a16z: Seven Key Crypto Trends for 2025 and Other Developments to Watch

2025.01.06

a16z: Seven Key Crypto Trends for 2025 and Other Developments to Watch

Spanning multiple domains including stablecoins, app stores, and decentralized governance.

2025.01.06 - 04:43:41

a16z

Navigating Web3 tides with focused insights

Spanning multiple domains including stablecoins, app stores, and decentralized governance.

Written by: a16zcrypto

Translated by: Ismay, BlockBeats

Trends We're Watching

Based on insights from its partners across AI, American dynamism, life sciences/health, crypto, enterprise, fintech, gaming, and infrastructure, a16z has released a comprehensive list of "big ideas" for the coming year—designed to inspire technologists and builders.

Below are key ideas shared by the crypto team. For more exciting content, read the full article.

To learn about policy and regulatory outlooks for 2025, see this article published in November.

1. Enterprises Will Increasingly Adopt Stablecoin Payments

Over the past year, stablecoins have achieved product-market fit—which is no surprise, as they’re currently the cheapest way to send U.S. dollars and enable fast global payments. Additionally, stablecoins offer entrepreneurs an easier platform to build new payment products: no intermediaries, minimum balance requirements, or proprietary SDKs. Yet large enterprises haven’t yet realized the massive cost savings and new profit margins that switching to these payment rails could unlock.

While we’ve already seen some early interest and peer-to-peer use cases, I expect 2025 to bring a broader wave of experimentation. Small- and medium-sized businesses with strong brands, loyal customer bases, and high payment processing costs (like restaurants, coffee shops, and convenience stores) may lead the shift from credit cards to stablecoin payments. These businesses don’t benefit much from credit card fraud protection (especially in-person transactions), and high transaction fees significantly impact their margins (30 cents per coffee adds up).

We should also expect larger enterprises to begin adopting stablecoins. If stablecoins accelerate the evolution of banking history, companies will experiment with disintermediating payment processors—adding 2% directly to their bottom line. They’ll also start exploring new solutions to challenges currently addressed by credit card companies, such as fraud protection and identity verification.

——Sam Broner (X @sambroner | Farcaster @sambroner)

2. Nations Will Explore Tokenizing Government Debt

Tokenizing government debt would create an interest-bearing digital asset backed by the state, while avoiding the privacy concerns associated with central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). Such products could serve as new collateral sources for lending and derivatives protocols in DeFi (decentralized finance), adding greater stability and credibility to these ecosystems.

As innovation-supportive governments around the world further explore the benefits and efficiencies of public, permissionless, and immutable blockchains this year, some countries may pilot on-chain government bonds. For example, the UK is already exploring digital securities through a sandbox program run by its financial regulator, the FCA (Financial Conduct Authority); the UK Treasury has also expressed interest in issuing digital bonds.

In the U.S., with the SEC planning next year to require government debt to clear through traditional, cumbersome, and costly infrastructure, we can expect increased discussion around how blockchain can improve transparency, efficiency, and participation in bond trading.

——Brian Quintenz (X @brianquintenz | Farcaster @brianq)

3. “DUNA” Will Become the Industry Standard for U.S. Blockchain Networks

In 2024, Wyoming passed new legislation formally recognizing DAOs (decentralized autonomous organizations) as legal entities. DUNA ("Decentralized Unincorporated Nonprofit Association") is specifically designed to support decentralized governance of blockchain networks and is currently the only viable legal structure available to U.S.-based projects. By incorporating under DUNA, crypto projects and other decentralized communities can grant their DAOs legal standing—enabling broader economic activity while protecting token holders from liability and properly addressing tax and compliance needs.

DAOs, as communities governing open blockchain networks, are crucial tools for ensuring networks remain open, fair, and resistant to extractive behavior. DUNA unlocks this potential, and multiple projects are already moving toward adoption. As the U.S. further supports and accelerates its crypto ecosystem in 2025, I expect DUNA to become the industry standard for U.S. crypto projects. Other states may follow suit with similar structures (Wyoming led the way here too—they were the first to adopt the now-widely-used LLC)—especially as decentralized applications beyond crypto (e.g., physical infrastructure/energy grids) gain traction.

——Miles Jennings (X @milesjennings | Farcaster @milesjennings)

4. Developers Will Reuse Infrastructure Instead of Reinventing It

Over the past year, teams have repeatedly "reinvented the wheel" across the blockchain tech stack—building yet another custom validator set, consensus implementation, execution engine, programming language, or RPC API. While these efforts may offer marginal improvements in specific areas, they often fall short on broader or foundational functionality. Take programming languages designed specifically for SNARKs: ideally, they’d help top engineers build better-performing SNARKs, but in practice, they often lag behind general-purpose languages in compiler optimizations, developer tooling, learning resources, and AI coding support—and may even result in worse SNARK performance (at least today).

Therefore, I expect more teams in 2025 to leverage existing work and reuse proven blockchain infrastructure components—from consensus protocols and existing staked capital to proof systems. This approach saves developers significant time and effort, allowing them to focus on building unique value into their products or services.

Today, the infrastructure needed to build consumer-facing Web3 products and services is largely in place. As in other industries, the teams that ultimately succeed will be those that effectively utilize complex supply chains—not those that mock "not built here" technologies.

——Joachim Neu (X @jneu_net)

5. Crypto-Specific App Stores and Discovery Channels Will Emerge

When crypto apps are blocked from centralized platforms like Apple’s App Store or Google Play, their primary user acquisition channels are cut off. However, we’re now seeing emerging app stores and marketplaces offering distribution and content discovery without strict gatekeeping. For example, Worldcoin’s World App marketplace—storing identity credentials and enabling access to “mini-apps”—brought hundreds of thousands of users to several apps within days. Another example is Solana’s phone-exclusive, zero-fee dApp store. These cases suggest that not just software, but hardware (such as phones or identity devices) may become key enablers for crypto app stores—just as Apple devices helped drive early app ecosystem growth.

There are also broader marketplaces hosting thousands of dApps and Web3 developer tools (e.g., Alchemy), and blockchains acting as game publishers and distribution platforms (e.g., Ronin). But this isn’t purely entertainment-focused: migrating established distribution channels (like messaging apps) onto the chain remains difficult (Telegram/TON being a notable exception). The same applies to Web2-native apps with strong distribution advantages. Still, 2025 may see more such migrations take place.

——Maggie Hsu (X @meigga | Farcaster @maggiehsu)

6. From Holders to Users: The Evolution of Crypto Adoption

In 2024, crypto made significant political progress, with many key policymakers and politicians expressing positive views. Simultaneously, crypto continues evolving as a financial movement (e.g., Bitcoin and Ethereum ETPs broadening investor access). In 2025, it has the potential to grow further as a computing technology movement. But where will the next wave of users come from?

I believe it’s time to reactivate the current "passive" crypto asset holders and transform them into active users. Today, only 5–10% of crypto asset holders actively use crypto technology. We can bring the existing 617 million people who already hold crypto assets on-chain—especially as blockchain infrastructure improves and transaction costs continue to drop. This means new applications will gradually emerge for both existing and new users. Meanwhile, early applications across stablecoins, DeFi, NFTs, gaming, social, DePIN, DAOs, and prediction markets are becoming increasingly accessible to mainstream users as communities focus more on user experience and optimization.

——Daren Matsuoka (X @darenmatsuoka | Farcaster)

7. Hiding the Tech Will Enable Killer Web3 Apps

The technical strengths of blockchain make it unique—but they also hinder mainstream adoption. For creators and fans, blockchain enables new possibilities in connectivity, ownership, and monetization... Yet industry jargon (like "NFTs," "zkRollups") and complex designs create barriers for the very people who stand to benefit most. I’ve experienced this firsthand in countless conversations with executives in media, music, and fashion about Web3.

Many consumer tech revolutions have followed a similar path: technology comes first, then a defining company or designer abstracts away the complexity, unlocking breakout applications. Think email—SMTP hidden behind a "send" button—or credit cards, where most users today don’t think about the underlying payment rails. Spotify didn’t revolutionize music by flaunting file formats—it did so by putting playlists at users’ fingertips. As Nassim Taleb said: "Over-engineering creates fragility; simplicity scales."

Thus, I believe our industry will embrace this philosophy in 2025: "Hide the tech." The best decentralized apps are already focusing on intuitive interfaces that make actions as simple as tapping a screen or swiping a card. In 2025, we’ll see more companies committed to clean design and clear communication. Successful products don’t need explanations—they solve problems directly.

——Chris Lyons (X @chrislyons | Farcaster)

Six Decentralized Governance Trends for 2025

2025 will be an exciting year for decentralized governance. DAOs are pushing boundaries, experimenting with new models for collective governance among anonymous token holders. Investment firms are working to encourage clients to participate more actively in online shareholder voting. Meanwhile, AI companies are beginning to use citizens' assemblies to define norms for large language models (LLMs). These efforts will drive a range of decentralized governance experiments, including: