ARK '2025 Vision': Governments have already started exploring cryptocurrency, and by 2030, BTC will have reached at least $300,000

By: blockbeats|2025/02/07 06:30:03
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Original Title: BIG IDEAS 2025
Original Source: ARK Invest
Original Translation: Nicky, Foresight News

1. Bitcoin: Maturation of the Global Monetary System and Institutionalization Process

Bitcoin reached a milestone development in 2024, with its network fundamentals and institutional adoption both significantly improved, demonstrating its long-term value as "digital gold."

1. Market Performance and Accelerated Institutionalization

· Price Performance and ETF Breakthrough: In 2024, Bitcoin price hit a historic high, surpassing $100,000, and its market dominance (percentage of total cryptocurrency market cap) exceeded 65% for the first time. Behind this growth, the launch of physically-backed Bitcoin ETFs became a key catalyst. The first U.S. physically-backed Bitcoin ETF attracted over $4 billion in inflows on its debut trading day, far surpassing the historical record of gold ETFs in September 2004. By the end of 2024, the total assets under management (AUM) of Bitcoin ETFs had surpassed $100 billion, with a significant increase in institutional investor participation. Meanwhile, Bitcoin's annual volatility dropped to historic lows, and its risk-adjusted returns continued to outperform most major asset classes.

· Halving and Scarcity: Bitcoin completed its fourth halving, bringing the annual inflation rate down to 0.9%, the first time below gold's long-term supply growth rate (approximately 1.7%), once again highlighting its deflationary nature. Its coded total supply cap of 21 million coins and mathematically enforced monetary policy further strengthened the narrative of "digital gold." On-chain data showed that long-term holders (holding for over 3 years) accounted for 45%, reaching a historical high, indicating the continued recognition of Bitcoin as a store of value.

· Corporate Holdings and Strategic Reserves: 74 publicly traded companies globally have included Bitcoin on their balance sheets, with a total holding of over 550,000 coins, valued at approximately $55 billion. MicroStrategy, as the largest holder, held 446,000 coins (2.1% of Bitcoin's circulating supply). Additionally, Pennsylvania became the first U.S. state to propose establishing a strategic Bitcoin reserve, signaling governmental exploration of cryptocurrency.

2. Technological Advancement and Network Health

· Hash Rate Hits All-Time High: Despite a halving that halved miner revenue, the network's hash rate has still hit a historical record, indicating miners' long-term confidence.

· Runes Protocol Activation: The Bitcoin-based Fungible Token protocol has driven on-chain transaction volume to surge, with daily transactions surpassing 800,000, and the ecosystem's application scenarios continue to expand.

· Holding Behavior Longevity: Over 45% of the Bitcoin supply has not moved for over 3 years, on-chain liquidity has dropped to a 14-year low, reflecting its positioning as a store of value tool.

3. 2030 Price Prediction

ARK predicts Bitcoin's price outlook in 2030 to be:

· Bear Market Price: $300,000

· Neutral Price: $710,000

· Bull Market Price: $1.5 million

ARK '2025 Vision': Governments have already started exploring cryptocurrency, and by 2030, BTC will have reached at least 00,000

II. AI Agents: Rethinking Human-Machine Interaction and Business Efficiency

AI Agents are evolving from single-task tools to general intelligence platforms. Their core capabilities include natural language understanding, contextual reasoning, tool invocation, and continuous learning.

1. Consumer-End Transformation

· Search and Advertising Restructuring: AI-driven personalized agents will replace traditional search engines, with AI ad revenue expected to account for 54% of the digital advertising market in 2030, reaching $600 billion in size.

· E-commerce Revolution: AI agents deeply integrated into operating systems allow users to complete the entire process of product search, price comparison, and payment through voice or text commands. For example, a shopping agent embedded in a digital wallet can automatically select the best products and complete the checkout, driving digital wallet's share of global e-commerce transactions to 72% and creating an additional $200 billion in annual enterprise value. It is estimated that by 2030, such agents will drive $9 trillion in online consumption, accounting for 25% of global e-commerce total.

· Hardware Proliferation: After 2025, the majority of consumer electronics devices will have built-in AI agent functionality, with penetration curves surpassing or matching that of smartphones.

2. Leap in Enterprise Efficiency

· Customer Service Cost Optimization: AI customer service can reduce the cost per interaction from $1 to $0.125, handle 70% of inquiries, saving global enterprises over $500 billion in labor costs.

· Software Development Revolution: AI coding tools (such as GPT-4, Claude 3.5) can now address 70% of real tasks, reducing the software development lifecycle by 40% and driving enterprises from buying software to custom development. If AI agents automate 81% of knowledge work time, they will unlock a $117 trillion productivity dividend by 2030. The software market size may surge from the current $1.5 trillion to $13 trillion (CAGR 48%), with underlying cloud infrastructure and AI chip demand exploding simultaneously.

III. Stablecoins: Reshaping the Digital Asset Landscape

By 2024, stablecoin annualized transaction volume will reach $15.6 trillion, surpassing Visa ($13.1 trillion) and Mastercard ($7.8 trillion), becoming the fastest-growing global payment network.

1. Market Surge and Innovation

· Scale and Efficiency: Stablecoin annual settlement volume reaches $15.6 trillion, with single transaction values far exceeding credit cards, and on-chain settlements on platforms like Solana and Tron account for over 60%. In December, monthly on-chain stablecoin trading volume reached $2.7 trillion, with small-value transactions (<$100) representing over 85% on Layer 2. Users in emerging markets (Brazil, Nigeria, etc.) are using stablecoins for cross-border remittances and inflation-resistant savings, driving active address count past 23 million. Concurrently, stablecoin adoption on Layer 2 (Base, Arbitrum) and emerging public chains (TON, Celo) is surging, driving cross-chain interoperability needs.

· Rise of Yield-Generating Stablecoins: Ethena Labs' USDe provides 20%-30% yield through a Delta-neutral strategy, with $6 billion in assets locked in 12 months, elevating the share of algorithmic stablecoins with non-native collateral to 10%.

· Dollarization Trend: Despite many countries promoting de-dollarization, the share of USD stablecoins still exceeds 98%, with Tether and Circle holding U.S. debt at a scale ranking them among the top 20 global holders. Stablecoins have become a key tool for USD "digital export," especially amid the de-dollarization trend, where the demand for USD stablecoins in emerging markets has offset some countries' reduction in U.S. debt holdings. ARK predicts that by 2030, stablecoin volume will reach $14 trillion, accounting for 0.9% of global M2 money supply, becoming the 13th largest circulating currency.

2. Regulation and Challenges

· Acceleration of Compliance: The U.S. "Stablecoin Governance Act" framework has emerged, requiring a 100% reserve and audit transparency, further consolidating market share among leading issuers.  

IV. Blockchain Scalability: Competition Between Layer 2 and High-Performance Public Chains

Ethereum Layer 2 and Solana lead the scalability trend, driving the smart contract ecosystem towards high throughput and low-cost evolution.

1. Ethereum Ecosystem Upgrade

· EIP-4844 Effect: The EIP-4844 upgrade has reduced Layer 2 transaction costs from $0.5 to $0.05, with daily transaction volume surging from 3 million to 15 million.

· Rapid Growth of Base: Base Chain's DAU share reached 46%, TVL exceeded $15 billion, Coinbase's ecosystem synergy is evident, and it has driven Ethereum's shift from the settlement layer to the application layer.

2. Solana's Retail Breakthrough

· Performance Advantage: With an average of 800 TPS far exceeding the Ethereum ecosystem (200 TPS), daily active addresses surpassing 1.2 million, and on-chain fee income accounting for 22% of the cryptocurrency market. Its low fees ( $0.001 per transaction) attract a large number of retail users, with the prediction market platform Polymarket and DEX Raydium becoming benchmarks in the ecosystem. The Firedancer client is expected to increase throughput to the hundreds of thousands.

· Developer Migration: In 2024, Solana's addition of developers surpassed the Ethereum mainnet, with Memecoin and DePIN (Decentralized Physical Internet Network) becoming dual engines of ecosystem growth.

3. Application Layer Breakout

· DeFi Challenging CEX: DEX trading volume share increased from 8% to 14%, and the derivatives market grew to 8%. The efficiency of a single Uniswap employee is 200 times that of Binance.

· Rise of Prediction Markets: Polymarket, with events like the U.S. election and sports betting, surpassed $1.2 billion in monthly trading volume with over 3 million users.

Further Maturation of Staking Economy: Liquidity staking protocols (such as Lido, EigenLayer) collectively manage over 5.5 million ETH (17% of the total staked ETH), driving the maturation of the staking economy.

Conclusion: The Integration and Breakthrough of Web3

By 2025, the monetary properties of Bitcoin, the productivity unleashed by AI Agents, the expansion of stablecoin payment networks, and the technological breakthroughs in blockchain scalability will collectively shape the core of ARK's "2025 Big Ideas." The convergence of these technologies will reshape the global economy: AI-driven computing demand will drive an energy revolution, stablecoins will bolster the dominance of the US dollar, and blockchain scalability will unlock the potential of decentralized applications. Web3 practitioners need to focus on the evolution of foundational protocols, grasp key tracks such as cross-chain interoperability, AI-native DApps, and compliant stablecoins in the fusion of technologies to capture value.

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$COIN Joins S&P 500, but Coinbase Isn't Celebrating

On May 13, S&P Dow Jones Indices announced that Coinbase would officially replace Discover Financial Services in the S&P 500 on May 19. While other companies like Block and MicroStrategy, closely tied to Bitcoin, were already part of the S&P 500, Coinbase became the first cryptocurrency exchange whose primary business is in the index. This also signifies that cryptocurrency is gradually moving from the fringes to the mainstream in the U.S.



On the day of the announcement, Coinbase's stock price surged by 23%, surpassing the $250 mark. However, just 3 days later, Coinbase was hit by two consecutive events: a hack where employees were bribed to steal customer data and a demand for a $20 million ransom, and an investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) into the authenticity of its claim of having over 100 million "verified users" in its securities filings and marketing materials. These two events acted as mini-bombs, and at the time of writing, Coinbase's stock had already dropped by over 7.3%.


Coincidentally, Discover Financial Services, being replaced by Coinbase, can also be considered the "Coinbase" of the previous payment era. Discover is a U.S.-based digital banking and payment services company headquartered in Illinois, founded in 1960. Its payment network, Discover Network, is the fourth largest payment network apart from Visa, Mastercard, and American Express.


In April, after the approval of the acquisition of Discover by the sixth-largest U.S. bank, Capital One, this well-established digital banking company of over 60 years smoothly handed over its S&P 500 "seat" to this emerging cryptocurrency "bank." This unexpected coincidence also portrayed the handover between the new and old eras in Coinbase's entry into the S&P 500, resembling a relay race scene. However, this relay baton also brought Coinbase's accumulated "external troubles and internal strife" to a tipping point.


Side Effects of ETFs


Over the past decade, cryptocurrency exchanges have been the most stable "profit machines." They play a role in providing liquidity to the entire industry and rely on trading fees to sustain their operations. However, with the comprehensive rollout of ETF products in the U.S. market, this profit model is facing unprecedented challenges. As the leader in the "American stack," with over 80% of its business coming from the U.S., Coinbase is most affected by this.



Starting from the approval of Bitcoin and Ethereum spot ETFs, traditional financial capital has significantly onboarded users and funds that originally belonged to exchanges in a more cost-effective, compliant, and transparent manner. The transaction fee revenue of cryptocurrency exchanges has started to decline, and this trend may further intensify in the coming months.


According to Coinbase's 2024 Q4 financial report, the platform's total trading revenue was $417 million, a 45% year-on-year decrease. The contribution of BTC and ETH's trading revenue dropped from 65% in the same period last year to less than 50%.


This decline is not a result of a decrease in market enthusiasm. In fact, since the approval of the Bitcoin ETF in January 2024, the inflow of BTC into the U.S. market has continued to reach new highs, with asset management giants like BlackRock and Fidelity rapidly expanding their management scale. Data shows that BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin ETF (IBIT) alone has surpassed $17 billion in assets under management. As of mid-May 2025, the cumulative net inflow of 11 major institutional Bitcoin spot ETFs on the market has exceeded $41.5 billion, with a total net asset value of $1214.69 billion, accounting for approximately 5.91% of the total Bitcoin market capitalization.


Chart showing the trend of net outflows for Grayscale among the 11 institutions


Institutional investors and some retail investors are shifting towards ETF products, partly due to compliance and tax considerations. On one hand, ETFs have much lower trading costs compared to cryptocurrency exchanges. While Coinbase's spot trading fee rate varies annually in a tiered manner but averages around 1.49%, for example, the management fee for IBIT ETF is only 0.25%, and the majority of ETF institution fees fluctuate around 0.15% to 0.25%.



In other words, the more rational users are, the more likely they are to move from exchanges to ETF products, especially for investors aiming for long-term holdings.


According to multiple sources, several institutions, including VanEck and Grayscale, have submitted applications to the SEC for a Solana (SOL) ETF, with some institutions also planning to submit an XRP ETF proposal. Once approved, this may trigger a new round of fund migration. According to a report submitted by Coinbase to the SEC, as of April, the platform's trading revenue from XRP and Solana accounted for 18% and 10%, nearly one-third of the platform's fee revenue.



However, the Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs passed in 2024 also reduced the fees for these two tokens on Coinbase from 30% and 15% to 26% and 10%, respectively. If the SOL and XRP ETFs are approved, it will further undermine the core fee revenue of exchanges like Coinbase.


The expansion of ETF products is gradually weakening the financial intermediary status of cryptocurrency exchanges. From their original roles as matchmakers and clearers to now gradually becoming mere "on-ramps and off-ramps" for funds, exchanges are seeing their marginal value squeezed by ETFs.


Robinhood Takes a Stand, Traditional Brokerages Join the Fray


On May 12, 2025, SEC Chairman Paul S. Atkins gave a keynote speech at the Tokenization and Cryptocurrency Working Group roundtable. The theme of his speech revolved around "It is a new day at the SEC," where he indicated that the SEC would not approach enforcement and regulation the same way as before but would instead pave the way for cryptocurrency assets in the U.S. market.



With signs of cryptocurrency compliance such as the SEC's "NEW DAY" declaration, an increasing number of traditional brokerages are attempting to enter the cryptocurrency industry. One of the most representative cases is the well-known U.S. brokerage Robinhood, which began expanding its crypto business in 2018. By the time of its IPO in 2021, Robinhood's crypto business revenue accounted for over 50% of the company, with a significant boost from the Dogecoin "moonshot" promoted by Musk.


In Q1 2025 earnings report, Robinhood showcased strong growth, especially in revenue from cryptocurrency and options trading. Fueled by Trump's Memecoin, cryptocurrency-related revenue reached $250 million, nearly doubling year-over-year. Consequently, Robinhood Gold subscription users reached 3.5 million, a 90% increase from the previous year, with the rapid growth of Robinhood Gold providing the company with a stable source of income.



Meanwhile, RobinHood is actively pursuing acquisitions in the cryptocurrency space. In 2024, it announced a $2 billion acquisition of the long-standing European cryptocurrency exchange Bitstamp. Additionally, Canada's largest cryptocurrency CEX, WonderFi, which recently went public on the Toronto Stock Exchange, also announced its integration with RobinHood Crypto. After obtaining virtual asset licenses in the UK, Canada, Singapore, and other markets, RobinHood has taken a proactive approach in the compliant cryptocurrency trading market.



Furthermore, an increasing number of brokerage firms are exploring the same path. Futu Securities, Tiger Brokers, and others are also dipping their toes into cryptocurrency trading, with some having applied for or obtained the VA license from the Hong Kong SFC. Although their user bases are currently small, traditional brokerages have a natural advantage in user trust, regulatory licenses, and low fee structures. This could pose a threat to native cryptocurrency platforms in the future.



User Data Breach: Is Coinbase Still Secure?


In April 2025, security researchers discovered that some Coinbase user data was leaked on the dark web. While the platform initially responded by attributing it to a "technical misinformation," it still raised concerns among users regarding its security and privacy protection. Just two days before Dow Jones Indexes announced Coinbase's addition to the S&P 500 Index, on May 11, 2025, Coinbase received an email from an unknown threat actor claiming to have obtained customer account information and internal documents, demanding a $20 million ransom to keep the data private. Subsequent investigations confirmed the data breach.


Cybercriminals obtained the data by bribing overseas customer service agents and support staff, mainly in "non-U.S. regions such as India." These agents abused their access to Coinbase's internal customer support system and stole customer data. As early as February this year, blockchain detective ZachXBT revealed on X platform that between December 2024 and January 2025, Coinbase users lost over $65 million to social engineering scams, with the actual amount potentially higher.


Among the victims was a well-known figure, 67-year-old Ed Suman, an established artist in the art world for nearly two decades, having been involved in the creation of artworks such as Jeff Koons' "Balloon Dog" sculpture. Earlier this year, he fell victim to an impersonation scam involving fake Coinbase customer support, resulting in a loss of over $2 million in cryptocurrency. ZachXBT critiqued Coinbase for its inadequate handling of such scams, noting that other major exchanges have not faced similar issues and recommending Coinbase to enhance its security measures.


Amidst a series of ongoing social engineering incidents, although there has not been any impact on user assets at the technical level so far, it has raised concerns among many retail and institutional investors. Especially institutions holding massive assets on Coinbase. Just considering the U.S. BTC ETF institutions, as of mid-May 2025, they collectively hold nearly 840,000 BTC, and 75% of these are custodied by Coinbase. If we price BTC at $100,000, this amount reaches a staggering $63 billion, which is equivalent to the nominal GDP of two Iceland in the year 2024.


Visualization: ChatGPT, Source: Farside


In addition, Coinbase Custody also serves over 300 institutional clients, including hedge funds, family offices, pension funds, and endowments. As of the Q1 2025 financial report, Coinbase's total assets under management (including institutional and retail clients) reached $404 billion. The specific amount of institutional custodied assets was not explicitly disclosed in the latest report, but it should still be over 50% based on the Q4 2024 report.


Visualization: ChatGPT


Once this security barrier is breached, not only could the rate of user attrition far exceed expectations, but more importantly, institutional trust in it would undermine the foundation of its business. Therefore, after a hacking event, Coinbase's stock price plummeted significantly.


CEXs are All in Self-Rescue Mode


Facing a decline in spot trading fee revenue, Coinbase is also accelerating its transformation, attempting to find growth opportunities in derivatives and emerging assets. Coinbase acquired a stake in the options platform Deribit at the end of 2024 and announced the official launch of perpetual contract products in 2025. This acquisition fills in Coinbase's gap in options trading and its relatively small global market share.



Deribit has a strong presence in non-U.S. markets, especially in Asia and Europe. The acquisition has enabled Coinbase to gain a dominant position in bitcoin and ethereum options trading on Deribit, accounting for approximately 80% of the global options trading volume, with daily trading volume remaining above $2 billion.


Meanwhile, 80-90% of Deribit's customer base consists of institutional investors, with their professionalism and liquidity in the Bitcoin and Ethereum options market highly favored by institutions. Coinbase's compliance advantage, coupled with its already robust institutional ecosystem, makes it even more suitable. By using institutions as an entry point, it can face the squeeze from giants like Binance and OKX in the derivatives market.



Facing a similar dilemma is Kraken, which is attempting to replicate Binance Futures' model in non-U.S. markets. Since the derivatives market relies more on professional users, fee rates are relatively higher and stickiness is stronger, making it a significant source of revenue for exchanges. In the first half of 2025, Kraken completed the acquisition of TradeStation Crypto and a futures exchange, aiming to build a complete derivatives trading ecosystem to hedge the risk of declining spot transaction fee income.


With the surge of Memecoin in 2024, Binance, OKX, and various CEX platforms began massively listing small-market-cap, highly volatile tokens to activate active trading users. Due to the wealth effect and trading activity of Memecoins, Coinbase was also forced to join the battle, successively listing popular tokens from the Solana ecosystem such as BOOK OF MEME and Dogwifhat. Although these coins are controversial, they are frequently traded, with fee rates several times higher than mainstream coins, serving as a "blood-boosting" method for spot trading.


However, due to its status as a publicly traded company, this practice is a riskier endeavor for Coinbase. Even in the current crypto-friendly environment, the SEC is still investigating whether tokens like SOL, ADA, and SAND constitute securities.


In addition to the forced transformation strategies carried out by the aforementioned CEXs, they are also starting to lay out RWAs and the most talked-about stablecoin payment fields, such as the PYUSD launched through a collaboration between Coinbase and Paypal, Coinbase's support for the Euro stablecoin EURC by Circle that complies with EU MiCA regulatory requirements, or the USD1 launched through a collaboration between Binance and WIFL. In the increasingly crowded trading field, many CEXs have shifted their focus from just the trading market to the application field.


The golden age of transaction fees has quietly ended, and the second half of the crypto exchange platform game has silently begun.


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