Author: Matt Hougan, Chief Investment Officer of Bitwise; Ryan Rasmussen, Head of Research at Bitwise; Compiled by: 0xjs@金财经

2024 is an extraordinary year for cryptocurrency.

Cryptocurrency prices soar to all-time highs, a spot Bitcoin ETF has its most successful launch ever, and pro-crypto advocates have a big win in Washington.

But we foresee a brighter future: 2025 will usher in the golden age of cryptocurrency. Here are the top 10 predictions for 2025.

Prediction 1: BTC, ETH and Solana will hit record highs, and the price of BTC will exceed $200,000.

Prediction 2: Bitcoin ETFs will attract more flows in 2025 than in 2024.

Prediction 3: Coinbase will surpass Charles Schwab to become the world’s most valuable brokerage firm, and its stock price will exceed $700 per share.

Prediction 4: 2025 will be the “year of the cryptocurrency IPO”, and at least five crypto unicorn companies will be listed in the United States.

Prediction 5: Tokens launched by AI agents will lead to a meme coin craze that will be even more enthusiastic than in 2024.

Prediction 6: The number of Bitcoins held will double.

Prediction 7: Coinbase will be included in the S&P 500 and MicroStrategy will be added to the Nasdaq 100, adding a cryptocurrency component to nearly every U.S. investor’s portfolio.

Prediction 8: The U.S. Department of Labor will relax its guidance on cryptocurrency restrictions in 401(k) plans, prompting billions of dollars to flow into crypto assets.

Prediction 9: Stablecoin assets will double to $400 billion as the United States passes long-awaited stablecoin legislation.

Prediction 10: The value of tokenized real-world assets (RWAs) will exceed $50 billion as Wall Street’s acceptance of cryptocurrencies increases.

Bonus Prediction: Bitcoin will surpass the $18 trillion gold market by 2029, with each Bitcoin worth over $1 million.

Introduction

2024 is a landmark year for cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin surged to a new all-time high of $103,992 (up 141.72% year to date as of this writing), driven by the record launch of the U.S. Bitcoin Spot ETF, which brought assets to $33.56 billion. Other major crypto assets have also surged: Solana is up 127.71% for the year, XRP is up 285.23%, and Ethereum is surging 75.77%. Meanwhile, cryptocurrencies such as MicroStrategy and CoinbaseThe stocks soared 525.39% and 97.57% respectively.

Record prices aren’t the only noteworthy development. Cryptocurrencies stand out in the 2024 U.S. election, bringing a bright future to the regulation of cryptocurrencies in the United States. President-elect Trump supported cryptocurrencies on the campaign trail, vowing to create a strategic Bitcoin reserve and revamp the U.S. SEC, which has historically been hostile to cryptocurrencies. He also nominated Scott Bessent as Finance Minister. Bessent once said that "cryptocurrency is about freedom, and the crypto economy will continue to exist." Going into 2024, Congress is leaning heavily toward cryptocurrencies, with pro-crypto candidates defeating crypto opponents in several key races. We expect crypto-friendly legislation to be introduced in the coming months.

Coupled with upcoming global stimulus measures from China and other major central banks, rising institutional adoption, and rapid improvements in blockchain technology, the outlook for 2025 looks quite bright.

We recently convened Bitwise elites to look ahead to 2025. Our take: We are entering the golden age of cryptocurrency. What exactly can we expect in 2025? On the following pages, we set out our key forecasts for the year ahead.

Please note: As with all predictions, these are not guarantees, but rather our best estimates. The future is complex and conditional, and whether these predictions can be realized as fully described will depend on many complex factors. None of the following content constitutes investment advice.

Prediction 1: BTC, ETH and Solana will hit all-time highs, BTC price will exceed $200,000

Cryptocurrency’s Big Three – BTC, ETH and Solana – will outperform all majors in 2024 asset class, up 141.72%, 75.77% and 127.71% respectively. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 returned 28.07%, gold returned 27.65%, and bonds returned 3.40%. We expect this momentum to continue into 2025, with BTC, ETH, and Solana all rising to all-time highs. Our price targets for each asset are as follows:

BTC: $200,000. Record inflows into Bitcoin ETFs pushed Bitcoin to all-time highs in 2024. We do not see this slowing down anytime soon (see Forecast 2). Combine this demand with the reduction in new supply due to the April 2024 halving, coupled with new buying by businesses and... well, we've seen this before. (Note: If the United States implements its proposal to establish a strategic reserve of 1 million Bitcoins, $200,000 will become $500,000 or more.)

ETH: $7,000. While Ethereum is up 75.77% in 2024, the second-largest crypto asset has fallen out of favor with many investors who are either setting their sights on Bitcoin or the rapid growth that competes with Ethereumprogrammable blockchain. But, as Warren Buffett’s motto goes: “Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful.” We expect a narrative shift for Ethereum in 2025 as the second layer blockchains like Base and Starknet Activity accelerates, Ethereum spot ETF set to attract billions of dollars in inflows. What's the other catalyst? Massive growth in stablecoins and tokenization projects built on Ethereum.

Solana: $750. The phoenix of cryptocurrencies, rising from the ashes of the 2022 market crash, soared to new heights in 2024, fueled by a meme coin craze that made the GameStop saga look mundane. We think Solana's momentum is just starting to build. The catalyst in 2025 will be “serious” projects migrating to the network to complement their dominance among meme coins. We've seen early examples of this with projects like Render. We expect this to accelerate in the coming year.

Catalysts:

Institutional Investment

Corporate Buying

Large Brokerage Approval

U.S. Strategic Bitcoin Reserve< /p>

Better supervision/environment

Bitcoin halving leads to tight supply

Second-layer expansion

Macro windfalls (interest rate cuts, Stimulus measures)

Increase allocation (3% is the new 1%)

Potential downsides:

Disappointment in Washington

Leverage liquidation

Sell-Off

Meme Coin Mania Fails

Disappointing Rate Cut

Prediction 2: Bitcoin ETFs will attract more inflows in 2025 than in 2024

When the U.S. Bitcoin Spot ETF was launched in January 2024, ETF experts predicted that the group would see $5 billion to $15 billion in inflows in the first year. They exceeded the upper end of that range within the first six months. Since its launch, the record-setting ETF has attracted $33.6 billion in inflows. We expect inflows to exceed this figure in 2025.

How is this possible? There are three reasons:

The first year is typically the slowest year for ETFs: The best historical analogy for a Bitcoin ETF launch is the launch of a gold ETF in 2004. They started the year strong with $2.6 billion in inflows, and everyone was excited. But look what happened in the following years: $5.5 billion in the second year, $7.6 billion in the third year, $8.7 billion in the fourth year, $16.8 billion in the fifth year, and $28.9 billion in the sixth year (data adjusted for inflation) . The point is: inflows in the second year exceeding those in the first match the gold example. It would be unusual for funds to taper off.

Major Brokers Coming Soon: For Bitcoin ETFs, the World’s Largest Brokers—from Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch to Bank of America and Wells Fargo—have yet to releaseits wealth management armies, who are largely blocked from accessing these products. We believe this will change in 2025 and the trillions of dollars managed by these companies will start flowing into Bitcoin ETFs.

Investors Gradually Increase Allocations—3% Is the New 1%: In the seven years Bitwise has been helping investment professionals get into cryptocurrency, we’ve observed a clear pattern: Most investors start with Start with a small amount of configuration and gradually increase it over time. We suspect that most investors who bought Bitcoin ETFs in 2024 will double down in 2025.

Prediction 3: Coinbase will overtake Charles Schwab as the world’s most valuable brokerage, with shares trading above $700 per share

Entering 2023, investors can start 2023 with $35 Buy Coinbase stock at the price. Today, it trades at $344, up nearly 10 times. We think it could be even higher. much higher.

Our prediction: Coinbase stock will trade above $700 per share in 2025 (more than double today’s price). This would make Coinbase the most valuable brokerage in the world, surpassing Charles Schwab.

What is the reason? Coinbase is more than just a brokerage firm. There are three major catalysts that will help it achieve this goal:

Stablecoins: Coinbase’s stablecoin business is booming thanks to its partnership with USDC issuer Circle. So far this year, stablecoin revenue has increased by $162 million (up 31%). If we are right about the trajectory of stablecoins, this trend should continue.

Base: Last year, Coinbase launched Base, a new L2 network built on Ethereum. It is now the top L2 in terms of transactions and total locked value. With growth comes revenue—lots of revenue. Base now generates tens of millions of dollars in revenue each quarter, and we expect this number to grow as more developers, users, and funds flow into the ecosystem.

Staking and custody services: As of the third quarter, these two businesses generated $589 million in revenue. An increase of $304 million (106%) compared to the same period last year. Both businesses were driven by asset balances and net new asset flows. We expect both to increase significantly in 2025, driving annual revenue in these business lines to over $1 billion.

Prediction 4: 2025 will be the “year of the cryptocurrency IPO,” with at least five crypto unicorn companies listed in the United States

The past few years have been quiet on the cryptocurrency IPO front. But we expect a large number of crypto unicorn companies to IPO in 2025.

Why now? The background and past of today’s publicly traded cryptocurrency companiesWhat a difference a few years make. Cryptocurrency prices are rising, investor demand is growing, institutional adoption is soaring, blockchain technology has become mainstream, the macro environment is favorable, and—perhaps most importantly—the environment has heated up. This has created the conditions for many large companies in the industry to go public.

Here are five candidates for possible IPOs in 2025:

Circle: As the issuer of USDC, one of the largest stablecoins, Circle has been actively preparing for its first IPO for some time. Public appearance. Circle’s strong position in the stablecoin market and ongoing expansion into new financial services could prompt an IPO.

Figure: Figure is known for leveraging blockchain technology to provide various financial services such as mortgages, personal loans, and asset tokenization. The company has reportedly been exploring an IPO since 2023, and given Wall Street’s growing obsession with tokenization, now may be the right time.

Kraken: As one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the United States, Kraken has been considering an IPO since at least 2021. The company's plans were delayed due to market conditions, but could regain momentum in 2025.

Anchorage Digital: Anchorage provides infrastructure services for digital assets and has a diversified customer base, including investment advisors, asset management companies and venture capital firms. The company’s status as a federally chartered bank and its comprehensive crypto services may prompt it to go public.

Chainalysis: Chainalysis’ status as a market leader in blockchain compliance and intelligence services makes it a prime candidate to enter the public markets in 2025. The company's unique products and growth trajectory make it possible to enter the public markets, especially given the increasing importance of compliance in the crypto industry.

Prediction 5: Tokens launched by AI agents will lead to a Memecoin craze bigger than 2024

As we enter 2025, it looks like we are going to have a Memecoin craze bigger than 2024. fanaticism. We believe that tokens launched by AI agents will lead the way.

For example, a16z’s Marc Andreessen’s recent interaction with an autonomous chatbot called Truth Terminal resulted in the AI ​​agent promoting a little-known meme coin called GOAT. What started as a quirky experiment quickly became an asset with a market capitalization of over $1.3 billion, demonstrating the huge potential when you combine AI with the wild world of meme coins.

But the breakthrough we’re most excited about is Clanker, an AI agent designed to autonomously deploy tokens on Base, Coinbase’s second-layer scaling solution. Users simply tag Clan in posts on Farcasterker, tell the AI ​​agent to launch a token with a given name and image, and it will automatically deploy the token.

In less than a month, Clanker has launched over 11,000 tokens (and generated over $10.3 million in fees). We believe that AI-launched tokens will drive a new meme coin craze in 2025.

Will these Meme coins have any practical use? Not likely. Will most of them go to zero? Yes. But they represent an interesting collision of two breakthrough technologies—artificial intelligence and cryptocurrencies—that are worth watching.

Prediction 6. The number of Bitcoin holdings will double

We don’t know whether the United States will establish a strategic Bitcoin reserve in 2025. It's definitely possible. Senator Cynthia Lummis has introduced a bill that would require the United States to purchase 1 million Bitcoins within five years, an idea that President-elect Trump also supports. But Polymarket believes that the probability is less than 30%, how can we violate the prediction of truth?

However, our view is that this does not matter. The fact that the United States is actively considering establishing a strategic Bitcoin reserve will trigger a global race for countries to buy Bitcoin before it is too late. You’ve seen it, with lawmakers from Poland to Brazil introducing bills to push for the creation of strategic Bitcoin reserves in their countries.

According to BitcoinTreasuries.net, nine countries currently hold Bitcoin (led by the United States). We expect this number to double by 2025.

Prediction 7. Coinbase will enter the S&P 500 and MicroStrategy will enter the Nasdaq 100, adding cryptocurrency exposure to nearly every U.S. investor’s portfolio

The average U.S. investor has no cryptocurrency exposure. Cryptocurrencies are a new asset class that many investors either don’t understand or simply don’t choose. But almost every investor owns a fund that tracks the S&P 500 or Nasdaq 100. Many people hold exposure to both indexes.

However, so far, these indices have excluded the largest publicly traded cryptocurrency companies, Coinbase and MicroStrategy. We expect that to change on the next major reorganization of the two indexes as early as this month. This could have a significant impact.

Consider this: $10 trillion in assets directly tracks the S&P 500, and another $6 trillion is "benchmarked to the index." If Coinbase entered the index, we expect funds would have to buy approximately $15 billion in the stock. If funds benchmarked against the index join Coinbase, that would be another $9 billion in purchases.

View Tracking Nasdaq100 Index Fund Relative Size, MicroStrategy's expected impact is smaller, but still significant.

Prediction 8. The U.S. Department of Labor will relax its guidance on cryptocurrencies in 401(k) plans, allowing billions of dollars to flow into crypto assets

In March 2022, the U.S. Labor Department The Department issued guidance “warning that 401(k) plan fiduciaries present significant risks in adding cryptocurrency investment options to their plans.” The Labor Department even said it would "conduct an investigative program to protect plan participants from these risks."

The U.S. 401(k) plan holds $8 trillion in assets. More money is flowing into these funds every week. If cryptocurrencies accounted for 1% of 401(k) assets, that would be $80 billion in new capital entering the space, with steady inflows to follow. 3% would be $240 billion.

This is a big deal. With the new administration in Washington, we expect the Labor Department to soften this guidance.

Why should you care? There's at least $80 billion of reasons why.

Prediction 9. As the United States passes the long-awaited stablecoin legislation, stablecoin assets will double to US$400 billion

The stablecoin boom in 2025 will make the stablecoin boom Market capitalization reaches $400 billion or more. Four Catalysts Will Drive Growth: Stablecoin Legislation: The lowest-hanging fruit for the new regime of pro-crypto framers in Washington is passing comprehensive stablecoin legislation. Clear answers to big questions (such as who will regulate them? What are the appropriate reserve requirements?) will spark significant new interest from issuers, consumers and businesses. When that happens, expect some large traditional banks like JPMorgan Chase to enter the space.

Fintech integration: Payments giant Stripe spent $1.1 billion to acquire stablecoin platform Bridge in October, saying stablecoins are "superconductors of financial services" due to their speed, accessibility and low cost. PayPal is launching its own stablecoin (PYUSD) in 2023, and Robinhood recently announced plans to launch a global stablecoin network in partnership with several crypto companies. As stablecoins penetrate popular fintech applications, we expect stablecoin assets under management (AUM) and trading volume to surge.

Global trade and remittances: Stablecoins are already eroding the global payment and remittance market. The $8.3 trillion in stablecoin transactions we see in 2024 is only slightly lower than Visa’s $9.9 trillion in payment volume during the same period. Furthermore, stablecoin giant Tether recently financed a $45 million crude oil trade through its USDT stablecoin, clearly demonstrating the potential of stablecoins to facilitate large-scale global trade. As the digital dollar continues to disrupt these massive markets, demand for stablecoins will grow.

Bull market growth: Finally, there is the most obvious catalyst: the bull market. When the crypto economy expands, the AUM of stablecoins tends towill expand. We are optimistic about cryptocurrencies in 2025, so we are also optimistic about stablecoins.

Prediction 10. As Wall Street’s acceptance of cryptocurrencies increases, the value of tokenized real-world assets (RWAs) will exceed $50 billion

Three years ago, the crypto industry Less than $2 billion has been “tokenized” in real-world assets (such as private credit, U.S. debt, commodities, and stocks). Today, the market size reaches US$13.7 billion. What explains this huge growth? Why tokenize real-world assets—that is, represent real assets on the blockchain—at all?

Simply put: Tokenization is better. It provides instant settlement at far lower costs than traditional securitization and 24/7 liquidity – while bringing transparency and accessibility to nearly every asset class.

That’s why BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, the one-time Bitcoin skeptic turned tokenization maximalist, Says “The next generation of the market will be the tokenization of securities.” It’s worth emphasizing: These words come from the leader of the world’s largest asset manager.

We agree. In our view, Wall Street is only starting to wake up to this, which means large institutional money may soon be pouring into tokenized real-world assets.

How many are there? We believe the market for tokenized real-world assets will reach $50 billion in 2025 – with the potential to grow exponentially from there.

Apparently we’re not the only ones who think so: Venture capital firm ParaFi recently predicted that the market for tokenized real-world assets could grow to $2 trillion by the 2030s, while the Global Financial Markets Association predicts $16 trillion Dollar.

Bonus Prediction: Bitcoin will overtake the $18 trillion gold market by 2029, with prices exceeding $1 million per Bitcoin

When making predictions, people tend to Looking ahead to the year ahead. But why? We’re long-term cryptocurrency investors at Bitwise, so let’s look a little further.

We believe Bitcoin will overtake the gold market by 2029. At gold’s current market cap, this would mean Bitcoin prices would rise to over $1 million per coin.

Why 2029? Bitcoin has historically fluctuated on a four-year cycle. While there’s no guarantee this will continue, 2029 will mark the top of the next cycle (and Bitcoin’s 20th anniversary). Overtaking gold within 20 years of launch would be a remarkable achievement, but we think Bitcoin can do it.

(Note: If the United States announces the purchase of 1 million Bitcoins for strategic reserves, the Bitcoin price may reach 100 per coin soonermillion dollars. )

2024 Forecast Scorecard

In November 2023, the Bitwise research team looked ahead and made 10 predictions for 2024 (plus one additional prediction). We predict Bitcoin will reach new all-time highs, the Bitcoin spot ETF will be the most successful ETF launch ever, and Polymarket growth will soar. We're happy to report: We weren't optimistic enough.

The following are the results of these predictions, see "Bitwise: 2024 Crypto Market Forecast Review"

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