DWF Ventures predicts four major trends for 2025: DeFi, AI, Stablecoins, and Consumer Apps
Original Article Title: DWF Ventures' Selection of 2025 Narratives
Original Article Source: DWF Ventures
Original Article Compilation: How, Odaily Planet Daily
In 2024, the crypto industry saw increased attention from institutional investors, and ETFs and stablecoins also experienced steady growth. Therefore, DWF Ventures is optimistic about the overall crypto industry in 2025 and predicts that investment inflows will shift towards on-chain. DWF Ventures' focus on 2025 trends:
· Stablecoins
· DeFi
· Consumer-Facing Applications
· AI
Stablecoins
Tether and Circle have long dominated the growth of stablecoins. While stablecoins are primarily used as a medium of exchange and payment, we believe their role as assets is gradually strengthening. The profitability of Tether and Circle has attracted more traditional fintech companies to enter the stablecoin space.
· Stripe's acquisition of Stablecoin further demonstrates traditional fintech companies' strong interest in this market.
· PayPal is focusing on PYUSD and is driving its application on Solana by offering yields of up to 20%.
· The collaboration with BlackRock to launch USDtb has provided exposure for RWA yields through the Usual platform, while the launch of iUSDe marks a further integration—bringing regulated high DeFi yields into traditional finance for the first time.
In addition, DWF Labs is also incubating a high-yield stablecoin project called Falcoin Stable, scheduled to launch this year.
Therefore, we believe that with the accelerated entry of institutions, the application of stablecoins will experience explosive growth in 2025, and yield growth will benefit all users.
DeFi
With the growth of stablecoins, DeFi has also seen significant progress. The usage of many DeFi protocols has rapidly increased, and the protocol revenue of Aave and Pendle has reached new highs.
The trading volume of DEX/CEX spot and perpetual contracts has also doubled since the beginning of the year, mainly driven by platforms such as Uniswap, Raydium Protocol, and Hyperliquid.
With more liquidity flowing into the ecosystem, we will see more innovation, especially in the yield layer and lending mechanisms.
With technological advancements in throughput, latency, and execution, as well as upcoming projects like Monad, MegaETH, and Hyperliquid's HyperEVM, the momentum of DeFi innovation will be further enhanced.
Consumer-Facing Applications
Consumer-facing applications aim to reduce the entry barriers for non-crypto-native users.
The TON mini-app is an example where users can quickly onboard using the Telegram platform without creating a wallet or backing up a seed phrase, ultimately guiding users into the on-chain world.
A mobile-centric experience is on the rise, with prominent protocols like Jupiter and trading tools like Moonshot, Photon, BONKbot, ApePro gaining popularity. Therefore, this will be a trend in 2025, where protocols that can enhance user experience and introduce more retention mechanisms will gain a larger market share.
Artificial Intelligence
Over the past few months, AI Agents have surged within the crypto community, with aixbt consistently topping the charts. These bots process information and generate content at an astonishing speed, operating around the clock without the need for rest, far exceeding human capabilities.
Currently, AI Agents are involved in multiple areas, including discovering security vulnerabilities, code assessment, no-code frameworks, data analysis, fund investments, etc. We believe that with the more human-like behavior implemented by OpenAI's o1, the next wave of innovation will bring more interesting applications, especially in commercialization.
The number of AI Agents will continue to grow, and the competition will intensify. Finding the right Product-Market Fit (PMF) will be a key differentiator. With the widespread adoption of AI Agents, decentralized AI infrastructure will rapidly develop in various aspects of the crypto space.
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