The 2025 cryptocurrency predictions from various institutions are being released one after another. By the way, did they get it right last year...?

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2024-12-27 12:35:36

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Author: Scof, ChainCatcher

Editor: Nianqing, ChainCatcher

Grading assignments time------This article takes you on a one-stop review of the hot predictions and actual performance in the crypto industry for 2024. Let's see how many of the market predictions made last year by top research institutions like Binance Labs, Coinbase Venture, a16z, Messari, Pantera Capital, etc., have come true. After all, their predictions for this year have also been released.

Predictions are a battle of intellect and vision, while the market provides answers with ruthless reality. Get ready to take a look at this year's crypto landscape!

❌ Represents that the prediction is incorrect or not entirely accurate

☑️ Represents that the prediction is correct

⭕️ Represents not entirely accurate, with room for discussion

Binance Labs

2024 Predictions:

⭕️ The Bitcoin narrative remains at the forefront, with expectations for the Ordinals and BRC-20 ecosystems to further develop

☑️ Decentralized physical network infrastructure (DePin) continues to develop

☑️ Decentralized social media (DeSoc) continues to develop

☑️ Increased integration of artificial intelligence (AI)

☑️ Growth of real-world assets (RWA)

❌ Liquidity management and request-for-quote (RFQ) systems thrive

☑️ More institutions enter the crypto space

☑️ Account abstraction becomes more important

Summary:

Overall, the market in 2024 validated most of Binance Research's predictions, especially in areas like AI integration, institutional participation, and the tokenization of real-world assets. Although the Bitcoin ecosystem, including Ordinals and BRC-20, had a good start at the beginning of 2024, it did not develop further as expected with Bitcoin prices continuously breaking records; instead, it was forgotten by the market during sector rotations and fell into silence. Additionally, the "further development" of decentralized social media (DeSoc) is somewhat true, as new stars like Farcaster, UXLINK, and CyberConnect have emerged, while Friend.Tech has fallen from grace and stagnated. Compared to other sectors, the development of the decentralized sector still faces many controversies and challenges.

Coinbase Venture

2024 Predictions:

☑️ Bitcoin continues to dominate the market, with institutional investment concentrated in Bitcoin

☑️ Macroeconomic environment supports cryptocurrencies

☑️ Web3 applications continue to develop, bridging the gap between early adopters and mainstream users

☑️ Tokenization and asset digitization attract traditional financial institutions

☑️ Decentralized physical infrastructure (DePIN) and decentralized computing rise

☑️ Progress in regulation and legislation drives institutional participation

☑️ More user-friendly experiences and technological innovations

Summary:

These predictions are largely consistent with current market dynamics, especially the dominance of Bitcoin and the increase in institutional investment, which have already manifested in 2024. Macroeconomically, due to the Trump administration's inauguration and the realization of interest rate cuts, cryptocurrencies have gradually become investment targets for traditional institutions.

Coinbase's outlook for 2025 has been released------

a16z

2024 Predictions:

☑️ Technological advancements improving user experience

☑️ Increased value of modular technology

☑️ Potential for the combination of AI and blockchain

☑️ Shift from "play-to-earn" to "play-and-earn"

❌ Popularization of NFTs as brand assets

❌ Maturity of SNARKs technology

Summary:

It is clear that a16z misjudged the development of NFTs this year. NFTs faced a dark moment this year, as luxury brand NFTs peaked during the last bull market. Additionally, compared to last year, the decline of Layer 2 and cross-chain bridges, highlighted by the meme craze, has led to minimal discussion about project fundamentals and pure technology in the entire crypto market. The popularization of SNARKs technology faces challenges, but overall, the industry will continue to develop in a more operable, participatory, and diversified direction.

a16z's outlook for 2025 has been released------

Messari

2024 Predictions:

☑️ Optimistic outlook for emerging narratives

Messari holds an optimistic view on emerging narratives like DePIN (Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Network), AI, DeSoc (Decentralized Society), and DeSci (Decentralized Science), while strongly optimistic about the combination of AI and cryptocurrency, believing these directions will continue to connect Web3 concepts with the social and technological fields of the real world.

❌ Development potential of DeSoc (Decentralized Social)

❌ Circle may go public in 2024

☑️ Rise of DeSci (Decentralized Science)

☑️ Bearish on Ethereum, as Ethereum does not have an overwhelming advantage compared to Solana

Summary:

As a veteran research institution, Messari did not disappoint, accurately hitting the "AI agent" sector, which has had multiple standout performances this year, while also showing favor towards the DeSci sector, which had not yet heated up last year. Furthermore, their speculation about Solana and ETH as the "king of public chains" has been strongly validated by the market, with SOL's strong performance this year being evident, raising many questions about the future bull market prices of the Ethereum ecosystem. Unfortunately, their judgment on DeSoc deviated slightly from reality, as DeSoc has not successfully replicated the "DeFi Summer" craze of 2022.

Messari's outlook for 2025 has been released------

Related Reading: Interpreting Messari's 2025 Outlook for the Crypto Industry: Bitcoin Will Be Better Next Year, Meme Craze Will Continue

Pantera Capital

Related Reading: Pantera Capital: 2024 Crypto Outlook

2024 Predictions:

❌ Bitcoin's revival and "DeFi Summer 2.0"

☑️ Rise of tokenized social experiences

☑️ Increase in TradFi-DeFi "bridges" like stablecoins and mirrored assets

☑️ Integration of modular blockchains and zero-knowledge proofs (ZKP)

❌ On-chain computation-intensive applications

☑️ Integration of blockchain ecosystems and application chain models

☑️ Areas to watch in 2024------Artificial Intelligence: Merging human and computer intelligence

Summary:

Like many other institutions, Pantera Capital misjudged the trajectory of the Bitcoin ecosystem, influenced by the strong performance of inscriptions and Bitcoin narratives in 2023. The year 2024 can be called a year for Bitcoin (with its gains far exceeding most altcoins), but even though the Bitcoin ecosystem has shown good growth, it still cannot be called "DeFi Summer 2.0." Notably, as people realize the substantial profits from stablecoin businesses, TradFi-DeFi is expected to see good growth in 2024. Additionally, like other institutions, Pantera also accurately predicted a significant explosion and growth of AI in 2024.

OKX Venture

Related Reading: OKX Ventures 2024 Bitcoin Outlook Report

2024 Predictions:

⭕️ BTC expansion and application explosion, increasing on-chain activity enhances network security

☑️ Ethereum's Cancun upgrade improves Layer 2 usability, leading the industry forward

☑️ Alt-layer 1 ecosystems represented by Solana will benefit from industry recovery

☑️ AI narratives closely integrate with Web3 technology, leading to new applications

❌ New paradigm of chain games, FOCG (Fully Onchain Game) single-point breakthroughs

☑️ DePIN continues to maintain high growth

☑️ Macroeconomic environment improves, entering a new era of crypto

Summary:

From this year's overall performance, OKX Venture's expectations for chain games were overly optimistic, as projects under the FOCG paradigm did not show significant growth, and GameFi still only shouts "the easiest to attract users" without substantial user growth. Additionally, the performance of DePin projects this year can only be considered passable, with some notable projects, but the volatility of profitability and potential privacy issues remain two major challenges to be addressed. Overall, there is still significant research space on how the crypto field can attract more user participation from Web 2.

OKX Venture's outlook for 2025 has been released------

Blockworks

Related Reading: Blockworks' Outlook on the 2024 Crypto Market

2024 Predictions:

☑️ The Rise of Solana:

Solana's market capitalization may approach or even surpass Ethereum, generating significant wealth effects in the NFT and DeFi sectors.

Multiple rounds of airdrops and at least ten unicorn companies will emerge within the Solana ecosystem.

☑️ The Evolution of Ethereum:

Developer activity and connectivity on Ethereum will further enhance, with narratives shifting from "supersonic currency" to other directions.

Ethereum's L2 technology will develop, but interoperability issues may remain unresolved in 2024.

❌ Prosperity of the NFT Market:

NFTs will see growth due to wealth effects and capital inflows, with some collections (like Mad Lads) potentially reaching a floor price of $100,000 each.

JPEG investments will become a significant trend in the first and second quarters of 2024.

☑️ The Revival of Bitcoin:

The launch of Bitcoin's L2 will drive activity in DeFi and other ecosystems, potentially breaking historical highs.

Bitcoin ETFs may be approved in early 2024, but their market impact remains unclear.

☑️ The Future of DeFi:

The Solana and Ethereum ecosystems will welcome new DeFi projects and activities.

The popularity of staking may bring security and vulnerability issues.

☑️ Artificial Intelligence and Cryptocurrency:

AI-related tokens will reach a frenzy peak in 2024, with market capitalization potentially exceeding $100 billion.

Linkage between cryptocurrency and traditional markets:

❌ Coinbase will further transform into a bank-like institution, with a valuation potentially exceeding $100 billion.

☑️ The U.S. will re-emerge as a center for crypto activity in 2024, alternating leadership with Asia.

❌ Potential of gaming and social finance:

Gaming will become an important catalyst for retail participation in cryptocurrency. Social finance and music NFTs may become new hotspots in the market.

Summary:

Blockworks' predictions for the 2024 crypto market have been partially validated. The strong rise of Solana indeed aligns with predictions, with its market capitalization significantly increasing and generating wealth effects in the meme sector. However, despite Solana's excellent performance in some metrics, the prediction that its market capitalization would approach or surpass Ethereum has not yet materialized.

The NFT market showed some signs of recovery in the second half of the year, but the anticipated "JPEG wave" did not materialize as expected, with only a few high-end NFT collections successfully attracting significant attention. AI-related tokens did indeed trigger a wave of enthusiasm, but many tokens' valuations still appear inflated, and the combination of AI and crypto currently resembles more of a financing tool, with a considerable distance from true technological implementation. Furthermore, while DeFi activities have increased, the anticipated security issues related to staking have not erupted as expected, and the maturity of technology still requires further time for verification.

Blockworks' outlook for 2025 has been released------

IOBC Capital

Related Reading: IOBC Capital: 10 Predictions for 2024

2024 Predictions:

☑️ Approval of Bitcoin spot ETF may bring in over $30B in incremental funds

❌ The total market capitalization of Bitcoin's inscription ecosystem may reach over $20B, with only truly Fair Launch top MEMEs having medium to long-term consensus

☑️ Bitcoin Layer 2 will see rapid development, benefiting Bitcoin ecosystem application infrastructure

❌ Ethereum Layer 2 TVL will surpass Ethereum Layer 1, potentially reaching $100B+

☑️ ZK Rollup's TVL volume still cannot match Optimistic Rollup, but the zk modular combinations of Ethereum Layer 2 components will tend to be complete

☑️ Layerzero will launch tokens in the first half of the year, likely igniting the entire chain sector

⭕️ New narratives for Parallel EVM will drive secondary growth for chains like Sei v2

⭕️ The market size of DePIN may grow tenfold

❌ Potential emergence of blockbuster Autonomous World / Fully on-chain games with strong social attributes

☑️ Star cases of AI and Crypto integration will emerge in multiple application scenarios

Summary:

IOBC Capital's predictions for 2024 are comprehensive and bold, accurately forecasting this year's ETF market and AI trends, but their views on Bitcoin Layer 2 and the entire chain gaming sector appear somewhat optimistic.

The rune market in the first half of 2024 briefly continued the enthusiasm of last year's Bitcoin inscription ecosystem, but the harsh reality of "halving and halving again" soon followed; many public chains in Ethereum Layer 2 did not gain user acceptance, with a significant gap between TVL and the Ethereum mainnet, peaking at $55.3 billion in December; Layerzero welcomed its TGE mid-year, but the process was also fraught with difficulties. Due to the market's sluggishness, the entire chain sector, while still accelerating development, did not reach the desired climax; the DePIN sector indeed saw tremendous growth this year, but the prediction of a tenfold market size increase is somewhat optimistic, growing from $9 billion at the beginning of the year to about $25 billion by the end of the year (rough estimate).

HTX Venture

Related Reading: HTX Ventures 2023 Annual Review

2024 Predictions:

⭕️ Trading innovation: The emergence of mature trading bots and new trading infrastructure has witnessed continuous innovation in trading mechanisms, suggesting more dynamic and efficient market interactions.

☑️ Layer 2 evolution: Driven by the highly anticipated Cancun upgrade, fierce competition among Layer 2 solutions may lead to significant advancements in scalability and efficiency, further solidifying the critical role of this sector.

❌ Web3 and X-Fi dynamics: The shift towards genuine Web3 projects (such as the success of platforms like Friend.tech) marks a more integrated approach, incorporating social and gaming elements into the crypto space.

☑️ Integration with traditional finance: Discussions around Bitcoin ETFs and real-world assets (RWA), especially regarding the potential breakthrough of Bitcoin spot ETFs, highlight the increasing integration of traditional finance and the crypto industry, likely marking a new era of market growth and mainstream recognition.

Summary:

These predictions have been partially validated, especially regarding the integration with traditional finance. The approval of Bitcoin spot ETFs has significantly boosted institutional capital inflow, enhancing market confidence and gradually leading to mainstream financial acceptance of the crypto industry. However, predictions regarding trading innovation and the dynamics of Web3 and X-Fi have not been fully realized. Although there has been progress in the development of trading bots and new infrastructures, they have not yet brought revolutionary changes to market interactions; additionally, Friend.tech faced an embarrassing downturn this year.

HTX Ventures' outlook for 2025 has been released------

Related Reading: HTX Ventures Report: Current Market Still Far from Bull Market Peak, Will Continue to Focus on Meme Coins, AI Coins, and Other Areas

Bankless

Related Reading: Bankless: 2024 Will Be the AI+Crypto Cycle

☑️ EigenLayer breaks through $10 billion in TVL

❌ 1 million ETH burned

❌ ETH Layer 2 shifts to optimize VM and parallel EVM

❌ Solana crashes

Summary:

From the actual market situation, some of these predictions have been realized, but overall they lean towards optimism. EigenLayer's performance has indeed been impressive, with TVL surpassing $10 billion, proving that the restaking model has gained high market recognition. However, the burning of 1 million ETH has not been achieved (as of the time of writing, data shows that the burning amount in the past year is 472,000 ETH). Although Ethereum's network activity has increased, trading volume and usage rates have not driven the burning amount to meet expectations.

Regarding the development of ETH Layer 2, the current focus remains on scalability optimization (such as zkEVM and Optimistic Rollup), and while the exploration of parallel EVM has sparked discussions, it has not become a mainstream direction, indicating that this prediction has clearly overestimated the speed of technological transformation in the short term. The prediction of Solana crashing has also not come true. On the contrary, Solana has made significant progress in stability.

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