Original Title: Big Ideas from a16z: Top Projects to Watch in 2025
Author: Stacy Muur
Compiled by: Scof, ChainCatcher
The end of the year is one of my favorite times because top thinkers in the Web3 industry begin to share their highly confident thoughts and predictions about 2025. It’s an exciting moment to sketch out the potential of the crypto industry for the coming year. Earlier this month, a16z crypto released their list of big ideas for 2025. Which protocols have established themselves in these key areas? Let’s explore this in the new publication.
This time, I want to focus on an article published by a16z crypto: (A16Z Outlook on New Crypto Trends for 2025).
Core Idea #1: AI Agents Managing Wallets
In short, AI agents have demonstrated the ability for independent trading and full autonomy. There are many emerging application scenarios in this field where AI agents can become new roles in Web3, participating in trading, investment, bridging, and the realization of other intents.
In this field, several projects I am watching include:
NEAR Protocol: NEAR is positioning itself as the 'AI blockchain.' Recently, they launched several important projects, including Near AI and Near Intents. NEAR has already gained considerable influence in the industry and is expected to become a leader in this field by 2025.
Fetch.ai: Fetch.ai is a platform built for the AI economy, providing tools to build, deploy, and monetize AI services. Its ASI wallet can integrate Fetch's best features and advancements in the AI field, potentially becoming the first implementation case of AI combined with wallets.
Armor Wallet: Armor Wallet is an AI-driven crypto wallet and trading assistant that supports transactions across multiple blockchains and quickly executes complex trades. It is worth noting that Armor Wallet is still in the early stages of development.
Coin98 Super Wallet: Coin98 launched their AI wallet at the end of November, equipped with an AI assistant that can recommend tools and simplify complex tasks while supporting natural human interactions.
Core Idea #2: Enhanced Information Aggregation
This concept revolves around new mechanisms based on prediction markets, aiming to aggregate information more effectively and enhance decision-making processes in various fields.
This is a relatively new idea, and regarding this field, I recommend reading the Delphi Digital report (Markets Will Save the World).
My Watch List:
MetaDAO: MetaDAO is the first project to implement future governance (Futarchy) at scale within a DAO. Futarchy is a governance system that combines prediction markets and democratic voting, aiming to drive decisions based on market trading outcomes.
Futarchy: The concept of Futarchy is similar to that of MetaDAO, emphasizing governance through markets and reflecting how various policy options may impact token value.
Core Idea #3: Mass Adoption of Stablecoins
This idea focuses on the increasing adoption of stablecoins, with the trading volume of stablecoins surpassing that of Visa, MasterCard, and PayPal. This shift will benefit many market participants, including stablecoin issuers, crypto card companies, and crypto acquirers.
To better showcase the stablecoin ecosystem, here is an ecological diagram from the aforementioned research. Consider adding these projects to your watch list.
In my view, it is particularly important to emphasize the infrastructure that can facilitate the growing trading volume, which will become the main beneficiaries of the widespread adoption of stablecoins.
Apart from TRON (as a well-known USDT transfer engine), a protocol worth noting is Noble. This emerging project aims to develop liquidity infrastructure to help asset issuers participate in the cross-chain economy.
Core Idea #4: Modular Everything
Modularity is not new, but a16z believes that more modular solutions will gain mainstream adoption next year. The following areas are worth noting:
RaaS (Rollup-as-a-Service): Gelato, Caldera, AltLayer, Conduit, Bison Labs.
Interoperability: Hyperlane, Polyhedra, Omni.
Shared Ordering: Espresso, Radius, Zellular.
Privacy: Nillion, Brevis, Automata, Fhenix, zkMe.
Intents: Anoma, Aori, Native.
Storage: Arweave, Storj, Filecoin, Zus.
Oracles: Pyth, RedStone, Supra, Chainlink.
The focus on infrastructure solutions in 2025 remains crucial.
Core Idea #5: Seamless User Experience
This is one of the strongest trends I see. Chain Abstraction has become a hot topic this year, and we are finally approaching the moment when abstracting user experience becomes a reality, rather than just a concept.
Here’s a great chain abstraction diagram from The Defiant:
These projects are all worth monitoring, but I particularly want to highlight Particle, which is my top pick. Their recently launched 'Universal Accounts' allow users to trade assets seamlessly across any chain via UniversalX.
Another project worth noting in this field is Everclear, which serves as the main clearing layer for Web3. As the resolver economy required for chain abstraction expands, resolvers need to rebalance assets across different chains, and Everclear is the most cost-effective driver of this process.
Core Idea #6: Crypto App Stores
The original report from a16z mentioned several notable crypto app store developers, including the Telegram app on TON, Alchemy, Solana's mobile dApp store (Seeker), and Worldcoin's mobile application.
I would also like to recommend a few more projects: Glue, DeFi App, and VeBetter.
Core Idea #7: Tokenization of Everything
Tokenization is a broad topic, especially regarding the tokenization of 'unconventional' assets. Here are some projects worth watching:
Kaito AI: Tokenization of Influence (Attention Economy).
GAIB: Providing an economic layer for an AI-driven future by tokenizing enterprise-grade GPUs.
Compute Labs: Competing directly with GAIB by fragmenting GPU ownership.
ShopX: Tokenizing goods and products (RWA in e-commerce).
Eaas: Tokenizing Carbon Footprints.
AI Agents and DeSci: Projects like Dolz (tokenizing adult film stars), PsyDAO (tokenizing psychedelic science and art), and Molecule (biopharmaceutical IP tokenization protocol) are all high-risk, cutting-edge projects worth watching.
These projects bring more innovative possibilities to the crypto world and are worth keeping an eye on.
