Source: Carbon Chain Value

On February 5, ARK Invest, founded by Mutoujie, released its annual "Big Ideas" report. The report introduces the current situation and important future trends of the accelerated development of future technology from 11 sections including artificial intelligence, Ai agents, Bitcoin, public chains, robots, energy storage, and autonomous driving. The complete content totals 148 pages. Among them, ARK Invest predicts in the Bitcoin section of the report that Bitcoin is expected to reach $1.5 million by 2030. Ai agents will bring epoch-making changes in the future.

ARK Invest said this year's report proposes 11 "big ideas" to showcase the huge changes that are taking place today. Our research shows that these “big ideas” are expected to significantly increase productivity, revolutionize all walks of life and create long-term investment opportunities.

The carbon chain value has drawn out five "big ideas": Bitcoin, artificial intelligence/Ai agents, stablecoins, and public chain expansion for readers to refer to and learn. The overall feeling of the content of this year's report is that it is a lot of intriguing on AI and Crypto. For example, Bitcoin, public chains, stablecoins, DeFi, DEX, smart contracts, digital wallets, etc. have corresponding introductions and predictions. If readers are interested in the report, they can download the full version of the report to read the remaining contents by themselves.

The following are the contents of 5 "Big Creativity" reports excerpted:

1. Bitcoin: A global monetary system is becoming more mature, the network foundation is sound, and institutions adopt more and more

Bitcoin Setting a record high in 2024

Bitcoin Spot ETF Fund is the most successful in history ETF Fund

The Bitcoin spot ETF attracted more than US$4 billion inflows on the first day of its listing, setting a record high since ETF listing, surpassing the "2012 Bitcoin ETF Market Report" released by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. In November 2004, gold ETFs inflowed US$1.2 billion in the first month. Inflows of Bitcoin spot ETFs far exceed the first-month inflows of about 6,000 ETFs issued over the past 30 years.

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

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After the fourth "halving" in history, the annual growth rate dropped from about 1.8% to about 0.9%. Half is crucial to its design, highlighting Bitcoin’s predictable currency and its role as a scarce asset.

Bitcoin's annual volatility has dropped to its historical lowest, but its risk-adjusted return is still better than most major asset classes

Although miner incomes dropped sharply after the halving, Bitcoin’s hash rate hit a record high

Although the halving caused a 50% reduction in Bitcoin miner revenue, its hash rate hit an all-time high. In other words, miners' long-term confidence in Bitcoin remains strong.

The number of transactions soared, thanks to Runes

The daily transaction number of Bitcoin hits a record high, thanks to Launched by the Runes Agreement. The Runes protocol helps create alternative tokens directly on the Bitcoin blockchain.

Bitcoin absorbs significant selling pressure in 2024

2024 In January, Germany seized 50,000 bitcoins related to online piracy groups. Six months later, it sold the Bitcoins. The market successfully absorbed the supply, and then the price of Bitcoin rose from $53,000 to $68,000. Additionally, around the middle of the year, the long-awaited Mt. Gox1 creditor repayment process distributed over 109,000 bitcoins, eliminating its biggest unresolved problem.

More and more listed companies hold Bitcoin

Currently, 74 listed companies are on their balance sheets. Hold Bitcoin. Over the past year, the company's balance sheet has increased fivefold, from $11 billion in 2023 to $55 billion.

The total cost basis of Bitcoin hits a new high in 2024

In 2024, Bitcoin has been capitalized (or Cost base) grew 86% as its average acquisition cost hit an all-time high, reaching $40,980 per Bitcoin, totaling $811.7 billion.

Bitcoin's transaction speed and holding behavior highlight its role as a means of value storage

In 2024, Bit The currency's trading speed dropped to its lowest level in 14 years as supply reached an all-time high for three years or more.

Bitcoin is expected to achieve our 2030 price target: USD 1.5 million/BTC

2. Artificial intelligence computing is accelerating and is about to reach the end of the board.

Based on improvements in the AI ​​system architecture, the performance per dollar of AI computing is expected to increase by more than 1,000 times by 2030. By then, we expect computing performance to double 64 times than when integrated circuits were introduced.

Advances in artificial intelligence will release huge market opportunities

As artificial intelligence continues to accelerate, autonomous taxis will continue to become popular, drug development time and cost will drop significantly, and AI agents will be able to solve software engineering problems independently, monitor and modify systems around the clock.

Technical Revolution Accelerated Integration

ARK measures the extent to which technology plays a catalyst role among innovation platforms. The degree of integration between them is increasing, with network density increasing by 30% over the past year.

Artificial intelligence is crucial to unlocking the value of precision therapy and multiomics technologies. The smart contract ecosystem is becoming a testing platform, and autonomous AI agents can be paid by improving their capabilities. Next-generation cloud energy demand is driving a timeline for distributed energy generation.

Accelerating development of neural networks is accelerating the development of all other disruptive technologies

Artificial Advances in intelligence, energy storage and public blockchains are crucial to the pace of technological advancement

In disruptive technologies, neural networks are the most important catalysts.

According to our research, advances in neural networks will increase the value of 6 of the other 14 technologies by at least an order of magnitude for the next generation of cloud, smart devices, autonomous mobile, humanoid robots, precision medicine and Multiomics technology creates huge market expansion. The technological revolution led by artificial intelligence may lead to a significant increase in productivity and a step-by-step growth in economic growth.

Technical turning point should bring about GDP turning point

Structural changes in the basic growth rate of the macroeconomic is a historical law, not an exception. .

After 100,000 years of economic stagnation, innovation, especially the emergence of text, allowed the empire to connect the continents, and by 1000 AD, the actual growth rate increased by 4 times.

Agricultural innovation has increased population density and specialized labor force, and by 1500, the annual growth rate has doubled to 0.3%.

In the 400 years before 1900, with the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution sweeping the world, the annual GDP growth rate doubled again to 0.6%.

The Second Industrial Revolution, marked by electrification, cars and telephones, ushered in the modern era, with an average growth rate of 5 times, reaching 3%. Technical breakthroughs in artificial intelligence, autonomous driving and bionic robots may increase productivity again, achieving another growth step in the next 5 to 10 years.

Disruptive innovation may gradually occupy the market dominance

Disruptive innovation may account for two-thirds of the global stock market The above, the compound growth rate will reach 38% by 2030.

In the field of innovation, market value may exceed the so-called Mag 6. Non-innovative businesses may start shrinking as innovation-related technology deflation threatens profitsRate and competitiveness, even in the case of rapid macroeconomic growth.

3. AI Agents: Redefine consumer interaction and business workflows

What are AI Agents?

AI Agents are expected to accelerate the popularity of digital applications and bring about epoch-making changes in the field of human-computer interaction.

AI Agents:

Understanding intentions through natural language, using reasoning and appropriate contexts for planning. Use tools to take action and achieve intentions. Improvements through iteration and continuous learning. Smarter models that use more tools to complete higher value tasks.

AI is accelerating hardware and software adoption

OpenAI's revenue may exceed $10 billion in 2025, with its currency It's faster than social media companies in the past decade. If ChatGPT adoption is an indicator, then AI should drive rapid demand for a range of new technologies.

AI Agents will change consumer searches and discoveries

AI Agents are embedded in the operating system of consumer hardware, allowing consumers to transfer all discoveries. and research is entrusted to AI, thus saving a lot of time. Well-curated AI results will make the digital advertising impression more contextual.

Digital advertising revenue accounts for the largest proportion in 2030

If searches turn to personal AI Agents, AI advertising revenue may surge. By 2030, we believe that AI advertising revenue will account for more than 54% of the USD 1.1 trillion digital advertising market.

Artificial intelligence shopping may account for 25% of global addressable online sales by 2030

AI Agents are increasingly used in consumer shopping Increases should simplify product discovery, personalization and purchase.

ARK Research shows that by 2030, AI Agents can boost nearly $9 trillion in total online consumption worldwide.

Digital wallet is expected to continue to expand its share in e-commerce

ARK's research shows that by 2030, Digital wallets supported by AI procurement agents (replace payment methods such as credit and debit cards) may account for 72% of all e-commerce transactions.

Digital wallets are integrating financial services and e-commerce

According to consumer-oriented operations, the market is for Block and Robinhood The valuation of leading digital wallet platforms such as SoFi is currently at $1,800 per user.

Digital wallet procurement agents may become the core of shopping trips

Agent potential customer development should drive digital wallets upstream to capture the global market share of e-commerce and digital consumption. "One-click checkout" should give way to "One-click purchase".

Procurement agents should increase the corporate value of digital wallets, especially in the e-commerce sector

According to lead generation rates, AI Agents can be used in 2030 Generate global revenue of 40 billion to 200 billion US dollars for the digital wallet platform (the basic situation and optimistic situation of ARK respectively).

Article AI Agents can add $50 to $200 in enterprise value (EV) to each user of a digital wallet in the U.S. by 2030.

In enterprises, AI Agents will increase productivity through software

Companies deploying AI Agents should be able to work with the same workforce Increase unit quantity and/or optimize its workforce to engage in higher value activities. As artificial intelligence develops, AI Agents may handle higher proportions of workload and perform higher value tasks independently.

AI cost drop will significantly affect the AI ​​Agents economy

New products from OpenAI and Salesforce are being supplemented in a cost-effective way Artificial customer service representative. Even if the fixed cost per conversation is $1, as long as AI Agents can handle 35% of customer service consultations, it can save businesses a lot of money. AI Agents should also reduce onboarding and recruitment costs and seat-based software costs while scaling easier than manual.

Artificial intelligence is reshaping the software value chain

AI Agents' coding skills are rapidly improving, accelerating the software development cycle . As the cost of software creation declines, software production should accelerate and affect the company's decision to "buy or buy by yourself" and replace traditional software companies with weak adaptability. With the emergence of customer software, growth in each layer of the software stack should accelerate, even if the share shifts to the platform layer.

Artificial intelligence will enhance knowledge-based work

Artificial intelligence is promoting the Cambrian explosion in the software industry. By 2030, as businesses invest in productivity solutions, we expect a significant increase in the amount of software deployed by each knowledge worker. Based on adoption rates, global software spending may accelerate from an average of 14% over the past 10 years to an average of 18% to 48% annually.

IV. Stablecoins: Reshaping the digital asset field

As one of the fastest growing areas among digital assets, stablecoins are trading in 2024 The amount exceeded MasterCard and Visa

Despite the two-year bear market, the market value has declinedMore than 70%, but the growth of stablecoins has not been interrupted. In 2024, the annualized transaction volume of stablecoins reached US$15.6 trillion, about 119% and 200% of Visa and Mastercard, respectively. Monthly transaction volume reached 110 million, accounting for approximately 0.41% and 0.72% of Visa and Mastercard transaction volumes. In other words, the stablecoin value per transaction is much higher than that of Visa and Mastercard.

Solana, Tron, Ethereum and Base are driving 2024 The main public chain for the annual growth in stablecoin transaction volume. A new record was set in December 2024, with daily trading volume reaching US$270 billion and monthly trading volume reaching US$2.7 trillion, highlighting the rapid growth of the industry.

Ethena Labs tokenize popular basic transactions and amassed $6 billion in 12 months

< p>Innovation in the stablecoin space is booming, and Ethena Labs is one of the fastest growing projects. Despite its novel design criticism, the project has taken a large share of the illicit currency-backed stablecoin market and has become a major competitor in this $200 billion space.

Ethena Labs’ total value locked in the first 12 months reached $6 billion. By tokenizing Delta neutral positions, Ethena Labs can provide yields of up to 20%-30%, depending on the market conditions. In a bear market, yields may turn negative. Ethena Labs already accounts for 10% of Ethereum's total holdings and is expanding to Solana and Bitcoin delta-neutral transactions.

After the decline in 2023, the supply of stablecoins and the number of active stablecoin addresses set history in 2024 New highs

UDST (Tether) continues to dominate the stablecoin field, followed by USDC (Circle). Together, they account for 90% of the total supply. Stablecoins are "multi-chain" and penetrate almost all major layer 1 blockchains. The stablecoin supply is US$203 billion, accounting for about 0.97% of the US M2 money supply. In December, the active stablecoin address reached 23 million, a record high. Tron is the leading network by monthly active addresses, and is favored by emerging markets for its low transaction fees.

As some gradually abandon the US dollar, digital assets are moving closer to the US dollar

Digital assets are undergoing "stable currency" and "dollarization", while the number of U.S. Treasury bonds sold with Japan hit a record high, Saudi Arabia endedThe 45-year petrodollar agreement, the BRICS reduced its dependence on US dollar payments by bypassing the SWIFT network. Historically, Bitcoin and Ethereum are bridges to enter the digital asset ecosystem. However, stablecoins have taken their place in the past two years, currently accounting for 35% to 50% of on-chain transaction volume.

Stablecoins pegged to the US dollar dominate, accounting for more than 98% of the supply, followed by gold-backed stablecoins and euro-backed stablecoins, accounting for about 1% and about 0.5% respectively. ARK's research shows that the market will continue to expand and include stablecoins backed by Asian currencies.

Stablecoins are attracting the interest of retail investors due to the lower cost and higher efficiency of Layer 2

Retail investing People flock to Layer 2 for cheaper and more convenient stablecoin transactions, thus increasing the market share of blockchains such as Arbitrum, Base and Optimism. Meanwhile, whales and institutions continue to operate on the foundational layer of Ethereum. Trading below $100 dominates Base and Optimism, while trading above $100 dominates the base layer of Ethereum.

Peer-to-peer transactions and personal wallet storage dominate stablecoin use cases

External-owned account (EOA) — for peer-to-peer (P2P ) Standard Ethereum address for transactions and storage—accounts for 60% of USDC usage, while centralized exchanges account for 11%, Ethereum Layer2 cross-chain bridge accounts for 7%, and decentralized exchanges (DEX) and currency markets each account for 1.7%.

As DeFi usage surges in the coming years, DEX, Bridges and money markets may regain market share from P2P.

While the usage of lending markets, DEX and Bridges fluctuates with market cycles, P2P trading and storage are more flexible because in addition to trading, the product market fit is higher.

Revenue generated by the four major stablecoin issuers dominate digital assets

Tether has less than 200 employees, the report said Profits in the first half of 2024 were $5.2 billion, including unrealized returns on USDT, the remaining products and services, and digital assets—apparently one of the most capital-efficient businesses in history.

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 USDT, USDC, DAI/USDS and USDE generated a total of US$3.35 billion in revenue, accounting for an annualized rate of US$6.7 billion.

Tether's financial performanceStunningly, both absolutely and relatively

Tether has less than 200 employees, while JPMorgan and Berkshire Hathaway both have more than 300,000 employees. In the first half of 2024, the only institutions in the S&P Financial Select Industry Index that had net income exceeding Tether were Berkshire Hathaway, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo.

To balance "de-dollarization", stablecoins are increasing demand for U.S. bonds as collateral

In a In a world of deglobalization and dedollarization, stablecoins may drive stable demand for U.S. 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 companies are using stablecoins as a store of value, payment means and cross-border currencies. Stablecoins may become one of the most effective ways to export the dollar.

Stablecoin issuers are transferring risk-free rates to users

Circle and Tether have been through as collateral for their stablecoins Treasury bills and other securities generate billions of dollars in revenue. However, in 2024, stablecoins operating outside the United States began to transfer a large portion of their interest income to users in order to cope with competition and demand.

Unless absolutely necessary, Circle and Tether are unlikely to follow this trend. Although the scale remains small, earnings stablecoins are the fastest growing category in the stablecoin market.

By 2030, the proportion of stablecoins in the global M2 supply of fiat currency may increase from 0.17% to 0.9%

The current stablecoins are US$203 billion, accounting for 0.17% of the global M2 supply. By 2030, stablecoins may increase to US$1.4 trillion and 0.9% respectively.

At that time, stablecoins will become the 13th largest currency in circulation in the world, second only to Spain and ahead of the Netherlands.

5. Public chain expansion: cost drops sharply and new use cases emerge at the application layer

Explore the field of smart contracts

With The digital asset space is becoming more and more complex, and smart contracts are driving innovation in more and more industries. The ecosystem is rapidly evolving to meet diverse and dynamic needs – from user-centric applications such as gaming and SocialFi, to advanced financial instruments such as derivatives and structured products, to support for wireless connectivity and Decentralized infrastructure network for energy storage.

Seeking lower-cost and more efficient applications are either deployed at Solana's high-throughput layer 1 or deployedIn the second layer of Ethereum

Ethereum’s EIP 4844 technology upgrade has reduced transaction costs by 10 times, stimulating applications

Ethereum’s most important technology upgrades to date, EIP 4844 has impacted the Layer 2 network by enabling faster and cheaper transactions.

At the EIP 4844 upgrade, the average transaction fee for Ethereum Tier 2 was about $0.50. Now, users only pay about $0.05.

EIP 4844 is the first milestone in the roadmap and it should be able to increase transaction volume per second (TPS) by 250 to 1250 times from about 400 today to 100,000-500,000.

More than 200 Level 2 projects have been launched, and other projects are underway.

The decline in transaction costs has led to a surge in layer 2 activity, pulling users away from the basic layer of Ethereum

Layer 2 accounts for 85% of the daily active addresses for transactions in the Ethereum ecosystem. Activity on Tier 2 increased Ethereum’s daily transaction volume from 3 million to 15 million in 2024, a 400% increase.

Base is the fastest growing Ethereum layer 2 blockchain

Within one year of launch, Base is growing and Market share surpasses all other Ethereum Tier 2 solutions. In 2024, Base accounted for 46% of active users and incurred 63% of fees in Ethereum Tier 2. With a total lock-in value of $15 billion and more than 300 applications deployed, Base has made a significant contribution to Coinbase's cash flow.

Despite migration to layer 2, Ethereum's basic layer still dominates high-value storage and settlement institutions, High-value users and whales mainly settle transactions on the Ethereum basic layer. The unit economic benefits of the Ethereum base layer are unparalleled as measured by total locked value (TVL) and per-user’s decentralized exchange (DEX).

DEX challenged CEX in spot and derivatives trading as DeFi soared to record highs

When Binance A settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) of more than $4 billion, and when its CEO stepped down in 2024, centralized exchanges (CEX) lost some share and were seized by decentralized exchanges (DEX). From January to peak, spot and derivatives DeFi trading volumes almost doubled, with market share rising from 8% and 3% to 14% and 8%, respectively, setting record highs. During the same period, Binance's market share in centralized exchanges fell from 62% to 35%.

Smart contract-driven exchanges are 5-10 times more efficient than centralized exchanges

Decentralized exchanges such as Uniswap, Aerodrome and Raydium (DEX) leverages the efficiency of small agile teams to develop and maintain core protocol infrastructure. Compared with centralized exchanges, DEX has a huge efficiency advantage, with only one-tenth of that of centralized exchanges. With approximately 9,000 employees, Binance is leading the way in the number of employees in the centralized exchange field.

Liquid pledge and re-pled agreements are the preferred solutions for pledge and re-pled ETH

Liquid pledge and re-pled It has become the preferred method to generate Ether's income. Due to their earnings, liquidity and accessibility, they now account for 40% of ETH staking. The demand for re-private ETH in order to increase revenue has spawned re-private platforms, which now account for about 5.5 million pledged Ether, accounting for 17% of pledged ETH.

Led by Polymarket, the forecast market will become a breakthrough consumer application in 2024

In 2024, Polymarket's cumulative users More than 3 million, with monthly transaction volumes reaching US$1.2 billion, of which 70% of the activities are related to elections and related. After a brief decline after the election, the number of independent users has recovered to 50,000 per day, with trading volumes showing a rebound, with sports being the most important category.

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

With the Layer 2 and EIP 4844 upgrades, Ethereum's throughput has more than doubled to approximately 200 transactions per second (TPS). Still, Solana has performed well, with an average throughput of about 800 TPS.

Solana's success is based on a range of tradeoffs, including more expensive hardware requirements and parallel transaction processing. Solana's new Firedancer client can increase its throughput to hundreds of thousands of TPS.

Solana gained market share on multiple indicators due to large adoption by retail investors

Touched $8 in 2023 After the bear market low, Solana showed a significant improvement compared to other Layer 1s. Daily active users, revenue, transaction number and total locked value (TVL) all hit record highs or increased by an order of magnitude. Solana is the only Layer 1 competing with Ethereum and Bitcoin on metrics such as daily active addresses and revenue.

Solana and Base are in the development adoption and market shareIn the lead

Of the 39,139 new crypto developers added in 2024, Solana leads with 7,625 developers, surpassing the Ethereum main network. With 4,287 developers, Base ranks sixth, surpassing Arbitrum and Starknet to become the leading layer 2 solution on Ethereum.