By Robbie Petersen
Compiled by: TechFlow
Prediction #1: Front-end will dominate value capture
As the MEV supply chain matures, participants who have exclusive order flow will gain more value.
The reason is simple. Various participants downstream of the order flow - such as DEX, searchers, builders, and validators - will face more intense competition. The originator of the order flow (i.e., the front end) has a natural monopoly advantage in the MEV supply chain.
This means that the only actors that can improve yields without losing significant market share are front-ends, especially those that capture “less fee-sensitive” order flow (e.g. digital wallets).
Additionally, emerging technologies such as conditional liquidity (e.g. @DFlowProtocol) will further advance this trend.
Prediction #2: DePIN market value will increase 5 times by 2025
Market leaders in the decentralized physical infrastructure network (DePIN), such as @Helium and @Hivemapper, are approaching a breaking point in terms of network effects, while @dawninternet has become the most groundbreaking application of the year in the DePIN space with significant technical improvements and cryptoeconomic incentives.
Prediction #3: Crypto payment rails will have limited use in intelligent transactions
In the early stages, transactions between humans and agents will still rely on traditional payment rails. Stripe and PayPal will dominate the early agent payment infrastructure through the "FBO" account structure.
But only when the autonomy of the intelligent agent reaches a certain level will the high fee model of the traditional payment rails expose its limitations. Due to the rise of micro-transactions and usage-based pricing needs, the traditional payment rails (about 3% fee) will become unsustainable.
However, this will not happen in 2025, as most transactions will still be interactions between humans and agents. (Reference tweet)
Prediction #4: Stablecoins will cross the fintech adoption gap
The role of stablecoins will change from a "lubricant" of DeFi (decentralized finance) to a true medium of exchange.
This shift is driven by two main reasons why fintech companies are adopting stablecoins: (1) to improve profitability and (2) to strategically gain control over more of the payment chain.
As the widespread adoption of stablecoins becomes an inevitable choice for the survival of fintech companies, the number of monthly active stablecoin addresses is expected to exceed 50 million.
Prediction #5: Visa launches stablecoin plan and proactively adjusts profit structure
In order to cope with possible disruptive changes in the payment chain, Visa has laid out a stablecoin plan in advance. Although this may cut into the profits of its card network, this risk is more controllable than being completely disrupted by the market. This logic also applies to other fintech companies and banks.
Prediction #6: “Revenue-sharing” stablecoin market share will grow 10x
“Yield-sharing” stablecoins like USDG @Paxos, “M” @m0foundation, and AUSD @withAUSD change the economic model of stablecoins by redistributing the returns traditionally earned by stablecoin issuers to applications that provide liquidity to the network.
Although Tether will maintain its market dominance in 2025, the model of “revenue-sharing” stablecoins is considered to be the future development direction for the following reasons:
(1) The importance of distribution channels: Unlike previous yield-based stablecoins that attempt to attract end users directly, “yield-sharing” stablecoins target applications that have distribution channels. This model achieves the synchronization of incentives between distributors and issuers for the first time.
(2) The power of network effects: By incentivizing the simultaneous integration of multiple applications, “revenue-sharing” stablecoins can fully leverage the network effects of the entire distributor ecosystem.
In 2025, as distributors (especially fintech companies) and market makers collaborate, the market share of these stablecoins will increase significantly as they are able to create more direct benefits for distributors.
Prediction #7: The line between wallets and apps will blur
Wallets will gradually integrate app-like features such as deposit returns (like @fusewallet), credit accounts (like @GearboxProtocol), native trading functions, and a chatbot-like interface through which users can express their needs and the AI agents and backend solvers will perform the actions.
At the same time, applications will try to maintain a direct relationship with the end user by hiding the existence of the wallet. For example, the mobile application launched by @JupiterExchange is an early example.
The biggest impetus for the vision of wallet centralization comes from exchanges like @coinbase, which see wallet products as the primary way for on-chain users to monetize. (Reference tweet)
Prediction #8: Chain abstraction goes from theory to practice at the wallet level
While the discussion of chain abstraction has previously focused on the chain and application layers, the optimal solution is to directly meet user needs. New technologies like @OneBalance_io's resource locks, @NEARProtocol's chain signatures, and @Safe's SafeNet are driving a new paradigm of chain abstraction at the wallet level.
Prediction #9: General purpose L2 will gradually lose relevance
The centralization trend of future blockchain activities can be summed up in one question:
As an application, why should I choose to run on your chain?
For a few general-purpose chains with clear positioning (such as Solana and Base) and vertically integrated chains (such as HypeEVM and Unichain), the answer is clear.
However, for the long tail of general-purpose chains, the answer is not clear. By 2025, blockchain activity will become increasingly concentrated on a small number of chains that can provide clear value for applications.
Prediction #10: The boundaries between attention and value will gradually disappear
As the most direct manifestation of the attention value theory, the value of AI agent tokens will continue to grow.
