What’s next for Diffie in 2025?

Decentralized finance (DeFi) will hit an inflection point in 2025, as Bitcoin staking, real-world asset (RWA) tokens, and agent artificial intelligence (AI) will accelerate adoption, several industry executives told Cointelegraph.

In the year By 2024, Bitcoin will surpass $100,000 per coin as investors pour more than $100 billion into the spot BTC exchange-traded funds (ETFs).

“Bitcoin's (BTC) all-time high in crypto will rekindle interest from institutions and regulators and regulators and should reinvigorate the entire crypto sector by 2025,” Dean Tribble, CEO of Layer-1 Network Agoric Systems, told Cointelegraph.

In December, the total value locked (TVL) in DeFi protocols hit $130 billion, with the ecosystem reaching an all-time high of around $175 billion by 2021, according to data from Defillama. Industry executives expect this growth to continue next year.

“By 2025, DeFi infrastructure and blue chip protocols like Aave, Maple, Maker will be running at scale for more than four years,” Jacob Phillips, co-founder and head of strategy at Bitcoin staking protocol Lombard, told Cointelegraph.

“These platforms will be safe places for institutions and new users to work with Bitcoin,” Phillips said.

Related: Bitcoin production opportunities are growing – here's what to watch

Bitcoin pinch

The emergence of Bitcoin's layer-2 (L2) measurement networks and DeFi protocols is creating unprecedented opportunities for investors to profit from Bitcoin.

“Bitcoin DeFi currently accounts for 0.1% of the total asset value. That's a 300x opportunity to grow DeFi over Bitcoin,” Bitcoin Build co-founder and CEO Alexey Zamyatin told Cointelegraph.

“We've talked to dozens and dozens of large Bitcoin DeFi users and funds looking to put their Bitcoin holdings to work.”

Bitcoin L2s like Babylon and CoreChain pay stakeholders to secure their network by locking up BTC as collateral.

Already, liquid staking tokens (LSTs) that represent claims on held BTC are proliferating. As of December 19, according to stakingrewards.com, Bitcoin LSTs command over $2.5 billion in total value locked (TVL).

In the year By 2025, Bitcoin staking ETFs may also gain traction, Matt Hogan, head of research at Bitwise, told Cointelegraph.

“There is a lot of demand for bitcoin production. It's going to make it an ETF structure in the United States, I'm not sure, but in Europe, for sure,” Hugan said.

RWA token

Tokenized real-world values ​​(RWAs) — digital tokens that represent claims on anything from US Treasury bonds to works of art — are a $30 trillion market opportunity globally, Colin Butler, Polygon's global head of institutional capital, told Cointelegraph in August.

According to RWA.xyz, they have already taken about $14 billion in TVL orders. Yielding US Treasury bills are particularly popular, with over $3 billion in TVL.

“The introduction of real-world assets like real estate and carbon credits will open up unprecedented cash flows, while advances in payments will further streamline cross-border transfers,” Raj Brahmbhatt, CEO of Web3 settlement platform Zebu, told Cointelegraph.

Even the US Treasury Department has praised tokenization's potential to improve liquidity and reduce “operational and settlement conflicts.”

“In America from [President-elect Donald] Trump's victory, I am very worried that America will become the global leader in space by the end of the year,” said Brabhat.

Agent A.I.S

In the year By 2024, tokens connected to agent AIs — machines that autonomously pursue complex goals — will collectively have a market capitalization of nearly $10 billion, according to CoinGecko.

Analysts expect the combination of artificial intelligence and blockchain technology to transform the Web3, creating a future where autonomous AIs build decentralized applications and interact with human users.

JD Serafin, CEO of AI protocol Rainmaker, told Cointelegraph that agentic AI “has already proven central to the future of the industry.”

In the year By 2025, “AI agents are expected to play a more prominent role in decentralized societies,” Serafin said.

The potential universe of AI agents is practically endless, Hugan said.

It doesn't matter if you don't know exactly what will happen, as long as you know something potentially very important is happening and want to be exposed to it.

Magazine: Rise of Mert Mumtaz: ‘Perhaps more FUD Solana than anyone else'