Special Issue: My Top 10 Crypto Predictions For 2025

I have been publishing my annual crypto predictions every year since 2015!?

This year is no exception, and here are my top 10 crypto predictions for 2025!

1. U.S. Becomes Relevant in Crypto Again

Until Trump's election, no logical entrepreneur would set up a new crypto venture in the US. From legal uncertainty to regulation by enforcement, it was one of the most inhospitable large jurisdictions for crypto globally.?

All of this has changed since November.?

Whilst providing regulatory clarity will take many months at best, there are many catalysts in the U.S., from new pro-crypto SEC and CFTC chairs to Trump’s entourage being extremely pro-crypto to even talks of strategic Bitcoin reserves.?

Whilst other crypto hubs, especially the UAE, got tremendous inflows of crypto firms setting up in recent years, we should expect them now to compete on regulatory and tax clarity, as well as the ease of doing business.?

While the US can now become crypto-friendly, crypto firms especially owned by non-Americans will still consider the higher tax burden and the availability of work visas (especially with this recent H1-B debate) compared to other locations such as Hong Kong or Dubai, where taxes are not only minimal (if any), but long-term visas can be obtained in days.?

Overall, expect the US to become part of the global crypto conversation once again, which is very welcome.

2. The collateral damage of meme coins comes to light?

99% of meme coins issued in the past year are, in practice, worthless or illiquid. There were more cases of rug pulls or outright scams than we can keep track of, sometimes done by social media personalities or artists themselves.?

Expect a wave of regulatory and criminal investigations and enforcements in 2025. The cases of insider trading, market manipulation, and wash trading are so obvious that they will be a layup for regulators (and the media).?

Whilst meme coins allow us to put a value on a decentralised community for the first time (the Dogecoin community could potentially be an example), most meme coins are very far from that.?

In the same way that shady ICOs gave the crypto industry a bad name in 2017, expect meme coins to equally taint the broader crypto industry in 2025.

And expect the media to, unfortunately, bundle meme coins along with Bitcoin and the overall crypto industry.?

3. The Bitcoin ecosystem continues to grow

There are numerous catalysts for the Bitcoin ecosystem in 2025.?

First, many smaller and larger jurisdictions may get inspired by the likes of El Salvador or Bhutan and either start holding some Bitcoin or outright get involved in Bitcoin mining.?

This could be as much a strategic choice as a hedge against currency devaluation. If rumors or statements emerge that the US (or another G20 country) is building a strategic Bitcoin reserve, then all bets are off; expect nation-state FOMO to drive Bitcoin prices significantly higher.

In addition to the above, the Bitcoin ecosystem is already growing organically, from the growth of Bitcoin layer 2 solutions to various Bitcoin yield options, especially in DeFi, as well as the booming NFT ecosystem.

And with the Bitcoin spot ETFs continuing to attract inflows, expect Bitcoin to benefit from these tailwinds in 2025.

4. Institutional investors start getting crypto FOMO (again!)

No institutional allocator was crazy enough to recommend crypto investments in the months after FTX collapsed, as doing so involved serious career risk for any member of that investment committee.?

Things have changed since then, and 2025 is potentially the year when not having crypto exposure (from a career risk perspective, at least) may be a career risk.

Expect this to be client-driven, with clients (mainly of investment advisers or private banks) asking their advisers about Bitcoin and crypto products.?

And as the likes of Blackrock or Fidelity are now actively promoting Bitcoin and crypto products, compliance and risk teams don’t have a good answer to the question, “If Blackrock is comfortable with Bitcoin, why not us?”

5. RWAs finally become mainstream, with tokenised treasuries the new risk-free rate in crypto?

I have been wrong multiple times over the years about security tokens, tokenisation, and real-world assets (RWA).

I genuinely believed that we would see them take off in 2019 and then in 2021, but I was wrong—and too early.?

The killer use cases became not real estate or large illiquid assets (as I initially believed) but tokenised U.S. treasuries, which had over $4 billion in assets last year.

Expect this to continue in the coming year.

If large crypto exchanges start accepting tokenised treasuries as collateral (which is likely), treasuries will likely become the new risk-free rate in crypto markets.

6. Crypto active management makes a comeback

In recent years, the low career risk option for family offices and other more adventurous institutional investors was to allocate to VC funds as the capital is locked for many years, assets are not marked to market, and it takes many years for the impact of these funds (and the potential downside) to hit home, thus limiting the career risk.?

Many large institutional investors made such VC investments in crypto in recent years, from family offices to sovereign wealth funds.?

The launch of the Bitcoin ETFs allowed investors to easily get their beta directional exposure via traditional instruments.?

Now, expect these same investors to look for other liquid ways of gaining alpha, from long-only alt coin managers to market-neutral crypto hedge fund managers, either directly or via a fund of funds.

Managers with track records who are regulated and operate at institutional standards will benefit.?

7. Crypto M&A back in full swing

Prior to Trump’s election, any financial institution could easily reject Bitcoin and crypto by saying that regulators and policymakers were against it or that there was a lack of clarity.?

Now that all these excuses are out of the window, expect these same firms to scramble to determine their build, buy or partner strategy.?

Every CEO needs to have an answer to the question that will be asked at the next analyst or shareholder meeting: “What are your views on Bitcoin, or what is your crypto strategy?”?

Expect many of them to acquire crypto firms that they believe are low risk but that could give them a good Bitcoin or crypto story.?

Entrepreneurs with solid businesses (and the investment banks advising them!) will benefit!

8. The DeFi ecosystem continues to grow (powered by AI agents?)

The total value locked in DeFI is over $180 billion, which is remarkable considering it was less than $1 billion exactly five years ago.?

Expect to see more user-friendly DeFi offerings, from DeFi exchanges to prediction markets, with easy-to-use interfaces or where DeFi is on the back end without users even noticing.?

It will be interesting to watch the potential impact the growing world of AI agents could have in this ecosystem.

Similar to the comparison between ChatGPT and a regular Google search, these AI agents are powerful versions of regular bots that can get involved in everything in DeFi, from content creation to trading. 2025 will determine if they are a fad or a catalyst for DeFi overall.

9. Stablecoins continue to reach new record highs

In 2024, stablecoin assets surpassed $200 billion, and over $27 trillion in transactions were settled.

Stablecoins have democratised access to U.S. dollars and have arguably been the killer use case of crypto so far.

In many countries with weak central banks, from Turkey and Nigeria to Argentina to Lebanon, stablecoins are used daily.?

There are tremendous amounts of international cross-border trades settled via stablecoins, a topic that, for some reason, is not widely reported. Expect this to continue to significantly rise in the coming year.?

Attracted by the promise of profits and increased regulatory clarity, we should expect to see traditional banks enter this space in many markets, including the UAE and Hong Kong. However, whether they will succeed is a different question.

10. CBDC development slows down

CBDCs have been on an upward trajectory since 2019 (with the catalyst being the launch of Libra by Facebook).

But we should expect things to slow down in 2025.?

This is mainly due to the change of guard in the US, as Republicans are staunch anti-CBDC advocates, and due to the US influence on most global organisations, including the BIS, the IMF, the World Bank and SWIFT.?

The recent cancellation from the BIS of Project mBridge, probably the most successful CBDC initiative globally, due to concerns that the likes of Russia and the BRICS would be inspired to build their own version of SWIFT on blockchain, is a good example.

Ironically, and mainly driven by geopolitics, CBDC activity could be expected in emerging markets this year, especially if these countries decide to build their new SWIFT equivalent.?

So there you have it, my top crypto predictions for 2025!

Do you agree or disagree with the above predictions? Feel free to share in the comments section below!

Henri Arslanian

*Please note that this article reflects Henri’s personal views and not those of any organisation he is involved with. This article is for educational purposes only, and none of its content should be construed as investment or financial advice of any kind.