by: Vernacular Blockchain
