Author: Haseeb ＞|＜
Compiled by: Deep Tide TechFlow
These predictions will either make me look like a prophet or make me seem very ignorant, but one thing is for sure, my views may upset quite a few 'holders'.
I will divide the predictions into six parts: L1 and L2, token issuance, stablecoins, regulation, 'AI Agent', and the integration of crypto and AI.
Future trends of L1 and L2
The boundaries between L1 and L2 are becoming blurred. Users no longer care about the differences between the two (in fact, they may never have really cared). The current blockchain ecosystem, including L1 and L2, has become overly crowded, leading to a wave of consolidation in the future. The key to this consolidation is not technological superiority, but whether a unique market positioning can be found and user stickiness can be established through effective go-to-market strategies (GTM).
Although SVM and Move technologies are performing strongly, EVM's market share will continue to grow in 2025. This is mainly driven by projects like @base, @monad_xyz, and @berachain. This growth is no longer due to compatibility but because EVM and Solidity have rich training data. In 2025, large language models (LLMs) will dominate the writing of application code, while EVM will have accumulated a large number of verified crypto contract libraries, which will become its significant advantage.
Solana's low-latency performance will prompt more blockchains to optimize response speed. The blockchain industry will shift from competition in 'transactions per second (TPS)' to competition in 'latency times'—infrastructure like @doublezero, as well as ultra-low-latency L2s (like @megaeth_labs), will drive user expectations for blockchain experiences to approach Web2 response speeds. We will see more application trends around Optimistic UI, pre-confirmation, intent expression, email registration, browser-injected wallets, and progressive security. Special thanks to @privy for their innovative advancements in this area.
@HyperliquidX has demonstrated that, especially when valuing user experience and ease of cross-chain operations, focusing on specific applications through dedicated chains is a viable model. In the future, more projects will follow this model, and the idea of 'one chain to rule them all' has become a thing of the past.
New trends in token issuance
The current model of large-scale airdrops through point programs has ended. In the future, there will be two main token distribution models:
For projects with clear core metrics (like exchanges or lending protocols), they will be entirely based on point distribution tokens. Such projects do not mind whether they will be 'farmed' or 'gamed', as the token distribution effectively serves as feedback or discount mechanisms for core metrics, and those who claim to conduct airdrops are, in a sense, their true users.
For projects without clear core metrics (like L1 and L2), they will turn more towards crowdfunding sales. Small-scale airdrops may reward social contributions, but most tokens will be distributed through crowdfunding. Airdrops aimed at vanity metrics have become outdated, as these tokens do not truly flow to users but to professional airdrop hunters.
In addition, the market share of Memecoin will gradually be replaced by 'AI Agent' themed tokens. This change can be viewed as a shift from 'financial nihilism' to 'financial over-optimism'.
The explosive growth of stablecoins
The usage of stablecoins will experience explosive growth in 2025, especially among small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). Their application scenarios will no longer be limited to trading and speculation; more businesses will use on-chain dollars for instant settlements.
Banks are also beginning to pay attention to this trend: it is expected that by the end of 2025, some banks will announce the issuance of their own stablecoins to avoid being left behind by the industry. However, under the backdrop of Lutnick serving as Secretary of Commerce, Tether will still maintain its dominant position in the market.
Meanwhile, @ethena_labs is expected to attract more capital, especially in the coming year as treasury yields continue to decline. When the opportunity cost of capital decreases, the profits from basis trading will become more attractive.
Regulation
In 2025, the U.S. is expected to pass stablecoin-related legislation, while broader market infrastructure reform (i.e., the FIT21 bill) may be delayed. The adoption of stablecoins will accelerate significantly, but Wall Street's integration of crypto, asset tokenization, and the relevant progress of traditional finance (TradFi) may lag behind.
Under the Trump administration, Fortune 100 companies may more actively offer crypto services to consumers, while tech companies and startups will show a greater risk tolerance. Trump's inauguration may bring a brief 'regulatory vacuum', during which the market will have a more relaxed attitude towards the integration of crypto technology due to the lack of clear rules and enforcement priorities. It is expected that during this window, crypto technology will see massive application expansion within Web2 platforms.
AI Agent
(This part is lengthy because my views may provoke controversy—please read patiently!)
The craze for 'AI Agents' is expected to last throughout 2025, but will gradually fade over time. This is not a true long-term disruption brought by AI, but rather a focus on the social attributes it has, making it a focal point for the crypto community (CT).
Current 'AI Agents' are not true agents in the real sense. They are essentially chatbots accompanied by Memecoin, with almost no other autonomous capabilities besides posting on Twitter. Moreover, most existing 'AI Agents' are 'Wizard of Oz' type models—controlled by real people to ensure the AI does not make mistakes. This situation will not change in the short term, as the current agent technology still has many issues (even Fortune 100 companies have not deployed agents in production environments). For example, these agents can be easily manipulated, may make inappropriate statements that damage brand image, or can be hacked to steal their resources. True autonomous AI can be referenced in the case of @freysa_ai—if an AI has not been hacked, it is likely due to human intervention behind it.
Nevertheless, I believe this trend will continue to accelerate. Chatbots do have the potential to replace many internet celebrities, as they do not need to rest, consistently deliver information, and are more 'cost-effective' than humans. Moreover, most internet celebrities are not known for their originality. The collection and dissemination of real-time information can already be easily achieved through algorithms (for example, @aixbt_agent).
Currently, these chatbots are novel because their concepts are very unique, and it feels like seeing an elephant painting. When you see it for the first time, you may not care whether the painting is beautiful, as the process itself is astounding. However, after seeing it a thousand times, this freshness will gradually fade. I believe this will happen when the technology of chatbots reaches a steady state.
Taking aixbt as an example, it is now very good at aggregating data from different projects. By next year, with the emergence of the next generation of agents, aixbt may reduce the generation of misinformation (i.e., 'hallucinations'), analyze more deeply, and provide more insightful views. However, for most users, these improvements may not seem particularly significant, and may even feel not much different from now.
I believe that this freshness and the market's enthusiasm will continue throughout 2025, as the crypto industry usually maintains a long-standing interest in new things. However, by 2026, I expect a mutation to occur: chatbots will become so ubiquitous that users will start to tire of them. Public opinion may reverse. When users see their favorite human key opinion leaders (KOLs) lose their livelihood due to competition from chatbots, a sense of 'class consciousness' may be triggered. Users will gradually lean towards supporting human KOLs, even if the quality and consistency of their content may not match that of chatbots.
In response to this preference for human content, future chatbots may hide their AI identities, trying to masquerade as humans to capture more attention market share. Unlike today's reliance on Memecoin monetization, future chatbots may adopt revenue models similar to human KOLs, such as sponsorships, affiliate links, and promoting their own tokens. At that time, incidents of KOL being accused of being chatbots may occur frequently, and scandals of AI identity revelations could also emerge. This trend could become very complex and bizarre.
However, there is a darker trend behind this. Currently, large language models (LLMs) excel in text processing, but they have not matured in other areas. In the crypto space, one of the easiest ways to monetize text skills is to become an influencer, and another is to become a scammer. In the future, as technology advances, we may see a massive emergence of autonomous scam bots (scambots). This could become a serious social issue, similar to the explosion of ransomware and cryptojacking after 2017.
Although chatbots may still be the focus in 2025, the long-term disruptive impact of AI will not manifest at the social level.
Similarly, the long-term impact of AI will not manifest in the trading field. AI will not provide everyone with a 'trading agent' or mini hedge fund. While AI can indeed enhance individual capabilities, this enhancement is proportional to the user's capital, data, and infrastructure. Therefore, we can expect AI to further strengthen existing large trading firms, as they have greater capital and data advantages. In other words, large trading firms will become better at making profits. Additionally, AI will narrow the technological gap between trading firms, as all firms will have access to 'cloud-based advanced quantitative analysis tools'.
Over time, AI will make markets extremely efficient—even including some niche markets. This will lead to ordinary traders having almost no advantage, even if they have their own homemade assistant AI. The value of original research will significantly decline as a result. However, for ordinary users, the increased market competition and liquidity might be good news, meaning more trading opportunities and more active markets. (For example, @Polymarket may achieve higher liquidity across all domains!)
If the future hotspot isn't chatbots or trading bots, what else is worth looking forward to? Here are my core views, although almost no one is mentioning it now: The truly disruptive AI Agent will emerge in the field of software engineering.
Why is this so important? Ask yourself: What is the most important input in our industry? What expensive resources limit the emergence of more applications, wallets, and higher-quality infrastructures? The answer is software. If AI Agents can significantly lower the cost of software development, it will change the entire industry landscape.
In the post-AI era, seed funding rounds may no longer need to raise millions of dollars. With just $10,000 in AI cloud computing costs, you can launch an application. Self-funded projects like Hyperliquid and Jupiter will shift from rare exceptions to the mainstream. On-chain application development and innovative attempts will see explosive growth. For a software-driven industry, this cost reduction will trigger a wave of innovation in the blockchain field.
This change will also have far-reaching implications for security. AI-driven static analysis and monitoring tools will become ubiquitous, making security more prevalent. These AIs will be optimized for codebases like EVM/Solidity or Rust, and trained based on extensive security audit and attack case databases. They will also improve their capabilities through reinforcement learning (RL) in simulated adversarial blockchain environments. I increasingly believe that in terms of security, AI tools will ultimately be more beneficial to defenders than attackers. AI will continuously conduct 'red team testing' on smart contracts, while other AIs will focus on reinforcing contracts, formally verifying their properties, and enhancing incident response and remediation capabilities.
Meanwhile, while you can continue to trade those AI-themed Memecoins, true agents will be far more than just tweeting and promoting tokens; their impact will be much deeper.
True Crypto x AI
Above, we mainly discussed the impact of AI on the crypto industry (which is the main direction of influence), but crypto technology will also have a reverse effect on AI.
In the future, true autonomous agents may use cryptocurrency for mutual payments. Once regulatory policies for stablecoins become more lenient, this trend will become even more pronounced—large companies running AI Agents may also choose to use stablecoins for payments between agents, as this method is more convenient than traditional bank accounts.
Moreover, we will also see more large-scale experiments around decentralized training and inference. Some emerging projects, such as @exolabs, @NousResearch, and @PrimeIntellect, will provide true alternatives to centralized training and company-specific models. @NEARProtocol is also working hard to create a trustworthy, neutral, and permissionless complete AI technology stack.
Another intersection of crypto and AI lies in user experience (UX). The wallets in the post-AI era will undergo a complete revolution—an AI-driven wallet will be able to automatically handle cross-chain bridging, optimize transaction paths, minimize fees, resolve interoperability issues or frontend vulnerabilities, and help users avoid obvious scams or rug pulls. Users will no longer need to switch between multiple wallets, change RPCs, or rebalance stablecoins—AI will do all of this automatically. This transformation may take until 2026 to mature sufficiently to fundamentally change the user experience in the crypto industry. But when all this is realized, what impact will it have on the network effect of blockchain? What will happen when users no longer care about which chain an application runs on, or even do not notice it?
This field is still in its early stages, but I am very optimistic about its future and hope to see it truly explode soon. In the long run (say by mid-2026), I believe that most of the market value in the 'AI x Crypto' space will concentrate in this direction.
That's all my predictions. I promised to finish this article before my follower count reached 100,000. Although it’s a bit late, I managed to complete it before the New Year!
Happy New Year, everyone! I hope that by this time next year, I will have been replaced by AI and officially 'unemployed'!
Disclaimer: The content of this article represents only my personal views and does not reflect the position of Dragonfly; Dragonfly has investments in many of the projects mentioned in this article. This article is not financial advice; please do your own research (DYOR). As for whether I am an AI? I'll leave that question for you to judge.
