2025 Market Outlook: One year later

By Adrian Fritz and Maximiliaan Michielsen

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Last December, we laid out twelve bold predictions for crypto in 2025. One year later, the takeaway is clear: crypto didn’t just survive — it was institutionalized.

Some calls landed decisively. Others partially played out. A few missed the mark entirely. But taken together, they tell a coherent story about where crypto matured, where it surprised us, and where expectations ran ahead of reality. Below, we revisit each prediction with a clear verdict.

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1. Another nation-state will adopt Bitcoin as a strategic reserve asset

Verdict: ✅Right 

Sub-predictions:

• Argentina adopts Bitcoin → ❌Wrong
• Institutions follow MicroStrategy → ✅Right
• Bitcoin & gold hit new ATHs → ✅Right

While we initially expected a single emerging market to formalize Bitcoin adoption, 2025 delivered something more impactful. Bitcoin crossed a critical threshold and became a strategic reserve asset across sovereigns, states, and corporate balance sheets. The U.S. formalizing a Bitcoin reserve, Texas executing the first state-level BTC purchase, and Pakistan advancing Bitcoin reserve discussions reshaped global perceptions.

Argentina did not formally adopt Bitcoin, but this proved secondary to the broader institutional shift. Corporate treasuries expanded holdings aggressively, following MicroStrategy’s playbook at scale, pushing combined public and private corporate BTC holdings beyond one million coins. Bitcoin’s new all-time highs, alongside record gold prices, reinforced their role as a geopolitical hedge. The prediction was correct not because of one country, but because Bitcoin’s strategic use case is slowly becoming undeniable.

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2. Bitcoin’s scalability solutions will drive total value locked to $10 billion

Verdict: ✅Right 

Sub-predictions:

• Nakamoto Upgrade & sBTC catalyze Stacks → 🟡So-so
• OP_CAT & BitVM drive new projects → ✅Right

Bitcoin DeFi reached an inflection point in 2025, with total value locked surpassing $10 billion during the year. While Stacks’ Nakamoto Upgrade and sBTC demonstrated technical progress, adoption lagged expectations and competitive Bitcoin DeFi protocols narrowed Stacks’ early lead.

The real acceleration came from OP_CAT and BitVM. These primitives unlocked new design space for covenants, trust-minimized bridges, and Bitcoin rollups, sparking the launch of more than 50 new projects. BTC Layer-2 TVL grew roughly to several billion dollars, proving that Bitcoin can support meaningful onchain activity without compromising the vanilla base-layer. Rather than converging around a single execution layer, Bitcoin’s programmability diversified, a healthier and more resilient outcome than originally anticipated.

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3. Ethereum’s revenue renaissance will begin in 2025

Verdict: ❌Wrong 

‍Sub-predictions

• Blob demand restores L1 revenue → 🟡So-so
• Minimum blob fees / L2–L1 revenue sharing → ❌Wrong
• Alternative L1s migrate en masse to Ethereum L2s → ❌Wrong
• App- and sector-specific chains reduce fragmentation → 🟡So-so
• Web2 / TradFi launch (specifically Robinhood) of Ethereum L2s → ✅Right

While Ethereum made meaningful technical progress in 2025, this did not translate into a recovery in the network’s economics. On the contrary, Ethereum’s L1 revenue fell to roughly $286M YTD, with total revenue in 2025 materially below even post-Dencun revenue levels from last year. Layer-2 growth continued to cannibalize L1 fees faster than new demand emerged.

The Pectra upgrade in May doubled the blob target from 3 to 6 per block, but average utilization hovered around 4.5 blobs, below the new target, meaning blob demand grew modestly, but not nearly enough to drive a meaningful fee recovery. Crucially, no minimum blob fee was introduced, and L2-to-L1 revenue sharing remained limited, leaving Ethereum without a clear monetization backstop.

Structurally, progress was mixed. Celo transitioned to an Ethereum L2, but there was no broader wave of L1-to-L2 migrations. App-specific chains like Uniswap’s Unichain and Lighter launched successfully, yet fragmentation persists. Importantly, we correctly anticipated Web2 engagement. Specifically, Robinhood announced and began developing its own Ethereum-based L2, purpose-built for tokenized equities and RWAs, validating the infrastructure thesis, even as economics still lagged. Other institutions, such as Deutsche Bank, remained at the pilot stage. In short, Ethereum continued to scale — but the anticipated revenue renaissance has yet to be materialized.

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4. ETPs will drive further institutional adoption, reaching $250 billion in assets under management globally

Verdict: ✅Right

Sub-predictions

• Institutional adoption accelerates in 2025 → ✅Right
• Approval of options on Bitcoin ETFs deepens liquidity → ✅Right
• A U.S.-based Bitcoin ETF ranks among the top 25 globally → ✅Right

Crypto ETPs firmly entered the financial mainstream in 2025. Strong institutional inflows and asset appreciation drove global crypto ETP assets under management to temporarily surpass $250B, before volatility pulled totals lower into year-end. While the level was not sustained, the milestone itself validated the prediction.

Institutional participation accelerated sharply after the one-year due diligence window closed in January, unlocking registered investment advisors, wirehouses, and retirement platforms. Holdings by institutional investors rose to record levels of $46B as per the Q2 13Fs, while the approval of options on Bitcoin ETFs further deepened liquidity and broadened participation.

BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETF became the fastest ETF in history to surpass $80B in AUM and briefly entered the global top-25 during mid-year peaks, before slipping back amid market moves. More importantly, ETPs emerged as crypto’s preferred access vehicle, anchoring Bitcoin to patient capital, a structural win regardless of year-end fluctuations.

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5. Solana will continue to eat Ethereum’s market share, reaching an all-time high in total value locked

Verdict: ✅Right

Sub-predictions

• Solana outperforms via UX and infrastructure → ✅Right
• Firedancer launches, strengthening Solana’s institutional readiness → ✅Right
• TradFi products (futures / ETFs) launch on Solana → ✅Right

Solana delivered one of the clearest confirmations of our 2025 outlook. The Solana–Ethereum market cap ratio reached an all-time high above 40% in April before normalizing, while Solana achieved new all-time highs in TVL — both in dollar terms (peaking around $12B) and in native SOL terms, with nearly 70M SOL locked right now, the highest level ever.

Infrastructure maturation is central to this outcome. Firedancer launched on mainnet, materially improving resilience, throughput, and validator diversity, addressing long-standing institutional concerns. Crucially, Solana translated its progress into relevance. CME-listed Solana futures launched, followed by U.S.-domiciled Solana ETFs, firmly establishing SOL within traditional markets.

Rather than replacing Ethereum, Solana carved out a durable role as a high-performance alternative.

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6. User-friendly Layer 1s will drive the growth of the next generation of smart-contract platforms

Verdict: ❌Wrong

Sub-predictions

• Alternative L1s surpass Ethereum in new user adoption → ✅Right
• Sui grows via Web2 gaming partnerships → ❌Wrong
• TON successfully leverages Telegram’s user base → ❌Wrong
• TON stablecoin supply surpasses $3B → ❌Wrong

While user experience remained a key narrative in 2025, most Layer-1 blockchains failed to convert it into sustained growth. New user adoption did occur outside Ethereum, but this did not translate into durable economic activity.

Sui launched new hardware and developer tooling, yet failed to catalyze the anticipated Web2 gaming partnerships, and user growth remained relatively flat through the year. TON struggled to capitalize on Telegram’s massive distribution, with monthly active users declining sharply from 2024 levels and stablecoin supply peaking well below expectations.

The broader takeaway was that UX alone is insufficient. Distribution without compelling applications and recurring use cases prove fragile. Notably, the year’s standout success did not come from general-purpose L1s, but from application-specific execution, particularly in DeFi, where Hyperliquid emerged as the clear winner. 

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7. Revenue-sharing will completely change the investment case for DeFi

Verdict: ✅Right

Sub-predictions

• Revenue-linked token economics gain traction → ✅Right
• Regulatory easing enables protocol monetization → ✅Right
• DeFi enters a post-2021 renaissance → ✅Right

2025 marked a decisive shift in how DeFi protocols are valued. Tokens with clear, enforceable links to protocol revenues consistently outperformed, validating the thesis that revenue-sharing would reshape the investment case for DeFi. DeFi fees exceeded $20B YTD, while leading protocols materially increased distributions through buybacks, burns, and fee-sharing mechanisms.

Hyperliquid emerged as the clearest proof point, generating over $1B in annualized revenue and linking protocol success directly to token value through aggressive buyback mechanics. This model gained rapid mindshare across DeFi. Uniswap and Aave followed with expanded fee capture, while new entrants design token economics around sustainable cash flows from day one.

Regulatory pressure also eased meaningfully. Several high-profile SEC cases were dropped, and policy initiatives such as the GENIUS Act reduced legal uncertainty. Together, these dynamics triggered a genuine DeFi renaissance, one driven by fundamentals.

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8. Stablecoins to deepen integration across traditional sectors

Verdict: ✅Right

Sub-predictions

• MiCA boosts euro stablecoins, accelerated by USDT delistings → ✅Right
• Growing adoption by TradFi marks mainstream acceptance → ✅Right

Stablecoins emerged as one of the clearest structural winners of 2025. Total supply exceeded $300B, driven by regulatory clarity and accelerating adoption across traditional sectors. In Europe, MiCA proved decisive. Euro-denominated stablecoin supply more than doubled, supported by new issuance from banking consortia led by ING and UniCredit, and further aided by the partial delisting of non-compliant USDT products.

Globally, adoption broadened well beyond crypto-native use cases. In Brazil, over 90% of crypto inflows were stablecoin-based, primarily for remittances and payroll. Japan integrated its first regulated stablecoin, JPYC, into corporate payment rails. Meanwhile, major payment networks moved decisively: Visa expanded USDC settlement, Mastercard piloted stablecoin payments, Stripe reintroduced USDC payouts, and Western Union prepared on-chain remittance products.

By year-end, stablecoins have clearly evolved into core financial infrastructure, the connective tissue between TradFi and DeFi.

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9. Tokenization to advance in private credit

Verdict: ✅Right

Sub-predictions

• Focus meaningfully shifts toward private credit → ❌Wrong
• Integration of rating agencies like Moody’s → ✅Right
• Private credit becomes the fastest-growing tokenization subsector → 🟡So-so

Tokenized private credit made tangible progress in 2025, but the shift was more incremental than decisive. In raw terms, private credit expanded to roughly $18B in on-chain assets, representing the largest absolute growth (~$8B) among real-world asset categories. However, the broader tokenization narrative was dominated by treasury products, which grew faster in percentage terms and captured greater investor attention.

Capital generally flowed across RWAs broadly rather than concentrating in private credit alone. That said, infrastructure improved materially. Moody’s launched on-chain credit rating pilots, embedding machine-readable ratings into tokenized instruments and addressing a key barrier to institutional participation.Private credit firmly established itself as a core pillar of tokenized finance, but 2025 fell short of being a full inflection point. 

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10. Many jurisdictions to reconsider retail crypto ban, as more investor protection comes into effect

Verdict: ✅Right

Sub-predictions

• Retail access expands in major jurisdictions → ✅Right
• Crypto ETPs become the preferred regulated access point → ✅Right
• Regulatory clarity accelerates global participation → ✅Right

2025 marked a clear turning point for global retail crypto access. Across major markets, regulators moved away from outright bans toward regulated participation, driven by improved investor protections and the growing dominance of ETPs.

In the UK, regulators prepared to lift the retail ban on crypto-linked derivatives and ETNs. Japan proposed legalizing Bitcoin ETFs, cutting crypto taxes from 55% to 20%, and strengthening custody rules. South Korea lifted its corporate trading ban and began laying the groundwork for crypto ETFs amid surging volumes. In the U.S. streamlined ETF listing standards removed key structural barriers.

Security events, such as the Bybit hack, further reinforced the case for regulated exposure. As a result, crypto ETPs emerged as the default gateway for both retail and institutional investors, offering transparent holdings, institutional-grade custody, and access through familiar brokerage channels.

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11. Decentralized broadband solutions to maintain their momentum

Verdict: ✅Right

Sub-predictions

• Helium continues scaling through carrier partnerships → ✅Right
• DePIN adoption expands beyond crypto-native users → 🟡So-so

Decentralized broadband reached a meaningful inflection point in 2025, led by Helium’s transition from experimentation to commercial-scale deployment. Helium secured major carrier partnerships, including seamless Wi-Fi integration with AT&T across tens of thousands of U.S. hotspots and full commercial rollout with Movistar Mexico, now serving millions of subscribers and offloading significant daily data usage.

Adoption accelerated further through enterprise integrations. Helium’s partnership with Akenza simplified global IoT deployments, while Helium Mobile subscribers grew significantly year-on-year. Regulatory clarity also improved after the SEC settled its case against Nova Labs without classifying Helium’s network as a securities violation, a landmark outcome for the sector.Beyond Helium, networks like XNET and WiFi Dabba expanded coverage in underserved regions. While DePIN wasn’t one of the dominant narratives of the year, momentum clearly persisted.

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12. Blockchain to emerge as AI’s watchdog, safeguarding digital truth

Verdict: ❌ Wrong

Sub-predictions

• Blockchain becomes a primary layer for AI accountability → ❌Wrong
• AI–crypto convergence materializes elsewhere → ✅Right

Blockchain did not emerge as AI’s watchdog in 2025 in the way we originally envisioned. While early pilots explored content provenance, deepfake detection, and audit trails, these efforts remained fragmented and niche, failing to scale into a dominant accountability layer for AI systems.

Instead, the AI–crypto convergence took a different path. The year’s most meaningful progress occurred around the agentic economy — where AI agents interact directly with blockchains to automate payments, trading, liquidity management, and yield strategies. Platforms such as INFINIT, Giza, and Almanak demonstrated how AI could dramatically simplify on-chain interactions.

Infrastructure evolved accordingly, with new standards for agent identity, coordination, and machine-to-machine payments. While provenance-focused use cases may still emerge over time, 2025 made it clear that blockchain’s immediate role in AI lies in automation and usability, not yet truth arbitration.

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Conclusion: What 2025 told us about crypto

Taken individually, these twelve predictions produced a mixed scorecard. Taken together, they tell a far more important story. Crypto’s defining feature in 2025 was not price, hype, or one single breakthrough. It was institutionalization. 

Bitcoin moved from a theoretical hedge to a strategic reserve asset. ETPs became the dominant access point for both institutions and retail. Stablecoins crossed the chasm from crypto-native tools to core financial infrastructure. DeFi rediscovered fundamentals, tying token value to real cash flows. Even where predictions fell short, Ethereum’s revenue renaissance or blockchain as AI’s watchdog, the technology continued to mature, scale, and attract serious builders.

At the same time, 2025 exposed clear fault lines. Not all narratives translated into economics. UX alone did not guarantee adoption. Scaling without monetization proved unsustainable. And some of crypto’s most ambitious use cases remain earlier than expected.

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The overarching lesson is not that crypto is finished — but that it is growing up.