a16z 2025 Encryption Big Idea and related project inventory

Author: Stacy Muur, Web3 researcher; Translator: Golden Finance xiaozou

The end of the year is my favorite time because the Web3 industry leaders are sharing their highly credible ideas and predictions for 2025. It's an exciting moment that may outline the prospects for cryptocurrency ideology in the coming year.

At the beginning of this month, a16z crypto released a Big Idea list for the crypto industry in 2025. What projects are currently being developed in these key areas? Let's explore further in this article.

Big Idea 1: AI Agents for Managing Wallets

In short, AI agents have proven their ability to trade independently and operate completely autonomously. Many new use cases may emerge in this field. AI agents can play new roles in Web3, participating in trading, investment, bridging, and fulfilling other intents.

In this field, there are several projects included in my watchlist:

● NEAR Protocol: NEAR now positions itself as an "AI blockchain". Recently launched several major products, including Near AI and Near Intents. NEAR has gained some quite impressive mindshare and is expected to be one of the leaders in the field by 2025.

● Fetch.ai: Fetch.ai is a platform designed for the AI economy, providing tools for building, deploying, and monetizing AI services. Its ASI Wallet can integrate Fetch's best features and advancements in AI, potentially becoming one of the first implementations of 'AI x Wallet' integration.

● Armor Wallet: This is an AI-powered cryptocurrency wallet and trading assistant. Armor Wallet is a non-custodial wallet that uses AI to trade across multiple blockchains and can quickly and easily execute complex trades. Please note that Armor is still a relatively early project.

● Coin98 Super Wallet: In late November, Coin98 released their AI wallet, which comes with an AI assistant that can recommend tools and simplify complex tasks. It also supports human-like natural interaction.

Big Idea 2: Enhance Information Aggregation

This concept revolves around the new mechanism based on the prediction market, aiming to more effectively collect information and strengthen the decision-making process of various departments.

This is a relatively new idea, and in this field, I recommend you read Delphi Digital's article 'Markets Will Save the World'.

Here is the abstract of the article:

My observation checklist is as follows:

● MetaDAO: MetaDAO is the first project to implement Futarchy on a large scale within a DAO. Futarchy is a governance system that combines prediction markets with democratic voting to make decisions. In the Futarchy system, participants trade based on the outcomes of various decision choices. This approach allows them to 'vote' with their money for the decisions they believe will yield the best results.

● Futarchy: The concept of Futarchy is very similar to MetaDAO: using the market for governance, reflecting the potential impact on the value of shares (tokens).

Big Idea 3: Widespread Adoption of Stablecoins

This idea focuses on the increasing popularity of stablecoins, whose trading value has surpassed that of Visa, MasterCard, or PayPal. This transformation will benefit many market participants, including stablecoin issuers, crypto card companies, and cryptocurrency acquisition services.

To better illustrate the prospects of stablecoins, the following is an ecosystem diagram of the aforementioned research. You may consider adding these projects to your watchlist.

In this field, I believe that emphasizing infrastructure will promote the growth of transaction volume and become a key beneficiary of wider stablecoin adoption, which is crucial.

In addition to TRON (a well-known USDT transmission engine), another protocol worth highlighting is Noble. This new project has developed liquidity infrastructure that allows asset issuers to participate in the cross-chain economy.

Big Idea 4: Modularization of Everything

Modularization is not a new thing, but a16z crypto predicts that there will be more modules that will gain mainstream adoption next year. I can think of several verticals worth noting:

● RaaS (Rollup-as-a-Service): Gelato, Caldera, AltLayer, Conduit, Bison Labs.

● Interoperability: Hyperlane, Polyhedra, Omni.

● Shared sorting: Espresso, Radius, Zellular.

● Privacy Protection: Nillion, Brevis, Automata, Fhenix, zkMe.

● Intents: Anoma, Aori, Native.

● Storage: Arweave, Storj, Filecoin, Zus.

● Oracles: Pyth, RedStone, Supra, Chainlink, etc.

In short, the focus on infrastructure solutions will remain very important in 2025.

Big Idea 5: Seamless User Experience

In my opinion, this is the most powerful bet. Chain Abstraction has always been a hot topic, and we are finally approaching the moment when the abstract user experience becomes a reality, rather than just staying at the conceptual level.

Here is a great chain abstraction diagram from The Defiant:

All of these are definitely worth your attention, but I want to emphasize that Particle is my top pick. Their first Universal Accounts deployment has recently gone live, allowing users to seamlessly trade assets from any chain via UniversalX.

Another bet in this area is Everclear, which is the main settlement layer of Web3. As the solver economy (crucial to chain abstraction) expands, solvers need to rebalance between chains. Everclear is the most cost-effective facilitator in this process.

Big Idea 6: Cryptocurrency App Store

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The original a16z crypto article focuses on several noteworthy crypto application store developers, including Telegram apps on TON, Alchemy, Solana's mobile (Seeker) dApp store, and Worldcoin's mobile app.

In fact, many wallet providers can seamlessly transition into crypto app stores.

And I would like to emphasize a few more: Glue, DeFi App, and VeBetter.

Big Idea 7: Tokenize Everything

Tokenization is a widely discussed topic, especially regarding the tokenization of 'unconventional' assets. In this area, I have thought of several projects worth paying attention to:

● Kaito AI: Tokenizing Influence (Attention Economy).

● GAIB: Providing economic solutions for the AI-driven future through tokenizing enterprise-grade GPUs.

● Compute Labs: Support GPU ownership segmentation (direct competitor of GAIB).

● ShopX: Tokenized goods and products (RWA for e-commerce).

● Eaas: Tokenizing Carbon Footprint.

● AI Agents and DeSci: Dolz (tokenization of adult stars), PsyDAO (tokenization of psychedelic science and art), Molecule (biomedical IP tokenization protocol), etc. (high risk, peak speculation curve).

The above lists some protocols in my personal observation list, but please do not limit your research to these protocols alone. The Web3 space is huge, and there are many more protocols worth paying attention to!