Inventory of Five Major Narratives and Related Projects to Watch in 2025

Original Title: "5 narratives to watch in 2025."

Author: nairolf

Compiled by: 深潮 TechFlow

I won't waste time writing a lengthy introduction—2024 is indeed an exciting year. Let's get straight to the point and look at the changes I'm most looking forward to in 2025:

Alternative Virtual Machines (altVMs)

2024 will be a year where Alternative Virtual Machines (altVMs) shine.

@fuel_network has successfully launched its mainnet,

@cartesiproject continues to make steady progress, while MoveVM has gained more applications with the support of @Aptos , @SuiNetwork , and @movementlabsxyz .

2025 could become a breakthrough year for these alternative virtual machines, sparking the next wave of on-chain applications.

It is worth mentioning that the hybrid execution model from @fluentxyz will play a key role in this field. It integrates EVM, SVM, and Wasm into a single execution environment, providing developers with the most comprehensive and flexible way to build applications. Even more exciting is that this design is scalable, meaning that any future virtual machine can be added to this system. Perhaps it will become the "ultimate solution" in the virtual machine space.

Chain Abstraction

Chain abstraction made significant progress in 2024. It evolved from a preliminary concept: creating an experience for users that feels like using a single chain, even though hundreds of chains are working together behind the scenes.

Users no longer need to frequently switch wallets, manage multiple gas tokens, or—most troublesome of all—cross-chain bridging.

The UniversalX solution launched by @ParticleNtwrk allows for trading any on-chain tokens through a unified interface, offering an experience similar to Binance, but entirely on-chain. The maturity of this technology will give rise to many new products, and more importantly, many existing projects will begin to adopt these solutions.

This trend showcases deep collaboration between projects, such as the collaborative results of @EverclearOrg , @SOCKETProtocol , and @NEARProtocol , as well as @sedaprotocol and @routescan_io .

The focus in 2025 will be on how to get more users to engage with and utilize these innovative solutions.

L1 Public Chains

If the crypto industry doesn't see the birth of a new L1 public chain in a year, it loses a lot of its fun. In 2024, Sui and Aptos are undoubtedly the star projects in this field.

What about 2025? We can expect more exciting new projects.

@monad_xyz , @berachain , and @HyperliquidX may form the "golden triangle" driving industry development.

Among them, Hyperliquid's HyperEVM is particularly noteworthy. As Hyperliquid continues to gain traction, how its ecosystem deeply connects with the exchange itself will be an important point of interest.

RaaS (Rollup as a Service)

RaaS may be one of the least discussed areas currently. Why is that? Perhaps because it seems like a "boring business." However, many seemingly uninteresting business models often turn out to be the most valuable in retrospect.

Rollups and L2 were hot topics in the crypto circle (CT) in 2024, and this enthusiasm is unlikely to fade anytime soon.

As @inkonchain and @AbstractChain are set to launch related services in the coming months, debates about these technologies will continue. But one thing is clear: there will be an increasing number of L2 chains in the future.

Whether general-purpose or specialized chains, the data speaks for itself. Rollup as a Service platforms like @Calderaxyz have already supported the deployment of about 100 new chains this year, providing rich integration and customization options from day one.

Additionally, @conduitxyz and @alt_layer are adopting similar models. The market demand for RaaS providers is becoming increasingly hard to ignore.

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

According to statistics from @_kaitoai , AI has garnered over 40% attention this year, reaching unprecedented levels of popularity.

But my intuition tells me this is just the beginning. The Eliza project from @ai16zdao has become one of the most popular open-source projects on GitHub in recent months. Could it become a bridge to attract new developers into the crypto space? Time will tell, but it certainly has the potential to be an interesting "entry point."

We have already seen initial results of AI in the real world, such as the @aixbtagent developed by @virtuals io . This agent continues to attract attention in the crypto circle while providing fairly accurate information.

Will there be a focus on "interpreting the thoughts of AI agents" in the future? It remains to be seen, but it is foreseeable that in 2025, more and more AI agents will take on tasks previously handled by humans.

Other Projects to Watch

• @pendle_fi continues to achieve exponential growth and is now regarded as one of the "veteran" projects in DeFi. Will its total value locked (TVL) exceed $10 billion in 2025? It’s worth looking forward to.

• @_kaitoai is pioneering a new field of information finance (InfoFi). What will it look like in the future? We should have answers next year.

• @Polymer_Labs will become a strong competitor in the field of cross-chain interoperability, and I believe interoperability will be one of the important topics in 2025.

• @OndoFinance is driving large traditional institutions into the blockchain space. Real-world assets (RWA) and asset tokenization have become trends, but they have not yet fully broken through the bottleneck. Will 2025 see a turning point due to a more favorable regulatory environment?

• The mainnet of @nillionnetwork is set to launch in February next year. In the context of increasing attention to privacy issues, this project could have a significant impact. Even more exciting is that it is expected to lead a new wave of on-chain applications.

See you in 2025.