Written by: DWF Ventures
Translation: How to compile, Odaily Planet Daily
In 2024, the crypto industry will see increased attention from institutional investors, with ETFs and stablecoins also steadily growing. Therefore, DWF Ventures holds an optimistic view of the overall crypto industry in 2025 and predicts that capital inflows will shift on-chain. DWF Ventures' focus on trends for 2025:
Stablecoin
DeFi
Consumer-facing applications
AI
Stablecoin
Tether and Circle have long dominated the growth of stablecoins. Although stablecoins are primarily used as mediums for trading and payments, we believe their role as assets is also gradually strengthening. The profitability of Tether and Circle has attracted more traditional fintech companies into the stablecoin space.
Stripe's acquisition of Stablecoin further demonstrates the strong interest of traditional fintech companies in this market.
PayPal focuses on PYUSD and drives its application on Solana by offering yields of up to 20%.
The USDtb launched in collaboration with BlackRock provides exposure to RWA yields through the Usual platform, while the launch of iUSDe marks a further integration—bringing regulated high DeFi yields into traditional finance for the first time.
Additionally, DWF Labs is incubating a high-yield stablecoin project named Falcoin Stable, which is planned to launch this year.
Thus, we believe that with the accelerated entry of institutions, the application of stablecoins will see explosive growth in 2025, with yield growth benefiting all users.
DeFi
With the growth of stablecoins, DeFi has also seen significant advancements. The usage of many DeFi protocols has rapidly climbed, with Aave and Pendle's protocol revenue hitting new highs.
The trading volume of DEX/CEX spot and perpetual contracts has also doubled since the beginning of the year, mainly driven by platforms like Uniswap, Raydium Protocol, and Hyperliquid.
As more liquidity flows into the ecosystem, we will see more innovation, especially in the areas of yield layers and lending mechanisms.
With technological advancements in throughput, latency, and execution, as well as upcoming projects like Monad, MegaETH, and Hyperliquid's HyperEVM, the momentum for DeFi innovation will further increase.
Consumer-facing applications
Consumer-facing applications aim to lower the entry barriers for non-crypto native users.
TON's mini-apps are an example, allowing users to quickly get started using the Telegram platform without creating wallets or backing up seed phrases, ultimately guiding users into the on-chain world.
Mobile-centric experiences are on the rise, with well-known protocols like Jupiter and trading tools like Moonshot, Photon, BONKbot, and ApePro gaining popularity. Thus, this will be a trend in 2025, where protocols that enhance user experience and introduce more retention mechanisms will gain larger market shares.
Artificial Intelligence
In recent months, AI Agents have exploded within the crypto community, with aixbt consistently topping the charts. These bots process information and generate content at an astonishing speed, operating around the clock without rest, far surpassing humans.
Currently, AI Agents have already been involved in multiple fields, including discovering security vulnerabilities, assessing code, no-code frameworks, data analysis, and fund investment. We believe that with OpenAI's o1 introducing more humanized behavior, the next wave of innovation will bring more interesting application scenarios, especially in commercialization.
The number of AI Agents will continue to grow, and competition will become increasingly fierce. Finding the right market match (PMF) will be key to standing out. With the widespread application of AI Agents, decentralized AI infrastructure will rapidly develop across all levels of the crypto space.
