Bitwise predicts 2025 crypto IPO — Kraken, Circle to go public

Crypto exchange-traded fund (ETF) issuer Bitwise predicts at least five “crypto unicorns” will go public by 2025 – including stablecoin issuer Circle and crypto exchange Kraken.

Anchorage Digital, a so-called “crypto bank”, analytics firm Chainalysis and crypto exchange Image are three other firms expected to launch initial public offerings next year – selling shares to the public for the first time – Bitwise chief investment officer Matt Hogan and head of research Ryan Rasmussen said on December 10 at “10 “Crypto Predictions for 2025,” he wrote in the report.

Investor interest, institutional adoption, a favorable macro environment and a warm political environment are the main factors that led the pair to name 2025 as the “Year of the Crypto IPO”.

Here are some other predictions from Bitwise's Hougan and Rasmussen for next year.

BTC, ETH and SOL to hit new highs, Bitcoin ahead of gold in 2029

Hugan and Rasmussen predict that Bitcoin (BTC) will fetch $200,000 or more by the end of 2025, and that it could surpass gold's current market cap of $18 trillion by 2029.

Bitcoin could hit $500,000 or more next year if the United States follows Senator Cynthia Lammis's strategic bitcoin reserve, which buys 1 million or more bitcoins over five years.

Bitcoin could eclipse gold without U.S. bitcoin reserves — though it's fast-tracking the process, the duo said.

Meanwhile, Bitwise expects Ether (ETH) to bounce back and hit a high of $7,000 in 2025, further fueling Ether ETF flows in the Ethereum layer 2s space and “significant growth in stablecoins and tokenized projects.”

Hugan and Rasmussen expected “serious” projects to start on Solana (SOL) and push the price to $750 – a 250% increase from the current price of $215.

Coinbase has joined the Nasdaq-100, Enter S&P 500, MicroStrategy to become the most valuable brokerage.

The pair predicts that Coinbase shares will more than double to $700 and overtake Charles Schwab as the most valuable arbitrage platform by 2025 – earning a spot in the S&P 500.

“The reason? Coinbase is more than a brokerage,” said the Bitwise duo, predicting that Coinbase's revenues from Ethereum's Layer 2 base will increase significantly, in addition to revenues from cryptocoins, staking and security services.

Coinbase's entry into the S&P 500 and MicroStrategy's entry into the Nasdaq-100 index may occur when the two indexes are rebalanced next.

Tracking the S&P 500 with $10 trillion in assets, fund managers should buy roughly $15 billion in Coinbase shares, while MicroStrategy's entry into the Nasdaq-100 will have a small but still “significant” impact on the stock's price, Bitwise said.

As the RWA market reaches $50B, Bitcoin ETFs will attract more Wall Street flows

Analysts had expected U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs to see $5 billion to $15 billion in net inflows this year, but they more than doubled that high number, seeing $33.6 billion this year.

“We expect 2025 earnings to be at this level,” Hugan and Rasmussen said, with institutional investors “growing” the Bitcoin allocation to 3%, with major wirehouses coming on line in 2025.

“The world's biggest wirehouses — from Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch to Bank of America and Wells Fargo — have yet to unleash their armies of wealth managers who have been denied access to their products. We believe that will change in 2025, and the trillions of dollars these companies manage will begin to flow into Bitcoin ETFs.”

He said gold ETFs' net inflows have increased for five consecutive years, rising from $2.6 billion in the first year to $28.9 billion in the fifth.

Real-world asset tokenization will grow from $13 billion to $50 billion by 2025, according to Bitwise, highlighting rapid settlement, 24/7/365 liquidity and lower leverage than traditional securitization.

That's why BlackRock CEO and “tokenization maximalist” Larry Fink thinks “the next generation will be collateral for markets.”

AI agents lead memecoin mania.

Hugan and Rasmussen think that crypto markets are in for a “big memecoin mania” in 2025, fueled largely by artificial intelligence agents.

Related: Microsoft Shareholders Vote ‘No' on Bitcoin Reserve

The potential of AI in memecoins was directly demonstrated when AI chatbot Truth Terminal launched a “hidden” memecoin GOAT, rising to a $1.3 billion market cap, Bitwise said.

“[This shows] How much potential you have when you combine AI with the wild world of memecoins.

Bitwise also pointed out that the stablecoin market will double to $400 billion, driven in part by the long-awaited stablecoin legislation in the US.

The pair expects the US Department of Labor to “relax guidelines” on crypto in 401(k) plans, allowing another way to pump billions of dollars into the market.

Magazine: Back 2025: Is Ethereum Ready to Meet Bitcoin and Solana?