X Space Review | Discussing Key Trends and Opportunities to Watch in 2025

Major institutions predict that BTC will break its previous high this year, and AI Agent, DeSci, RWA, DePin, and others are seen as key tracks to watch in 2025. The year 2025 holds much promise! At the beginning of the new year, BlockBeats invited crypto KOLs to discuss the trends and opportunities worth paying attention to in 2025.

BlockBeats: Let's start with some introductions.

Anthony Z: Hello everyone, I'm Anthony, the head of the Asia-Pacific region at The Graph Foundation. I've been working at The Graph for about 5 years, entering the industry in 2018, with around 7 years of overall experience, making me a "veteran" in the field. I mainly work on non-technical aspects of Web3 data infrastructure and also engage with the technical community. In the past, we rarely discussed the market with friends in the industry, but this year, I'd like to give it a try. I also have some AI-related content I'd like to share with everyone.

Sanzhi: I'm Sanzhi from AmberAC, which is the accelerator arm of Amber Group. We mainly focus on projects in the AI and Crypto tracks. If Anthony calls himself a "veteran," then I'm a "newbie." Previously, I focused on the developer community and was closer to developers. I started engaging in market trading in March this year and have been researching AI Agent and meme coins recently.

CM: I'm Chen Mo, mainly involved in DeFi-related research and project investments. Lately, I've been following the AI agent space and I'm currently in the learning phase. I'm glad to accept the invitation to exchange ideas with everyone.

EO: Hello everyone, I'm an investment manager at Future Money Group. We mainly invest in the DeFi and AI tracks. We started investing in DeFi in 2020, and this year, we have invested in several AI projects. We are currently bullish on the AI agent track. However, due to AI computational power and energy issues, the infrastructure is not yet mature, resulting in slow development of AI agents. Nonetheless, we are optimistic about this track and believe that many excellent projects will emerge in the future.

BlockBeats: Could each of you share your best trade or most profound lesson learned from 2024?

Anthony Z: I trade infrequently. When the price of Bitcoin rose to over $60,000 this year, I increased my position, and when the price of Ethereum was below $3,000, I also bought some. I mainly focus on holding. Originally, some of my friends were quite resistant to cryptocurrency, not very interested, mainly trading in US stocks and the like. But this year, some new friends who joined the circle said they started trading ADA. I had always been hesitant to touch ADA, but seeing it indeed rising, I think this might be because these new entrants have become the new price setters. Our old-timer perceptions may no longer apply, as we are somewhat outdated.

Sanzhi: I remember in January or February, I didn't know much about tokens. At the time, I heard that Pepe was good, and a friend of mine also said Pepe was good. Although I didn't quite understand it, because both recommended it, I bought some Pepe. I didn't buy much, probably a few hundred U, but later the profit tripled. At that time, I only dared to buy 100U of any token.

Lately, because I needed to research market trends and hotspots, I started trading on my own. I previously bought SOLANA. After buying it, I directly placed an order for a meme coin on Pump.fun. Although I am not familiar with these quick in-and-out operations, if I believe in a project, I will do some research. The meme coin I bought has also roughly doubled or tripled. At its lowest point, it was only about $0.018 a few days ago, and now it's about $0.1, almost a 10x return. When it was at $0.02, I crazily recommended it to my friends, saying I got in at $0.05, but later I got stuck. I find it quite amusing.

Throughout the trading process, I didn't do very well. I tend to lean towards long-term holding of tokens because I don't have time to watch the candlesticks constantly. After buying, if the token drops, I'll add to my position; if it rises, I'll hold. But I have a mental expectation, for example, if I think it will rise 10x, and if the token doesn't meet my expectations, I won't sell. If it goes to zero, I'm okay with it. I got in at $0.05, but when it dropped to $0.02, I only added 20U, which didn't fully follow my strategy. However, despite the continuous price drop, I didn't sell. Now that it has rebounded, exceeding the previous high by one or two times, I still haven't sold and continue to hold long-term. I lean towards conservatism, needing to validate that my strategy is correct. After doing a lot of research, I will buy, develop a trading strategy, execute it, and maintain a mindset where going to zero is also okay.

CM: Recently, I have been paying more attention to the DeFi space, especially in the past few months of 2024. DeFi has regained some market attention. Some leading assets, such as AAVE and LINK, have also performed well, which are assets I have held long term. In the mid to late stages of the bull market, they have shown good performance, partly influenced by some policy factors, such as Trump's team or projects indirectly holding some DeFi-related tokens.

I have done more research on the DeFi space and am not very good at other tracks. I have always believed that DeFi is one of the few tracks in the cryptocurrency community that can currently change the market structure. Before the emergence of DEXes or lending platforms, users did not have many choices and could only trade and borrow on centralized exchanges. Now, many excellent projects have appeared on-chain, providing more options. For example, the recently popular Hyperliquid has also received a lot of attention in the derivatives space, which is still a trend, so I will continue to focus on this track for the long term. Correspondingly, I have not seized many opportunities in hot tracks like Meme. Part of the reason is path dependence, and my focus is also limited. For the AI track, I have bought some leading assets, and I have not caught onto other small projects. I hold some leading tokens like AI16Z, VIRTUAL, and AIXBT. I still mainly rely on some previous experience.

EO: After experiencing two market fluctuations in 2024, I have some painful experiences to share with everyone. In these two fluctuations in April and December, one important lesson I learned was to always choose strong coins for investment. Although weak coins may be cheap, they are actually not suitable for positioning. These coins may be strong for a day or two, but they will quickly weaken again, overall performance will not be good, and the candlestick chart shows significant volatility. Especially when the market is bad, these coins experience even larger drops. In the market fluctuation in November, I opened two positions for AAVE and DYDX. I could clearly feel that AAVE had a very strong bottom during that time, never turning back with each rise, while DYDX was relatively weak. Although I had a bias towards DYDX, looking at the cycle, weak coins indeed did not perform well.

Furthermore, some coins that were once strong also need attention, such as PNUTS. I missed the opportunity when it was rising, and when it dropped to around $1.2, I tried to catch the falling knife twice, only to be disappointed both times, eventually giving up on the coin. Recently, the PNUTS coin price has rebounded to $0.6. It is essential to be cautious of weak coins in the near term. Based on my experience, if a coin attracts a lot of bottom buyers, the price will rise faster. Therefore, I still recommend buying strong coins in a bull market. If a coin is not strong even in a bull market, there is basically little hope.

Another experience is that the market usually gives us some buffer time during a downturn. For example, starting from the flash crash on December 9, the market's subsequent performance was not strong, and many coins did not perform particularly well. Many people have started to sell off their holdings, trying to exit the market, and large institutions or whales usually do not buy in large quantities at this point because it is not the stage of the main uptrend. During this stage, it is recommended that everyone must be vigilant about risks, set stop-losses, which can mitigate some risks, otherwise, it is difficult to stop losses in time during a crash.

Anthony Z: I would like to ask Teacher Chen Mo some questions. After the bull market returns, the DeFi track can be said to be the most mature. Hyperliquild is quite unique, gradually moving from behind the DEX to develop Layer1. What is your view on this project?

CM: My personal opinion is that Hyperliquild actually seized the opportunity where all conditions were favorable. Many people believe that it does not have much difference in project mechanics compared to DYDX. DYDX had good data during the early airdrop, but the ultimate effect was not good. The derivatives track has always been considered gradually debunked. Many people believe that those who trade futures on centralized exchanges will not move to the chain. First, there is a high learning cost on-chain; second, speculative futures traders and on-chain players are two completely different types of people. Similar to those who played NFTs in the previous cycle not knowing what a token is.

Right now, I also do not think that Hyperliquild can attract users away from centralized exchanges, but some users may come over. However, the main users are still those on-chain existing users who are already accustomed to on-chain interactions. Hyperliquild just provides them with a new venue.

Hyperliquild did indeed perform better in early-stage market operations and community building than many projects. Although there are FUD voices in the market, good products always face controversies. Currently, many people doubt whether Hyperliquild can sustain its development because the project's token has not been fully distributed, so many may trade based on token expectations. A clear indicator for the future of the derivatives track is if, once the token incentives are removed, the trading volume does not decrease, and the user count does not drop, then the project likely has a future.

DYDX's sustainability worsened afterward; once the token rewards decreased, users felt there was no profit, and its sustainability weakened. You can observe whether the project still has sustainability after the token's expected distribution ends with market development. If there is sustainability, some users will stay. Many people still prefer on-chain trading now, even though centralized exchanges have some mainstream assets, and gas fees are lower. Hyperliquild has potential, but it cannot be guaranteed to succeed. Once it does, it will be a phenomenal project. Many say that Hyperliquild is not decentralized enough, but decentralization is a gradual process, so this is not a significant issue. Overall, Hyperliquild is a project worth paying attention to, which has done well in seizing market opportunities and timing, but it is still too early to say it is the endgame.

BlockBeats: AI Agent is a direction that everyone has been focusing on. Could you please talk about how you view the current development of AI and the core focus in future development?

Anthony Z: I believe the earliest AI narrative can be traced back to OpenAI's release of ChatGPT. After that, many AI-related crypto projects began to emerge. At that time, those projects mainly discussed grand narratives, such as decentralized computing power and a computing power network, which were concepts somewhat distant from reality. Recently, due to the overall development of the AI industry, the integration of AI and Web3 is inevitable. Taking AIXBT as an example, it combines some macro-level trading ideas with data from CoinMarketCap and discussions on Twitter to formulate strategies. However, they have not yet integrated specific on-chain data and transaction information, hoping that this will be the next development direction. At The Graph, we mainly focus on infrastructure development in this area. Overall, most current AI projects are demonstrating practical use cases, and the next step should involve more detailed development.

EO: We actually value the AI track very much, and we hope that the future of AI + Crypto will move towards automation. However, at present, AI still needs a lot of time and financial support in terms of infrastructure. Infrastructure cannot be significantly improved in a short time. There are currently some AI agent projects that involve automation tasks like posting tweets, which fall far short of everyone's expectations for AI agents. These functions can also be achieved through scripts, which do not constitute AI agents in my opinion. I think it will be difficult to see truly advanced AI agents in the short term, and infrastructure cooperation is still needed.

Recently, there are two tracks that I am optimistic about. For example, the AI and DeSci tracks, which are usually financed through token issuance, and after the funds are raised, research and product iteration are carried out. These tracks may currently be in a bubble stage, where everyone is enjoying the dividends brought by new technology, but it is uncertain how long the bubble stage can last. In the future, I will pay more attention to the underlying technologies and infrastructure of DeFi, such as privacy technology. On the application layer side, we also need to see if the Web2 track can develop excellent AI agent projects.

Sanzhi: I just joined AmberAC, so I will share some insights from a different perspective. Earlier this year, I created an AI Crypto community. We divided the AI track into several levels: from bottom to top, including infrastructure, which encompasses computing power and inference training. Then comes data collection, including processing, labeling, cleaning, etc. Next is the model layer, and then the application layer. Currently, many AI agents actually belong to the application layer category. In the AI track, there are several projects worth noting, such as Bittensor, which has innovated in terms of mechanism and has a clever tokenomics design. Additionally, Sahara AI raised about $43 million in the first half of the year. MyShell AI belongs to the application layer, serving as an Agent marketplace platform. Vana is in the data layer, focusing on data privacy protection involving data and computation. In March-April of last year, AI made its way into the Crypto field. In March-April of this year, AI began to develop from various aspects such as data and applications. However, the standout moment should be the start of the AI Meme trend.

Whether it's infrastructure, models, or data, to attract a large number of users at once, AI is still constrained by technology. In that case, it's better to extract the tokenizable part directly. Therefore, the AI Agent quickly gained popularity through the use of Memes. I believe this is currently a very good direction. During a bull market, while the technological aspect is certainly important, what people are more focused on is marketing. People tend to experience FOMO, and at that time, it is difficult to deeply attract their attention with technical content. If clever marketing is done, such as using Memes to attract attention, focusing more on marketing during a bull market, and delving more into technology when the market is sluggish, it may be more effective. I speculate that the AI Agent will continue to gain popularity. Currently, it is still only at the textual stage, but in the future, it may expand to multimodal forms.

OnChain Data also has great potential. For example, if an AI Agent interacts with us on Twitter, and we tag an address, it can immediately inform us of the on-chain activities of that address. Another example is DataChain, where you can feed some raw data to an AI Agent. When we interact extensively with these agents, a significant amount of data is generated. This data is relatively authentic because it is the result of our interactions. This data will be a valuable resource for training AI in the future. Therefore, I believe DataChain also has a tipping point.

CM: I am more focused on the perspective of Crypto users and market demands. Currently, I believe that the AI Agent is still in the stage of concept hype. Everyone knows that the current technology is not yet mature. Compared to traditional AI, existing AI Agents have not achieved many substantial results. In the cryptocurrency community, imagination is the most important, just like in the early days of DeFi. Although DeFi is now one of the few tracks that have landed relatively well, it was also imagination that primarily drove it in the early days. People have gone through various stages of mining in the early days, stumbling into numerous pitfalls, but also encountering many opportunities for overnight riches. It has been a very tumultuous process, but the premise is that this track requires sufficient imagination. NFTs are also successful because they are full of imagination and have a strong driving force, which can generate high attention.

The AI Agent also has a high ceiling in the traditional AI field. Even though the current technology is not mature, you can imagine the future development potential. Even in the Crypto field, we realize the limitations of current technology, but once there is a breakthrough in traditional AI technology, the prospects of the AI Agent will be very broad. It is not very likely to expect to accelerate the evolution of AI in the Crypto field through various means. The main battlefield for AI still remains in Web2.

The crypto space has a significant advantage in that it can amplify any effect, especially some positive effects or effects that can make money. For some independent developers, they are fully capable of migrating mature AI technology from the traditional field to the blockchain, which is relatively cost-effective. I believe that in the future, there will be many bottom-up opportunities in the AI Agent field, not necessarily all VC-led formal projects.

At this stage, there will be many opportunities for developers and entrepreneurs to enter this wave, which is very important. There was a stage before where everyone was FUDding VC coins because many ordinary entrepreneurs found it challenging to participate, and the market had become extremely competitive. But for AI Agents, there is opportunity in the future. Therefore, I believe its impact in the user community will be greater than in other tracks, which is my somewhat superficial view. As for how far the technology can go or whether it can change something, from my perspective, it can only be observed and waited for.

BlockBeats: Existing AI large models, whether in Web2 or Web3, have already trained on all free high-quality content on the internet. So, if we want to continue developing high-quality models, we may need some paid data support. In the future, what kind of competitive landscape will there be in the AI data acquisition field and service agreement field?

Anthony Z: This year, we have made a lot of attempts. The Graph has been laying out AI for a long time. The training of AI large language models requires a large amount of data, and The Graph is doing data infrastructure. In March of this year, we released a whitepaper introducing our progress in AI. We have a team dedicated to AI. Two years ago, I met this team, and they proposed using The Graph data to build a tool for querying on-chain data using natural language. For example, you can ask it about Vitalik's account transactions in the past year and a half, and it will convert this question into The Graph's query language, retrieve real-time data from the chain, and provide answers and data lists. In March last year, the team successfully developed this tool.

In order to help everyone better understand The Graph, let me briefly introduce it. Many people ask me about the difference between The Graph and Chainlink. Chainlink brings off-chain data onto the chain, for example, providing token prices from exchanges to on-chain Dex. The Graph, on the other hand, takes on-chain data off the chain for transaction data analysis or front-end transaction history display, among other uses. It is a developer tool.

In the traditional Internet, Google is responsible for indexing and filtering Internet data, and providing data services to other companies or independent developers. In contrast, The Graph has over 100 Graph nodes that provide indexing services for on-chain data. Projects such as Aave, Uniswap, SushiSwap, etc., all call The Graph's API. When you make a trade on Uniswap, the displayed token pair price and trade history data are retrieved through The Graph. When you make a trade, you are also interacting with The Graph's API. When these API endpoints are called, the data is actually transmitted to The Graph's network. Projects need to pay query fees when accessing data. Therefore, The Graph itself is a decentralized data network infrastructure and data marketplace, embodying a decentralized data network architecture.

Running and training AI models only requires an additional system. We have been developing this system last year and released a product called Agentc. The front end of Agentc is similar to ChatGPT, where you can chat with it, and it can provide feedback by accessing data. The AIXBT I mentioned earlier isn't actually connected to on-chain data, but if combined with The Graph, it can fetch real-time transaction data for analysis. For example, you could monitor the transactions of whale addresses or meme coins. Through this data analysis, the trading recommendations provided by AIXBT may be more reliable.

What we are currently doing is integrating the construction, operation, and execution of Agent all on The Graph. Since the release of Agentc, we have been working in this direction. However, we found that the accuracy of the trained LLM model is only slightly above 63%, which is insufficient. Therefore, we are developing a new model called Knowledge Graphs & LLMs, as well as creating a new transaction data standard called GRC20. While ERC20 is the standard for issuing tokens on Ethereum and represents a value exchange standard, GRC20 is an information exchange standard that includes relationships between data. In summary, these attempts of ours can leverage on-chain data and AI for simple integration, but for complex use cases, errors become more prevalent. Not only do we need to obtain on-chain data, but we also need to integrate and tag the relationships between various data points. This is what we are going to focus on next.

EO: I think AI data is actually quite crucial. In theory, one of the advantages of Crypto is being able to obtain some data through token incentives that Web2 cannot access. Many projects are also working on this. Currently, most useful data is controlled by large companies. I believe project teams need to think about how to obtain data from C-end users, and this data must be useful. Furthermore, users need to willingly contribute this data. Lastly, what's crucial is how project teams utilize the contributed data. These three points are vital. If any one of them is missing, you may not know how the data is being used or transmitted downstream. If middleware can handle and package data and pass it downstream, it can significantly enhance the efficiency of downstream data usage. Additionally, users are very concerned about data breaches, so encryption and privacy protection are also areas worth focusing on. I pay more attention to the field of AI plus FHE and am also considering how to effectively prevent user data leakage.

Sanzhi: I believe that a project performing well in the Crypto and Web3 fields must innovate around asset issuance to mobilize synergies. The popularity of AI agents is due to their connection to asset issuance. Previously, we would use a smart contract to generate a token, but now we can use an AI agent to bind and generate a token. Additionally, data is also crucial. In the past, we did not have enough awareness of our data sovereignty, and our data has never been directly monetizable. The previous logic for data monetization involved selling data to an application, which would then sell it to an advertiser, going through many intermediary steps without direct monetization. However, data monetization has evolved with two new methods: one is monetizing data by feeding models, and the other is issuing data as an asset. For example, taking a cancer patient's data as a data package that can be issued as an asset has significant potential.

During trading, apart from looking at information on Twitter, I also check the transaction data in GMGN. If there could be an Agent that integrates this information, providing a multi-perspective and objective data, such an Agent would be very valuable. If an AI agent could help me process all on-chain data, providing intuitive insights, I would be willing to pay for such a product because it can save a lot of time. Transforming such a product into asset issuance also has great imaginative space.

While individuals may not pay much attention to privacy protection, large companies are very concerned because of various privacy protection regulations. With privacy protection laws becoming increasingly standardized, there is vast imaginative space for data sovereignty, data privacy, and data assetization. Decentralization is closely related to ownership. If the collaborative and ownership-related aspects can be combined, there may be significant development potential. As for hardcore AI projects, further observation is required to track their development.

CM: My view is similar to that of previous guests, focusing mainly on data quality issues. Currently, much data is held by tech giants, and user-end data acquisition can be achieved through token incentives. Many projects are developing this model, and I think it has great potential. Previously, many people were averse to the play-to-earn model because it had relatively weak intrinsic value creation. However, AI data labeling is quite valuable, and this data can be profitable when transformed into AI products. Token incentives may be effective in AI data acquisition, but each link in the process needs robust mechanisms.

BlockBeats: Finally, let's discuss the main tracks to focus on in 2025 and what opportunities are still worth betting on in the DeFi space. Do you have any specific operational plans for 2025?

Anthony Z: This year, I will pay particular attention to the RWA track because it is an area supported by policies that can bring in new money. Although RWA is an old concept, it has received support from the Trump administration and related interest groups, which will unlock a lot of liquidity. I will focus on top projects in this track. If you are in Canada or Asia and want to invest in US assets but do not have a suitable channel, if assets can be tokenized on-chain and have relevant policy support, this will bring many opportunities. This kind of innovation is also beneficial to the US itself and will create new channels and opportunities for the international financial market.

CM: Regarding DeFi, I roughly divide it into two directions. First, from the perspective of policy trends, I am interested in RWA-related content. Many traditional institutions such as BlackRock are also issuing tokenized funds on-chain, and these assets have many operational and liquid scenarios, which may have greater scalability than we imagine. So RWA is not just about moving off-chain assets to on-chain but has more diverse applications. We can call it RWA 2.0. The overall direction is guided by compliance and policy, especially since the Trump administration took office. Another aspect is that DeFi has been developing for several years, from initially only Uniswap and SushiSwap competing to later introducing lending and various composability strategies.

Now I believe DeFi will usher in the next stage of opportunities. Firstly, there is chain abstraction. If you pay attention to OP Super Chain, it will be easier to understand. In the Ethereum ecosystem, OP's horizontal expansion has almost surpassed Arbitrum, despite Arbitrum's different strategy. But judging from the indicators of horizontal expansion, most Layer 2 and Rollup solutions are now based on OP, including the recent hyped Base Chain and Worldcoin, all adopting OP’s underlying technology to realize their Super Chain plan. In the future, Super Chains will form a natural chain abstraction state. Asset transfers between Super Chains, cross-chain contract calls, and protocol communication will become very smooth. This is also a direction of DeFi evolution.

Bringing RWA assets on-chain will certainly lead to one certain outcome, which is an increase in on-chain assets. With more assets, whether as underlying collateral supporting other assets or as a circulating asset, the most direct impact will be on the DEX and lending tracks. The benefits in these two areas are most evident and can also be developed in Super Chains and chain abstraction. Secondly, when talking about the development of traditional DeFi, it will certainly usher in a new stage. The Trump administration provided policy support for crypto, and I believe DeFi will have significant growth potential in 2025.

Sanzhi: In the long run, from an application layer perspective, I personally will pay attention to Worldcoin. After previously contacting the Worldcoin foundation team, I learned that they are currently very focused on compliance and are adopting a top-down strategy. Because they need to use devices to collect personal data, they have more interactions with the government. Worldcoin's infrastructure performance is not outstanding at the moment, but they have a large user base. If you download their APP, you will find that it is mainly peer-to-peer interaction and has not formed a connected network yet. Additionally, there is no chat function inside, but they plan to launch this feature in the future.

Regarding the track, I mainly focus on AI and BTCFi. The reason for this focus is that after the ETF approval, many large institutions will have a demand for BTCFi. The third aspect is AI. I believe that the current bull market has already started, but there is not yet a clear concept of breaking the circle. I think the concept of breaking the circle may emerge in IP or AI Agent because outsiders can understand these two circles. Outsiders may not understand if you talk about RWA, chain abstraction, and other technical terms. I initially thought that IP was an important direction, but now I realize that outsiders can also understand AI Agent.

In addition, the Ethereum ecosystem also has huge potential for explosive growth, such as OP Stack and OP Superchain. Ethereum's Layer2 is not like other new public chains; Ethereum's Layer2 may develop into specialized chains, such as payment chains, RWA chains, or dedicated identity chains, which can drive the explosion of more applications. The Base ecosystem also has great potential. On the one hand, this may be due to U.S. policy support, and on the other hand, the collaboration between Base and Warpcast is quite interesting.

EO: The main areas I am focusing on in 2025 are DeFi, AI, and DePin tracks. Our fund mainly started with DePin, and we are very interested in this track. Many traditional funds entering this field often do not know which projects to invest in, but if there are some specific physical assets, they will be more interested. For example, the Hivemapper project, the team has earned a lot of money by selling cameras, and we are quite satisfied with their revenue and have high expectations.

These kinds of projects can indeed attract new users and have real demand. Hivemapper's map has covered 20% to 30% of the global area, and through a peer-to-peer token reward mechanism, it encourages users to collect new maps. Therefore, I believe that these projects can attract traditional funds and have real demand. Only DePin can connect with traditional businesses. The DePin track has not yet fully erupted, so if you are interested, you can pay attention. The future potential is still significant, and I hope that more projects in the DePin track can erupt this year.

Another important track is the DeFi track, which is a track that traditional Crypto partners like. This is because Crypto's origins are mainly based on financial innovation. In fact, I have been involved in this DeFi cycle since 2020, and I have a deep affection for this track and see great potential in it. Because it is a track that truly has the ability to generate value in the Crypto field, whether it's a large project or a small project, you can make some money. Another track is the AI sector. The AI sector is currently in a very hot phase. Although the returns may not be as stable as DeFi or DePin, I believe that its wealth effect should be the largest this year.

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