Variant: A brief discussion on the future direction of the crypto market

Original title: Things We’re Excited About in Crypto

Original author: Variant

Original translation: Peisen, BlockBeats

Editor’s note: Variant team members made different judgments on the future market trends, including predictions for crypto products, infrastructure development, cyclical changes in applications, and AI agents. BlockBeats translated the original text as follows:

This summer, the Variant team spent time looking ahead to what the rest of 2024 and into 2025 might look like. Here are the key points we’re focusing on as we explore the next wave of cryptocurrency development.

We’d love to hear your thoughts and predictions on what crypto will look like in the year ahead — share them with us on X (@variantfund) or the Warpcast (/variant).

Jesse

Some of my expectations for crypto products in 2024-2025 (a brief list, not comprehensive):

• Mobile becomes the default choice.

• Stablecoin infrastructure is strong enough to facilitate global fintech adoption and accelerate institutional and regulatory acceptance.

• Prediction markets emerge in unexpected new forms.

• NFTs undergo another amazing evolution.

• Interactions between creator tools/token issuance platforms become more fun and secure.

• The Farcaster channel evolved into a wallet/DAO and made some weird and significant changes.

•Telegram strengthens mini-program/wallet/payment functions.

• Frames/blinks found large-scale social mini-programs, validating the “no-interface” marketing model as a way to launch protocol/market liquidity.

• Data DAO/tokenization market attracts new users to participate and earn tokens.

• For crypto-native users, real risk participation returns to token distribution, leading to more loyal and engaged users/holders.

Some developments in crypto infrastructure I expect in 2024-2025 (brief list, not comprehensive):

• Institutions begin to participate in staking.

• The chain/wallet abstraction is mature enough that users are finally enjoying a superior user experience (this is the result of work on scalability/interoperability/intention, etc.).

• Modularization technology is mature, and the second-generation framework packages integrated modules to solve the fragmentation problem while maintaining customizability.

• ZK achieves breakthrough progress at the intersection of privacy/off-chain data/on-chain actions.

• Security vulnerabilities become more rare (e.g. in DeFi/interfaces).

• Decentralized computing begins to compete on cost and performance.

• The MEV (Maximize Equity Value) market structure is mature and optimistically benefits the users.

Li

I think the following developments will happen in cryptocurrencies in the next 6 months to a year:

• Open source AI turns to cryptocurrency for profit.

• Decentralized AI and computing are gaining momentum.

• DePIN allows more people to start earning their first cryptocurrency.

• The perverse incentives created by financialization have reached a critical mass.

Alana

Some of my predictions for cryptocurrencies in 2024/2025:

• Block/CashApp launches stablecoin.

• There is a third ETF, but it’s not the one people expected.

• PayPal begins offering a yield-bearing stablecoin (likely a modification of PYUSD) and gains significant adoption in Venmo.

• The human verification project will have access to more than 100 million users.

• A moderator set his or her NFT as his or her profile picture.

• Farcaster surpasses 3 million users and begins delivering significant mobile-first distribution.

• The breakthrough use case of AI x Crypto is community owned and trained models.

• This cycle’s hype surrounding the decentralized GPU market is ultimately just hype as supply shortages ease and new chips emerge.

• We see important use cases for decentralized training + inference emerging as centralized clouds begin to develop policies about what types of models can run on their servers, but this will take at least two years to really develop (as regulation moves slowly).

• The development experience for building on Bitcoin has improved significantly.

• A discussion about Helium (or other DePin projects) is published by a well-known traditional finance figure.

• A popular L2 decides to become its own L1.

• At least half of the predictions were wrong.

Cooper

Some current year-end forecasts:

• The shared sequencer finally starts.

• Many proof-of-stake markets enter testnet phase.

• Doubts about Rollup technology are gradually decreasing as its decentralization process progresses.

• Ethereum’s roadmap becomes clearer.

• ZK applications are in production and actually being used.

• Sharding research has once again become a hot topic.

Derek

In 2024-2025, I think we will shift from the infrastructure to the application part of the cycle. Some specific thoughts:

• 10+ large fintech companies launched their own stablecoins.

• ETFs begin to participate in staking.

• A crypto consumer app on Base reached over 10 million weekly active users.

• Every traditional financial giant will tokenize its products.

• A crypto prediction market hit $1 billion in monthly volume in a category outside of politics.

• Bitcoin is used as a reserve asset for major global currencies.

• A top 20 US bank borrowed money using DeFi infrastructure.

• A DePin network grew to over 10 million users.

• A major AAA studio develops a blockchain-based game.

• At some point, the trading volume of decentralized exchanges exceeded the trading volume of centralized exchanges.

• A mini game on Telegram/Ton reaches 1 billion players.

Geoff

I expect that in 12 months there will be more clarity around the use cases and usefulness of platforms for agent intelligence in cryptocurrencies.

During this time, I believe that a few applications will gain traction and define the first generation of viable use cases. These leading applications will promote the network effects of the proxy platforms and influence which platforms become the main gaming points.

The first step in this sequence is to build a compelling user experience that leverages the agent. I think the following use cases have the best chance of gaining early adoption:

• Token discovery, research, and trading.

• Airdrops and mining.

• Gameplay: Agents as playable characters and NPCs.

• AI companion.

• Autonomous content producers.

I’m very much looking forward to seeing the wave of innovation in these and other use cases. It’s going to be an exciting time as a cryptocurrency user!

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