The past year brought a shift in the crypto market, extending the recovery from the stagnant period of 2022-2023. Bitcoin (BTC) remained the leading narrative, fulfilling even the more optimistic price predictions.
The crypto market fulfilled most of the bullish expectations for 2024, though some narratives failed to deliver. Bitcoin (BTC) fulfilled the prediction by Bitwise that it would trade above $80,000, while setting new all-time highs. Bitwise renewed its bullish stance for 2025, expecting a BTC rally to $200,000, with new all-time highs for Ethereum (ETH) and Solana (SOL).
The effects of BTC were felt by the whole market, fulfilling the prediction that ETH still had no chance of becoming the #1 asset. The price of BTC and the US elections fulfilled the promise of driving $100M into prediction markets.
VanEck started out overly-optimistic about NFTs. While several collections were still exchanging hands, the NFT market did not return to the levels of 2021. Instead, Miladies adapted to the meme token market, while Pudgy Penguins came to prominence after issuing the Pengu (PENGU) token on Solana.
VanEck also failed in its prediction that Binance would lose its position as the top centralized exchange. The trading hub in fact became a staple for the 2024 bull market for both BTC and altcoins. Over the past year, Binance increased its registered user count to over 240M, increasing both its visits and trading volumes.
The past year did not have the expected prolonged altcoin market, but brought some diversity to the DeFi space, as new chains onboarded stablecoins and saw inflows of liquidity.
BTC fulfilled the more measured predictions this year
BTC managed to trade above $108,000 after a rally in November and December. Several factors worked to bring the price to that range, including the all-time high supply of stablecoins. The stablecoin market was another successful prediction by VanEck, as the supply of tokens is close to 200B. Bitwise expects the trend to continue, doubling the supply to 400B for all stablecoins.
Predictions by prominent thought and business leaders ranged from $70,000 at the end of 2024 to out of the ballpark prognoses of $1M per BTC by Cathie Wood, CEO of Ark Invest.
Adam Back is the closest to the real BTC price, with a $100K prediction. Arthur Hayes did not miss his shot with the $70,000 price prediction, though he underestimated the late 2024 rally. Investment influencer Robert Kiyosaki shifted his prediction down to $100K, also hitting the mark.
A set of more optimistic predictions suggested BTC may range as high as $125,000 to $150,000. Those predictions were set out by JP Morgan, Pantera Capital, and Standard Chartered.
Tim Drapper set out a prediction of $250,000, while Tom Lee stopped short at $180,000. Although inaccurate, those predictions served to boost the overall optimism. While the predictions were not fulfilled, BTC also spent the year with no catastrophic drawdowns. The deepest losses were capped at 32%, and BTC resumed its rallies soon after each crash.
The past year also had a halving event, usually expected to push the price to a new range. The overly-optimistic predictions also coincided with high levels of the Crypto Fear and Greed Index, which spent the larger part of the year in the greed territory.
VanEck optimistic on DeFi and BTC L2s in 2025
VanEck was optimistic about DeFi as a whole, expecting the total value locked to exceed $200B. Bitcoin’s DeFi space and L2s are also expected to grow, locking up to 100K BTC. In late 2024, that milestone is still in its early stages, with Babylon Labs locking in upward of 23,000 BTC.
Unfazed by its failed NFTs prediction, VanEck made another prognosis for 2025, expecting speculative hype and cultural relevance to return to NFTs.
The fund also expects dApp tokens to outperform L1 and L2 tokens, based on real economic activity and fee generation.
Bitwise added predictions that suggest the BTC bull market will lead to smaller booms and new trends. The fund expects institutional adoption to increase and to lead to crypto IPOs, where crypto companies return to mainstream fundraising.
The other big trend will be AI agents, which will bring further integration between social media AI bots, SocialFi and Web3 apps.
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