Investment themes to watch in the crypto space in 2025
TechFlow Selected TechFlow Selected
Investment themes to watch in the crypto space in 2025
AI and DeFi will become the two core narratives next year.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsAuthor: hitesh.eth
Translation: TechFlow
Pure substance, no false hopes.
Before you begin reading, I hope you can temporarily set aside your existing biases and spend a few minutes carefully considering what I’m about to share.
From a macro perspective, Web3 investment themes can be divided into two broad categories: infrastructure (infra) and applications (apps).
Investing essentially falls into two types: one appears unexciting in the short term but may yield substantial returns over the long run; the other generates immediate excitement but could ultimately turn out to be worthless.
Most cryptocurrency investors enter this space chasing quick and significant gains, and are willing to bear the corresponding risks.
As a result, people tend to favor cyclical investments—those that are typically short-term and only effective within specific bull cycles.
2025 will be the year of regulation in the crypto space.
The United States and several other major economies plan to introduce domestic regulations. These regulatory developments will not only strengthen trust among traditional investors (especially older generations), but also filter for a select few truly promising cryptocurrencies—only projects with solid fundamentals and sustainable cash flows will stand out.
We can expect a new wave of traditional investors entering the market. These investors hold "old money" and will be stepping into cryptocurrency for the first time.
They won’t invest blindly based on hype. Instead, they’ll conduct thorough research, read reports and data carefully, and only commit capital when the logic adds up.
In this context, decentralized finance (DeFi) will emerge as a favored investment theme among traditional investors, alongside Layer 1 blockchain protocols (L1s).
However, due to their lower market caps, DeFi projects offer greater growth potential and align closely with fundamentals and data. This year, some DeFi projects have already generated over $100 million in revenue—an achievement that will undoubtedly attract attention from traditional investors.
The scale of capital held by traditional investors is massive, and ample funding is key to healthy market growth. Don’t forget, many institutional investors are also driven by traditional capital.
It’s foreseeable that DeFi will eventually become a key area of allocation for top-tier institutional investors.
BlackRock has already begun collaborating with DeFi projects—a trend that is gradually taking shape.
DeFi is not a cyclical investment; it's more of a long-term play, similar to how investors once viewed BTC and ETH.
The long-term potential of AAVE might one day be seen as comparable to ETH.
When investing in blue-chip DeFi projects, think long-term;
when investing in a new native DeFi project, consider short-term gains—these could deliver multi-bagger returns or even higher.
In a DeFi-dominated crypto market, numerous emerging projects will surface while some established ones regain spotlight. You'll witness waves of price appreciation around these projects.
In the DeFi space, many blue-chip applications (like Uniswap) are planning to transition into infrastructure-level projects. This shift will further enhance token value potential, and next year we may see certain projects announce fee mechanism upgrades—you should prepare for this.
These changes will inject strong momentum into the DeFi narrative.
I expect DeFi to dominate at least two quarters next year, much like AI did this year.
As for AI, I believe 2025 will be the year AI faces widespread criticism in popular culture due to its rapid and uncontrolled expansion.
Discussions around “responsible AI” will take center stage.
Market activity surrounding crypto-based AI infrastructure, AI agents, and Initial Agentic Offerings (IAOs) may enter a correction phase driven by the “responsible AI” narrative.
But prior to that, I anticipate a bubble-like surge in AI agents.
There are currently 13,000 agents in the market—I expect this number to grow to at least 100,000.
This could then lead us into a bubble phase, likely bursting the following year.
The exact quarter this happens will depend on the timeline of AI-related regulatory events.
Regulation will also spark increased interest in privacy infrastructure. As a result, major projects involving confidential DeFi, privacy computing, private storage, and private inference will receive greater attention—and this will reflect in their price action (PA).
Meme markets will remain active.
Despite potential lack of regulatory support, people will always find ways to participate—complete prevention is impossible.
Speculators will continue hunting for opportunities among the 100,000 new tokens launched daily.
Yet, some established memes like DOGE and PEPE may draw interest from more serious investors.
Even if you dislike memes, you should consider allocating a portion of your portfolio to them.
2025 will also be the year mobile Web3 wallets and super apps come into prominence.
Recently, Exodus, a Web3 wallet company, listed on NASDAQ with a $1.2 billion valuation—an event that could fuel speculative interest next year in tokens tied to high-revenue-performing Web3 wallets.
AI and DeFi will be the two core narratives next year:
-
DeFi is poised to take the lead;
-
AI agents may enter a bubble phase;
-
Meme speculation will draw in more participants;
-
Privacy and DePIN (Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks) will rise in prominence during a given quarter;
-
Web3 wallets will gain more attention and drive mainstream adoption through improved onboarding and superior user experience.
That’s all I have to share.
Please note, I am neither an astrologer nor an expert in crypto. I'm just an ordinary person with random thoughts about the market—so don't take my views too seriously.
Join TechFlow official community to stay tuned
Telegram:https://t.me/TechFlowDaily
X (Twitter):https://x.com/TechFlowPost
X (Twitter) EN:https://x.com/BlockFlow_News
hitesh.eth
