Translated by: Golden Finance

Catherine Wood, a famous investor in Wall Street, and its subsidiary ARK Invest have released the "Big Ideas" report at the beginning of each year since 2017, and have always attracted market attention.

The Big Ideas report in the previous two years saw Golden Finance’s previous report “Big Ideas 2023 report quick look: The currency, finance and Internet revolution is at a turning point” and “Big Ideas 2024 report encryption section list: How will the organization configure affects BTC”.

On February 4, 2025, ARK Invest released the "Big Ideas 2025" report, with a total of 148 pages and 12 parts.

There are four involved in encryption, namely: AI agent, Bitcoin, stablecoin and extended blockchain.

Golden Finance has compiled these 4 parts to reward readers.

1. AI agent: Redefining consumer interaction and business workflow

What is an AI agent?

AI agents are expected to accelerate the adoption of digital applications and bring epoch-making changes in human-computer interaction.

Understanding Intent: Understand user intentions through natural language.

Planning Action: Use reasoning and related contexts to plan.

Take action: Take action with tools to achieve intentions.

Continuous learning: Continuous improvement through iteration and continuous learning.

AI is accelerating hardware and software adoption

OpenAI may have revenue of more than $10 billion in 2025, and its profitability is faster than social networking in the past decade. Media companies are faster. Using ChatGPT as an indicator, AI will drive rapid demand for a range of new technologies.

AI agents will change how consumers search and discover.

AI agents are embedded in the operating system of consumer hardware, allowing consumers to transfer all Leaving search and research to AI, which greatly saves time. Filtered AI results will provide context for digital advertising displays. If searches turn to individual AI agents, AI-mediated advertising revenue could soar significantly. By 2030, AI advertising revenue is expected to account for more than 54% of the USD 1.1 trillion digital advertising market.

Artificial intelligence-mediated advertising should account for the largest share of digital advertising revenue by 2030

Artificial intelligence-mediated advertising revenue may A sharp surge. We believe that by 2030, AI advertising revenue could account for more than 54% of the $1.1 trillion digital advertising market.

By 2030, AI-mediated shopping may be close to 25% of global reachable online sales

AI agents are buying in consumersThe increasing use of products will simplify product discovery, personalized recommendations and purchase processes. ARK's research shows that by 2030, AI agents can promote nearly $9 trillion in online consumption worldwide.

The market share of digital wallets in e-commerce is expected to continue to grow

ARK's research shows that AI-enabled digital wallets (from credit and debit cards, etc. ) may account for 72% of all e-commerce transactions by 2030.

Digital wallet is integrating financial services and e-commerce

Based on its consumer-oriented business, the market currently has leading digital wallet platforms (such as Block, Robinhood and SoFi) are valued at $1,800 per user. The purchase of a digital wallet agent may become the core of the shopping journey, and "one-click checkout" will give way to "one-click query purchases".

Digital wallet shopping agents may become the core of the shopping journey

Agent-driven potential customer development should promote digital wallets to the upstream of the industrial chain, so as to Global e-commerce and digital consumption are seizing market share. "One-click checkout" will gradually be replaced by "one-click query and purchase".

Purchasing an agent will increase the corporate value of the digital wallet, especially in the e-commerce field

According to the charge rates generated by potential customers, AI purchases an agent In 2030, it may bring $4 billion to $20 billion in global revenue to digital wallet platforms (the basic situation and optimistic situation forecast for ARK respectively). By 2030, AI-powered purchasing agents could increase the enterprise value of each user of the U.S. digital wallet by $50 to $200.

In enterprises, AI agents will increase productivity through software

Companies deploying AI agents should be able to increase production without increasing their labor force and/or optimize their labor force. Used for higher value activities. With the development of AI, agents may undertake a higher proportion of workload and independently complete higher value tasks.

The decline in AI costs will significantly affect the economic benefits of agents

New products from OpenAI and Salesforce are cost-effectively supplementing the work of human customer service representatives. Even if the fixed cost per conversation is $1, once the AI ​​agent can handle 35% of customer service consultations, it can save businesses a lot of money. AI agents should also reduce onboarding and recruiting costs, as well as seat-based software costs, and expand more easily than human resources.

AI is reshaping the software value chain

AI agents' coding skills are rapidly improving, accelerating the software development cycle. As the cost of creating software falls, software production should accelerate and affect the company's "build or purchase by itself."Buy” decisions replace traditional software companies that adapt slowly. With the popularity of customer software, the growth of all levels of the software stack should accelerate, although share will shift to the platform layer.

AI will help Knowledge work takes off

AI is driving the "Cambrian explosion" in the software field. By 2030, as enterprises invest in solutions to increase productivity, it is expected that the number of software deployed by each knowledge worker will be deployed. Significant growth. Depending on adoption rates, global software spending may accelerate from an annual growth rate of 14% over the past decade to 18% - 48%.

II. Bitcoin

A increasingly mature global monetary system with a stable network foundation and institutional adoption rate continues to rise

Bitcoin hit a record high in 2024

Spot Bitcoin ETF is historically The most successful ETF issuance

Spot Bitcoin ETF attracted more than US$4 billion inflows on its first trading day, setting a record high for capital inflows on the first day of ETF issuance, surpassing the November 2004 gold ETF Inflows of $1.2 billion in the first month of issuance. Inflows of spot Bitcoin ETFs far exceeds inflows of any of the approximately 6,000 ETFs launched in the past 30 years in the first month of issuance.

After the fourth halving, Bitcoin's inflation rate dropped below the long-term gold supply growth rate

Bitcoin's supply growth has been "reduced" for the fourth time in history Half”, annual growth rate dropped from about 1.8% to about 0.9%. Half cut highlights Bitcoin’s predictable currency and its position as a scarce asset.

Bitcoin’s annual volatility dropped to history The lowest, and its risk-adjusted returns are still better than most major asset classes

Although miner incomes have dropped sharply after the halving, Bitcoin’s computing power hits an all-time high

Even if it drops Half reduces Bitcoin miners' income by 50%, but their computing power (a measure of network security) hits an all-time high. This shows that miners' long-term confidence in Bitcoin remains strong.

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The number of daily transactions in Bitcoin hits a record high

Bitcoin’s daily transactions hit a record high thanks to the launch of the Runes protocol. The Runes protocol helps in Bitcoin Replaceable tokens are created directly on the blockchain.

Bitcoin withstood major selling pressure in 2024

In January 2024, Germany seized 50,000 bitcoins associated with an online piracy organization and sold them six months later. The market successfully absorbed this supply, and the price of bitcoin rose from $53,000 to $68,000. In addition, the highly anticipated mid-year Mt . Gox creditors distribute more than 109,000 bitcoins during the repayment process, eliminating its biggest potential selling pressure.

More and more listed companiesHolding Bitcoin

Currently, 74 listed companies hold Bitcoin on their balance sheets. The value of Bitcoin on the corporate balance sheet has increased fivefold over the past year, from $1.1 billion in 2023 to $5.5 billion in 2024.

The total cost basis of Bitcoin hit a record high in 2024

In 2024, Bitcoin's realized market value (i.e., cost basis) increased by 86%. , its average acquisition cost reached an all-time high of $40,980 per coin, totaling $811.7 billion.

Bitcoin's trading speed and holding behavior highlight its role as a store of value

In 2024, Bitcoin's trading speed dropped to a 14-year low, while holding three Bitcoin supply reached record highs in years or more.

Bitcoin is expected to achieve our predicted price target for 2030

3. Stablecoins: Reshape the digital asset field

The fastest growing field of digital asset field One of the sub-track tracks, the total transaction value of stablecoins in 2024 exceeded Mastercard and Visa

After two years of bear market and its market value fell by more than 70%, the development of stablecoins remains The momentum remains unabated. In 2024, the annualized transaction value of stablecoins reached US$15.6 trillion, approximately 119% and 200% of Visa and Mastercard respectively. The monthly transactions reached 110 million, which is about 0.41% and 0.72% of the transactions processed by Visa and Mastercard. This means that the value of stablecoins per transaction is much higher than that of Visa and Mastercard.

Stablecoin trading volume hit a record high in December 2024

In December 2024, stablecoin trading volume reached a record high. Solana, Tron, Ethereum and Base are the main blockchains that drive stablecoin transaction volume in 2024. In that month, the daily trading volume of stablecoins reached US$27 billion and the monthly trading volume reached US$2.7 trillion, fully demonstrating the rapid development of this field.

Ethena Labs tokenize popular niche transactions, accumulating US$6 billion in 12 months

Innovative innovation in the stablecoin field, Ethena Labs is One of the fastest growing projects. Despite its controversial design, the project has a significant share of the stablecoin market supported by illegal currency, becoming an important competitor in the $20 billion market. By tokenizing delta neutral positions, Ethena Labs can provide yields of up to 20%-30% based on market conditions, but the yield may be negative in bear markets. In the first 12 months of its establishment, its total locked position value reached US$6 billion, currently accounting for 10% of Ethereum's total open contracts and is expanding delta-neutral trading for Solana and Bitcoin.

After experiencing a shrinking decline in 2023, the supply of stablecoins and the number of active addresses hit a record high in 2024

USDT dominated the stablecoin market. The second is USDC (the stablecoin issued by Circle), which together account for 90% of the total supply. Stablecoins have the "multi-chain" characteristics and penetrate almost every major first-tier blockchain. The total supply of stablecoins Volume is US$203 billion, accounting for about 0.97% of the US M2 money supply. In December 2024, the number of active stablecoin addresses reached 23 million, a record high. By monthly active addresses, Tron network leads due to its low transactions Fees are highly favored in emerging markets.

As part of the dollar is reducing its holdings, digital assets are moving closer to the dollar

The digital asset field is undergoing "stable currency" and "dollarization" ". Meanwhile, with Japan selling U.S. Treasury bonds massively, Saudi Arabia ended its 45-year petrodollar agreement, and BRICS reduced its dependence on U.S. dollar payments by bypassing the SWIFT network. In the past, Bitcoin and Ether were entering The main bridge to the digital asset ecosystem, but in the past two years, stablecoins have replaced them and currently account for 35%-50% of the total on-chain transactions. Stablecoins pegged to the US dollar dominate, accounting for more than 98% of the supply , followed by gold-backed and euro-backed stablecoins, accounting for about 1% and 0.5% respectively. ARK's research shows that Asian currency-backed stablecoins will also appear in the market in the future.

< p>Stablecoins attract retail investors, thanks to the low cost and high efficiency of Layer 2

Retail investors have poured into the lower cost and more convenient stablecoin transactions provided by Layer 2. This has led to an increase in market share of blockchains such as Arbitrum, Base and Optimism. Large investors and institutions are still mainly trading on the Ethereum mainnet. Trading below $100 on Base and Optimism dominates, while Ethereum mainnet Mainly trades above $100.

Peer-to-peer transactions and personal wallet storage dominate the use scenarios of stablecoins

In the use of stablecoins, External Owned Accounts (EOAs), the standard Ethereum address for peer-to-peer (P2P) transactions and storage, accounts for 60% of USDC usage, while centralized exchanges account for 11% and bridges across Layer 2 solutions account for 7% , decentralized exchanges (DEXs) and money markets each account for 1.7%. With the surge in usage of decentralized finance (DeFi) in the coming years, DEXs, bridges and money markets may regain market share from P2P trading. However, due to the product and market fit, P2P trading and storage are more flexible in scenarios other than transactions, and their usage fluctuates less with the market cycle.

Four stablecoins issuedTraders dominate revenue in the digital asset field

In terms of revenue in the digital asset field, a few stablecoin issuers dominate. Tether (USDT) and Circle (USDC) account for 60% of revenue generated by the top five networks and applications. In the second half of 2024, stablecoins such as USDT, USDC, DAI/USDS and USDE generated US$3.35 billion in revenue, with annualized revenue reaching US$6.7 billion. Among them, Tether, with less than 200 employees, reported a profit of US$5.2 billion in the first half of 2024, covering USDT and other products and services, as well as unrealized returns from digital assets. It is one of the most capital-efficient companies in history.

Tether has an astonishing financial performance

Tether has less than 200 employees, compared with JPMorgan Chase and Berkshire Hathaway each with 30 More than 10,000 employees. In the first half of 2024, in the S&P Financial Select Industry Index, only Berkshire Hathaway, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo had net income exceeding Tether.

Stablecoins increase demand for U.S. Treasury bonds

Amid the trend of global deglobalization and de-dollarization, stablecoins may promote the United States. Stabilized demand for treasury bonds. As of December 2024, Tether and Circle have collectively become the 20th largest holder of U.S. Treasury bonds. In emerging markets with large populations, such as Brazil, Nigeria, Turkey, Indonesia and India, individuals and businesses use stablecoins as a means of value storage, payment methods and cross-border currencies, and stablecoins may become an effective way to export US dollars.

Stablecoin issuers transfer risk-free interest rate returns to users

Circle and Tether earned through U.S. Treasury bonds and other securities that serve as collateral for stablecoins. Billions of dollars in revenue. However, in 2024, due to competition and market demand, stablecoins operating outside the United States began to return most of their interest income to users. While Circle and Tether are unlikely to follow this trend immediately, interest-bearing stablecoins have become the fastest-growing category in the stablecoin market.

By 2030, the scale of stablecoins may grow significantly, from 0.17% of the global M2 supply to 0.9%

The current stablecoin supply is US$203 billion, accounting for global 0.17% of M2 supply is expected to grow to US$1.4 trillion by 2030, accounting for 0.9%. If so, stablecoins will become the 13th largest currency in circulation in the world, ranking behind Spanish and ahead of Dutch currencies.

IV. Blockchain expansion: achieve a significant drop in costs and enable new use cases at the application layer

Smart contract map navigation

As the digital asset field becomes increasingly complex , smart contracts promote innovation in more and more industries. From user-centricThe ecosystems are rapidly evolving to meet diverse and dynamic needs, from gaming and SocialFi applications to advanced financial tools such as derivatives and structured products to decentralized infrastructure networks that power wireless connectivity and energy storage. .

In pursuit of lower fees and higher efficiency, applications are either deployed on high-throughput layer 1 blockchain Solana or on Ethereum’s layer 2 scaling solution p>

Ethereum EIP 4844 upgrade reduces transaction fees by 10 times

Ethereum's EIP 4844 upgrade is one of its most important technology upgrades to date, which makes The second layer network can achieve faster and cheaper transactions, reducing transaction costs by 10 times, stimulating the use of related applications. The EIP 4844 upgrade is an important milestone in the Ethereum roadmap, and is expected to increase transaction processing per second (TPS) by 250 to 1250 times from the current 400 transactions to 100,000-500,000 transactions. So far, more than 200 second-tier projects have been launched, and more projects are under preparation.

The decline in transaction costs drives the development of Layer 2

The sharp decline in transaction costs has prompted a significant increase in activity of Layer 2, attracting a large number of users from the Ethereum main network Transfer here. Layer 2 accounts for 85% of the daily active addresses for trading in the Ethereum ecosystem. In 2024, Layer 2's activity increased Ethereum's daily transactions by 400%, from 3 million to 15 million.

Base becomes the fastest growing Ethereum Layer 2 blockchain

Base surpassed all other Ethereum Layer 2 in terms of growth and market share within one year of its launch Solution. In 2024, Base accounted for 46% of the active users of Ethereum Layer 2 and the expenses incurred accounted for 63%. Its total locked position value reached US$15 billion and more than 300 applications were deployed, making an important contribution to Coinbase's cash flow.

Although many transactions have moved to Layer 2, the Ethereum mainnet still dominates in high-value storage and settlement

Institutions, high-value users and Large cryptocurrency holders mainly conduct transaction settlement on the Ethereum main network. The unit economic benefits of the Ethereum main network are unparalleled by total locked value (TVL) and decentralized exchange (DEX) per user transaction volume.

As DeFi soared to record highs, DEX challenged centralized trading venues in both spot and derivatives trading

When Binance tied with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in 2024 (SEC) reached a settlement of more than $4 billion and its CEO resigned, some of the market share of centralized exchanges (CEXs) was decentralized.Exchanges (DEXs) took away spot and derivatives trading volumes in decentralized finance (DeFi) almost doubled, with market share growing from 8% and 3% to 14% and 8% respectively. , reaching a record high. During this period, Binance's market share in centralized exchanges fell from 62% to 35%.

Smart contract-powered exchanges are 5 to 10 times more efficient than their centralized counterparts

Decentralized exchanges like Uniswap, Aerodrome, and Raydium use small and agile Team efficiency to develop and maintain core protocol infrastructure. Compared with centralized exchanges, they have a huge efficiency advantage, with only one-tenth of the latter's employees. Binance has the largest number of employees in the centralized exchange field, with about 9,000 employees.

Liquidable staking and re-staking agreements are the preferred solutions for pledging and re-staking ETH

Liquidable staking and re-staking have become accrued on Ethereum The preferred method for profit. They now account for 40% of Ethereum staking due to their interest-generating characteristics, liquidity and accessibility. The demand for re-staking pledged Ethereum to increase revenue has spawned re-staking platforms. Currently these platforms hold about 5.5 million Ethereum, accounting for 17% of pledged Ethereum.

Led by Polymarket, it predicts that the market will become a breakthrough consumer application in 2024

In 2024, Polymarket's cumulative users exceeded 3 million, and the monthly transaction volume reached $1.2 billion, elections and events drove 70% of its business. After a brief pullback after the election, its daily unique user count has recovered to 50,000, and the transaction volume has also rebounded as sports events become the most important category.

Solana has higher throughput than Ethereum, thanks to its high-performance design and strategic trade-offs

By the second layer network and EIP With the 4844 upgrade, Ethereum's throughput more than doubled to about 200 transactions per second (TPS). Still, Solana performs better, with an average throughput of about 800TPS. Solana's success is based on a range of tradeoffs, including more expensive hardware requirements and parallel transaction processing. Solana's new Firedancer client may increase its throughput to hundreds of thousands of TPS.

Solana gained market share on multiple indicators thanks to retail investors

After falling to a bear market low of $8 in 2023 Solana has made significant improvements compared with other layer one networks. Its daily active users, revenue, transaction number and total value lock-in (TVL) reached an all-time high or increased by an order of magnitude. Solana is the only first-tier network that competes with Ethereum and Bitcoin on metrics such as daily active addresses and revenue.

Solana and Base are leading in developer adoption and attention

In 2024, Solana leads with 7,625 developers, surpassing the Ethereum mainnet. Base has a total of 4,287 developers, ranking sixth in the overall ranking, surpassing Arbitrum and Starknet to become Ethereum’s leading second-tier solution.