「The success of the blockchain industry lies not in the success of a single technology or platform, but in building an inclusive, innovative, and self-evolving industry ecosystem.」

By 2024, amidst a sweeping transformation in the global financial landscape, the crypto industry experienced profound ups and downs. After a six-month period of consolidation and recovery, the industry's total market capitalization exceeded $3.8 trillion by the end of the year, with Bitcoin reaching a historic high of $100,000, declaring its core position in the global asset system. This was not just a price surge but also the beginning of a structural transformation: a dollar liquidity circular chain had been formed with Bitcoin as the core asset, ETFs and U.S. stocks as fund bridges, and U.S. listed companies as carriers.

Bitcoin is rising to become the world's largest dollar-denominated financial asset, serving as a key tool to hedge against the U.S. fiscal deficit and the U.S. debt crisis. This financial revolution has not only shaped a new asset value system but also injected sustained growth momentum into the blockchain industry. The entire blockchain industry has benefited from this, and with a proactive approach, OKX Ventures has deeply engaged in this wave of change and remains optimistic about the silent transformational impact of blockchain products on the traditional world in the next 10 years.

I. Review of 2024: 60+ Projects Launched, Diversified Approach Across Multiple Tracks

In this year, OKX Ventures actively increased industry investments to accelerate innovation and development in the crypto industry. The total investment amount for the year exceeded $100 million, covering over 60 projects and funds, focusing on innovation and entrepreneurship in Solana, SUI, Aptos, TON, and the BTC ecosystem, delving deep into high-quality projects. In terms of investment distribution, infrastructure, AI projects, and the BTC ecosystem accounted for the highest proportion, with extensive coverage in multi-chain ecosystems, DeFi, and various ecosystem funds.

Moreover, OKX Ventures actively collaborated with fund and accelerator ecosystem partners like TON Ventures, Ankaa, and TGH to jointly build a thriving innovation ecosystem. Through providing financial support, strategic guidance, and technical resources, these collaborations aim to empower global entrepreneurs to transform their ideas into reality faster and more steadily. Whether in the startup incubation stage or growth acceleration stage, OKX Ventures always places innovation at its core, committed to driving the popularization and application of blockchain technology and infusing more vitality and possibilities into the industry.

OKX Ventures deeply understands that the future of the blockchain industry is not just about capital investment but also about how to efficiently integrate global resources, unite industry wisdom, and empower innovative enterprises on this basis. Capital serves as a driving force but also relies on strategic vision and systematic layout to propel the industry forward in multidimensional technological innovation, ecosystem development, and market expansion. Every investment decision is not just about capital flow but also about a profound insight into the industry's prospects and support for innovative forces. From infrastructure construction to ecosystem expansion to the exploration of cutting-edge technologies, OKX Ventures is always strategically positioning itself around the industry's evolution over the next decade, aiming to provide a solid foundation and ample space for the widespread application and profound transformation of blockchain.

At the same time, the innovation of blockchain technology cannot solely rely on the driving force of the capital market; it depends more on visionary entrepreneurial spirit and the continuous exploration of technical teams. OKX Ventures' mission is to assist entrepreneurs who contribute value to the industry in building great companies, driving them to continuously achieve breakthroughs in technology, market, and operations. This support is not just for individual projects or teams but also lays the foundation for the future ecosystem of the entire industry.

OKX Ventures believes that the success of the blockchain industry lies not in the success of a single technology or platform but in constructing an inclusive, innovative, and self-evolving industry ecosystem. It is this profound industry understanding and future vision that enables us to remain forward-looking in the tide of this era's transformation, propelling the industry towards a more mature and sustainable future through continuous evolution.

II. Vision 2025: 14 Predictions, Insights into the Future

Vision 1: Global Blockchain Further Compliance, Industry Standardization

By 2025, the blockchain industry's regulatory environment will make significant progress, laying a solid foundation for the industry's healthy development. The number of licensed institutions will increase substantially, providing users with more secure and reliable services. OKX CEO Star pointed out that OKX has become the world's first cryptocurrency exchange platform to obtain a comprehensive operational license in the United Arab Emirates.

Custodial wallet services will undergo compliance innovation to address the conflict between self-custody and regulation. Star believes that OKX is launching a self-custodial wallet with compliance controls for retail users, including KYC transaction monitoring features. This innovation will not only enhance user experience but also meet increasingly stringent regulatory requirements, paving the way for new industry developments.

The macro regulatory environment will trend positively, creating favorable conditions for industry development. The UK government plans to hold consultations on stablecoin and cryptocurrency asset regulatory frameworks in early 2025, indicating that the global regulatory environment is evolving towards greater clarity and support. A nation's strategic Bitcoin reserve may also become a reality by 2025.

Institutional investor participation will significantly increase, with Bitcoin spot ETFs exceeding $114.97 billion as of December 17th, and MicroStrategy holding 439,000 Bitcoins at a total investment cost of approximately $27.1 billion. Traditional financial institutions are accelerating their entry into the crypto industry.

The fusion of technology and compliance will reach new heights, raising the industry's standards as a whole. Star predicts that by 2025, the compliance standards of many cryptocurrency companies will match or even surpass those of the traditional financial industry. OKX's three main business lines—OKX Exchange, OKX Web3, and OKX Simple—encompass a wide range of services from trading to decentralized applications. This comprehensive service model will become the industry standard, driving the application and popularization of blockchain technology in more sectors.

By 2025, the blockchain industry will present a more mature, standardized, and innovative outlook. As Star pointed out, decentralized finance is entering a new stage that will witness a deep integration of traditional finance and blockchain technology, bringing revolutionary changes to the global financial system.

Outlook 2: AI Agents Will Become Key Market Participants Engaged in Asset Creation, Asset Issuance, Asset Trading

With the rapid development of eXtra-Large Language Models (XLLMs) and eXtra-Large Multimodal Models (XLMMs), new AI Intelligent Agents will gradually become key market participants. According to research reports, the global AI Agent market is expected to reach $1.811 trillion by 2030, contributing around $16 trillion to the global GDP. The future of intelligent AI agents goes beyond being mere tools; they will become key players in the blockchain world with the ability to make autonomous decisions and take actions.

We anticipate seeing more innovative AI agent application scenarios by 2025. For example, agent-to-agent interaction will become a significant area, leveraging the transparency and composability of blockchain. We might witness agents sending funds to each other, co-issuing tokens, and even creating new social scenarios. Additionally, decentralized autonomous agent organizations (DAOs) could become a hotspot, where multi-agent systems collaborate to complete tasks, solve problems, and manage protocols.

AI Intelligent Agents possess high adaptability, clear goal-setting, and self-correcting capabilities, enabling them to make independent decisions in complex environments. In the future, these agents will have their digital wallets, actively create and distribute content, participate in asset trading to maximize returns, and automatically issue assets based on market demand. This transformation signifies that AI agents will play a more significant role in the market and social platforms. The emergence of AI intelligent agent frameworks like eliza, combined with agent platforms like Myshell, will drive this trend.

Lastly, we expect to see more innovations regarding AI Agent transaction intents and the next-generation user transaction interfaces. This may include using natural language for transactions or developing new transaction systems and tools designed specifically for AI agents. As these technologies advance, the concept of "wallet as a browser" may eventually come to fruition, fundamentally altering how users interact with blockchain and AI systems.

Outlook 3: Security Projects Aid in Addressing AI Security Challenges

The verifiability of blockchain can indeed be a key solution to addressing AI security challenges. With the rapid advancement of AI technology, cybersecurity issues are becoming more prominent, especially in areas like spoofing and deepfakes. Therefore, establishing a "human identity attestation" mechanism is crucial to ensure interactions between users and real individuals. 61% of organizations report an increase in deepfake attacks in the past year, with a projected 50% to 60% increase in the future. The complexity of AI security challenges mainly stems from two points: dynamic attack vectors and prompt injection vulnerabilities. The rapid iteration of AI models means that new vulnerabilities constantly emerge. For instance, different versions of a model may exhibit drastically different behaviors, leading to evolving attack vectors.

Blockchain projects can effectively address these challenges thanks to their decentralized and tamper-evident nature:

1. Data Tracking and Source Verification: Blockchain can record and trace data sources, ensure the authenticity of content generation through cryptographic signatures, combat AI-generated deepfakes and fake news, and uphold data transparency and traceability.

2. Protecting Training Data: Safeguarding the datasets necessary for training AI models to prevent tampering or attacks, thus ensuring data integrity and security while reducing single-point-of-failure risks.

3. Recording and Monitoring AI Model Usage: Preventing unauthorized misuse, securely sharing models or data on a platform without concerns of information leakage or tampering. Users can audit and validate AI behavior, thereby increasing trust.

OKX Ventures believes that more AI security projects may emerge in the blockchain space in the future to enhance user trust in AI systems.

Outlook 4: AI Penetrates Existing Track Projects, Changing Industry Paradigms

By 2025, the deep application of AI technology will significantly transform various industries, including gaming, NFTs, DeFi, and social media.

The gaming industry may be the most impacted by AI. It is projected that by 2025, global AI spending in gaming will reach around $1.1 billion, indicating the industry's emphasis on AI potential. This includes:

1) Generative Design: Algorithmically generating game content to enhance development efficiency.

2) Personalized Experiences: AI analyzing player behavior to provide tailored game recommendations and challenges.

3) Enhanced Interactivity: Intelligent NPCs becoming more realistic to enhance gaming immersion.

4) Smarter AI agents improving how players interact with the game, alleviating the players' experiential burden;

Social projects have also seen many innovations, where AI plays a crucial role in content generation, community interaction, and driving innovation in tokenization and decentralized economic models. In 2024, on platforms like Farcaster, AI agents like Clanker and Larry introduced new asset issuance models, showcasing community engagement and economic potential, with Clanker's market cap surpassing $1 billion, and LUM reaching $70 million. In the future, AI will:

1) Achieve Social Monetization: Users can earn crypto rewards through content creation and interaction.

2) Build Community Economy: Leveraging blockchain technology, users can directly participate in platform governance and revenue distribution.

3) Enhance Security: Protect user privacy through decentralized identity verification.

DeFi benefits from the efficiency improvement and interaction mode transformation brought by AI.

1) AI agents will become important participants in the DeFi ecosystem, where these autonomous software entities can automatically execute complex transaction tasks, optimize investment strategies, and monitor market dynamics in real time.

2) AI-driven investment platforms and trading tools can also reduce user participation barriers, integrate DeFi protocols across multiple chains, provide users with automated liquidity investment strategies, lower the barrier for user participation in DeFi, and enhance asset management efficiency.

3) AI-assisted security will play a key role in smart contract vulnerability detection and optimization. Through deep learning and pattern recognition, AI can establish a baseline of normal transaction behavior and issue alerts upon detecting abnormal behavior, thereby enhancing the security of DeFi platforms. It is estimated that by 2025, decentralized exchanges (DEXs) will achieve a trading volume of $4 trillion, the total value locked (TVL) will exceed $200 billion, and OKX Ventures believes there may be over 1 million AI agents active on-chain, further driving the development of the DeFi ecosystem.

OKX Ventures predicts that 2025 will be a year of deep integration of AI across various industries. With technological advancement and infrastructure maturation, these fields will see new opportunities and challenges, providing users with a richer and more secure experience.

Insight 5: Blockchain Enhancing AI Element Matching Efficiency

Blockchain technology is enhancing the matching efficiency of AI elements across multiple dimensions, mainly including: data elements, computing power elements, model elements, and funding elements. Taking the data market as an example, AI's demand for data is growing at a rate far behind the supply. ChatGPT was trained using 300 billion words, while the latest model DBRX uses 1.2 trillion data points. The demand of AI training for publicly available human text data may exceed the total existing stock as early as 2026.

OKX Ventures is optimistic about better matching of data element resources and has invested in projects such as Space and Time, Privasea, 0G, and CARV. Space and Time provide a decentralized data warehouse, efficient indexing and querying of on-chain and off-chain data. Privasea conducts AI computing analysis through FHE encryption to protect privacy. CARV offers a modular data layer, providing AI with high-quality user profiles and behavioral data. 0G can also significantly enhance the capability of processing AI-era data for blockchain. These projects all enhance the efficiency of AI data acquisition, processing, and utilization.

In other fields, companies like io.net in the computing power sector can optimize the allocation of massive distributed computing resources required for AI. The AI chip market is expected to maintain robust growth. By 2023, data center AI chip sales will reach $154 billion, with further growth of 41% expected in 2025-2026. Edge computing AI will become a significant trend, supporting faster data processing and better privacy protection.

OKX Ventures is optimistic that more outstanding AI startup projects will enhance the efficiency of AI elements at multiple levels such as data sharing, computing power allocation, and model collaboration, providing strong support for the further development of AI. This synergy effect will drive breakthrough applications of AI in more fields, bringing profound impacts to various industries.

Outlook 6: Babylon and BTC Layer 2 Welcome BTC's DeFi Summer

Looking ahead to 2025, the Bitcoin ecosystem TVL and DeFi activity will experience breakthroughs. As of October 2024, Babylon has locked over 57,288 Bitcoins worth a total of $60 billion. Babylon, as a leading project in the BTC ecosystem, has become a key bridge connecting Bitcoin and various PoS chains. Projects like SatLayer and Lombard, as part of the Babylon ecosystem, will further unleash Bitcoin's potential through smart contract deployment. Projects such as Bitlayer, Merlin, Bsquared Network, and Arch Network are exploring innovative scaling solutions to provide stronger infrastructure support for Bitcoin DeFi.

Meanwhile, technologies like UTXO Stack are dedicated to enhancing Bitcoin's smart contract functionality. These innovations will significantly increase transaction throughput, reduce fees, and pave the way for building more complex DeFi applications.

The Bitcoin DeFi field will see a more diverse range of application scenarios. Projects like BounceBit, Corn, and Merlin are developing on-chain lending and innovative liquidity provision mechanisms. Platforms like Solv Protocol and Bedrock will offer Bitcoin hodlers more diverse revenue-generating opportunities. Zeus and Lombard are exploring how to more deeply integrate Bitcoin's value into the DeFi ecosystem. It is anticipated that by 2025, the trading volume of Bitcoin DEX could exceed $4 trillion, accounting for 20% of centralized exchange spot trading volume.

Improving user experience will be another focus. Wallet projects like Unisat are committed to simplifying users' interaction with Bitcoin DeFi. Projects like Arch Network and SatLayer are developing innovative cross-chain solutions to enhance interoperability, allowing users to more easily transfer and utilize assets across different blockchain ecosystems.

Overall, the Bitcoin ecosystem in 2025 will take on a more diverse and interconnected appearance. Innovations from infrastructure to the application layer will drive Bitcoin's transformation from a mere store of value to a comprehensive financial infrastructure, offering users a richer and more efficient range of financial service options.

Outlook 7: Diversification and Deep Development of Bitcoin Native Innovations

On the technical front, the extension of Bitcoin's script language is a key direction. In addition to the widely-watched OP_CAT, Bitcoin Core developers are actively exploring the introduction of new opcodes such as OP_GROUP, OP_CHECKTEMPLATEVERIFY (CTV), and OP_TLUV. These new opcodes will significantly enhance Bitcoin's programmability, laying the foundation for more complex smart contracts and applications. For example, OP_GROUP may allow the creation of alternative tokens on the Bitcoin network, while CTV is expected to enable covenant transactions, significantly improving transaction efficiency.

The Lightning Network, as Bitcoin's second-layer scaling solution, is expected to undergo significant upgrades in 2025. The introduction of channel factories may allow for the batch creation of payment channels, greatly reducing the opening costs. Improvements to the bidirectional funding mechanism will increase channel fund utilization efficiency. Additionally, the integration of Taproot assets is expected to achieve more private and efficient asset transfers, further expanding the applications of the Lightning Network.

Enhancing privacy is another important direction the Bitcoin community has been actively researching. Improving transaction privacy without sacrificing auditability is key to future development. Technologies like Confidential Transactions may be introduced to hide transaction amounts, while optimizations to CoinJoin mixing technology will further enhance transaction anonymity. Meanwhile, zero-knowledge proof technologies such as zk-SNARKs are also actively being explored for application on Bitcoin, which could bring revolutionary privacy protection capabilities to Bitcoin.

At the application layer, the Bitcoin network is driving diverse innovations across decentralized social networks, gaming and metaverse, open science, and other fields. These applications integrate technologies such as microtransactions, decentralized identity, content attestation, Ordinals, the RGB protocol, and more, bringing new business models to the social media and gaming industries. Through transparent fund management, data integrity protection, and decentralized evaluation mechanisms, they enhance the transparency and credibility of scientific research. These diversified applications showcase Bitcoin's enormous potential as a decentralized infrastructure, far beyond the traditional financial realm, laying a solid foundation for the future of the digital world.

Outlook 8: Ethereum Ecosystem Technology and Ecosystem Dual Breakthrough

By 2025, the Ethereum ecosystem is expected to undergo significant development, with significant breakthroughs at both the technological and ecosystem levels. In terms of scalability, the number of L2 and L3 solutions is expected to exceed 2,000, enabling Ethereum to truly achieve a 200x scalability. Following the Pectra upgrade, the increase in blob capacity will further reduce the cost of rollups, driving daily transaction volume beyond 100 million. These improvements will provide the Ethereum network with greater processing power to support a large number of users.

The popularization of account abstraction technology will also be a significant advancement. The implementation of EIP-3074 and EIP-7702 will result in over 25% of on-chain transactions using account abstraction, allowing users to pay gas fees with any token. With the implementation of EIP-5003 for complete account abstraction, the interaction between users and smart contracts will change, enhancing the usability of Web3 applications. This shift will make it easier for ordinary users to participate in the Ethereum ecosystem, driving the mass adoption of decentralized applications.

In terms of staking mechanism optimization, EIP-7251 will allow validators to stake more than 32 ETH to earn additional rewards. Additionally, permissionless staking pools will be implemented through EIP-6110 and EIP-7002, potentially pushing the total Ethereum staking amount beyond 30 million ETH, with an annualized return stabilizing between 3% and 4%. This mechanism not only enhances network security but also attracts more users to participate in staking.

Zero-knowledge proof technology will see widespread use in the Ethereum ecosystem. The universal zkVM can generate block proofs in 30 seconds and will be integrated into mainstream L2 networks, supporting privacy computation functions and realizing "privacy as a service." These technologies enhance privacy protection while staying in sync with the Ethereum mainnet's security, offering users more choices.

In terms of network efficiency, through the Verkle Trees in the Amsterdam upgrade, EOF optimization, and PeerDAS improvements, the burden on Ethereum validators' storage will decrease, and EVM execution efficiency will increase. Network throughput is expected to increase by more than 10 times. These technological updates will significantly enhance Ethereum's performance, supporting the development of future modular blockchain architectures.

Ecosystem integration will also be a key focus in 2025. The native interoperable ZK stack will become the standard for new rollups, and efficient validity proof clusters will gradually form. Measures such as EIP-7623 to increase calldata costs and EIP-7639 to halt the service of specific historical data will optimize network resource allocation. These improvements lay the foundation for a modular blockchain network and drive Ethereum's transition from technology-driven to application-driven.

The Beam Chain upgrade will bring a significant change to the Ethereum consensus layer, including reducing the block production time to 4 seconds, lowering the staking threshold to 1 ETH, and introducing zero-knowledge proof technology. These changes not only improve the network's performance but also enhance its level of decentralization, providing more possibilities for future development.

Outlook 9: RWA and Ethereum's RWA Perspective

The Ethereum ecosystem is undergoing a new leap forward, where the improvement of network performance, technological innovation, and ecosystem expansion align with the explosion of the RWA market. This synergy is propelling Ethereum to a new height. With an increasing number of real-world assets tokenized and moved onto the blockchain, Ethereum has not only solidified its position as a leader in decentralized applications and smart contract platforms but has also played a key role in connecting traditional finance with decentralized finance. By the end of 2024, the total market value of on-chain tokenized assets had exceeded $14 billion, with Ethereum occupying nearly 80% of the market share, serving as a core driving force behind the development in this area.

The rise of tokenized assets. Traditional financial giants such as BlackRock, Franklin Templeton, and UBS are accelerating their embrace of tokenized financial assets, with Ethereum being the institutional preferred underlying infrastructure platform due to its mature technical architecture, security, decentralization, and stability. The tokenized sovereign debt market has become a core part of the on-chain DeFi ecosystem, with a lock-up volume exceeding $3 billion, accounting for 21.38% of the RWA market total value. This market is providing DeFi with low-risk, highly liquid collateral, driving the rapid development of decentralized lending and derivatives markets.

Through smart contract platforms and a distributed validator network, Ethereum has provided a secure, efficient, and transparent migration path for traditional financial assets. Tokenized assets can achieve faster and lower-cost transactions and settlements on-chain, significantly enhancing the operational efficiency of the financial markets. As Ethereum's infrastructure continues to upgrade, network transaction costs are further decreasing, providing stronger support for RWA applications.

The impact of Ethereum's economic model. The expansion of RWA is not only the expansion of the ecosystem scale but also injects new momentum into Ethereum's economic model. On-chain activities and transaction fees will become a significant source of future Ethereum revenue. According to market data projections, the fees related to RWA activities are expected to generate over $100 billion annually, a figure that is 40 times the current annual Ethereum revenue, significantly enhancing ETH's value-capture capability and becoming a crucial pillar of the Ethereum economic system.

Data as of the end of 2024 shows that the TVL of RWA grew by 25% year-on-year, reaching $8.4 billion, with Ethereum contributing $1.7 billion in a single month, marking the highest monthly growth rate of the year. Stablecoins play a significant role in this trend, with a total market value exceeding $200 billion, and synthetic dollar-type stablecoins showing particularly significant growth, with a monthly growth rate of up to 60%, reaching a TVL of $16.2 billion, accounting for 52% of the overall RWA market. Innovative stablecoins such as Ethena and Usual that are deeply integrated with RWA not only drive innovation in on-chain lending and liquidity markets but also further strengthen Ethereum's dominance in high-value transactions.

Driving Forces of Policy and Market. Further clarification of regulations will provide strong support for the rapid expansion of RWAs. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is expected to take a more crypto-friendly stance in 2025. Additionally, regions such as Singapore and Europe are actively advancing regulatory frameworks for tokenized financial assets, injecting more compliance and transparency into the market, and removing barriers for institutional capital to enter the RWA field. This policy shift will attract more institutional participation in the Ethereum ecosystem, driving explosive growth in on-chain assets and transaction volume.

Outlook 10: Solana's Continued Leadership

Solana is consolidating its leading position in the high-performance public blockchain field based on its technological advantages. By upgrading its Gulf Stream parallel processing technology, its TPS is expected to surpass the 100,000 mark in 2025. At the same time, the application of state compression technology reduces the hardware threshold for validator nodes, reducing the cost burden by 30%.

The activity in the Solana ecosystem reached a new peak in 2024 with an on-chain daily transaction volume of nearly $200 million, approximately 250 million active wallets, and a record high of 8.8 million daily active addresses. Its unique state rent mechanism and validator vote fees have brought value support to the SOL token beyond transaction fees, with a weekly fee income of $36.8 million, a 62% increase year-on-year. Jito, with its MEV activities, contributed over 55% of fee income, further driving the growth of the Solana ecosystem.

Solana's developer ecosystem performance is remarkable, with a monthly active developer count of 2,500-3,000, and a developer retention rate increasing from 31% to over 50% in three months. Over half of the developers have at least 3 years of blockchain development experience, ensuring higher-quality application outputs in the ecosystem. Leading protocols such as Jupiter and Raydium are expected to exceed $20 billion in TVL in 2025, accounting for over 35% of the total DEX trading volume.

Solana is gradually being seen as a chip in the AI-driven casino, and its application scenarios combined with Agent may deepen further, especially in speculative trading, DeFi, and innovation in more dApps, becoming a core driver of user growth and technical applications.

Outlook 11: The Rise and Diversification of Move-based Public Blockchains

Representative public blockchains of the Move language, such as Sui and Aptos, will achieve significant breakthroughs in 2025. Sui, with its unique parallel execution engine and object-level ownership model, demonstrates clear advantages in gaming, social, and particularly financial application scenarios. By the fourth quarter of 2024, Sui's TVL surpassed $2 billion, showing a 2700% growth since the beginning of the year, ranking eighth in blockchain network TVL. With nearly 8 billion on-chain transactions and 68 million total accounts, it exhibits strong ecosystem activity primarily driven by protocols such as Navi Protocol and Cetus. With Circle introducing native USDC and an injection of over $400 million stablecoins, Sui's liquidity has significantly increased. Sui's zkLogin feature lowers the entry barrier for Web3 users, allowing users to log into dApps with network credentials like Google or Facebook, presenting great potential in DeFi and blockchain gaming. Simultaneously, the release of the SuiPlay 0x1 game console expands into the hardware field, supporting on-chain games and compatibility with traditional gaming platforms (such as Steam, Epic Games Store), attracting more traditional gamers into Web3.

Aptos has built a complete ecosystem in the DeFi space with its improved version of the Move virtual machine and LayerZero cross-chain infrastructure, expecting to surpass 1 million daily active users. Aptos experienced explosive growth in 2024, with TVL increasing 19x year-over-year to nearly $2 billion. The on-chain stablecoin ecosystem continued to expand, including the deployment of native USDT and USDC, further enhancing liquidity. Additionally, Aptos gained widespread recognition from institutional investors, with BlackRock's BUIDL and Franklin FOBXX deploying on the Aptos chain. Even a bank in Spain allocated 2% of its fund to the Bitwise Aptos Staking ETP listed on the Swiss SIX. In terms of the developer ecosystem, Aptos saw a 96% year-over-year increase in the number of developers and 3000 on-chain contract deployments, showcasing the vitality of the ecosystem.

The native tokens of the two major blockchains are expected to enter the global top ten in market capitalization, with the Total Value Locked (TVL) projected to reach over five times the current scale.

Outlook 12: Emerging Public Chains, Monad and Berachain Bring Hope

As a representative of the next-generation parallel EVM, Monad is rapidly rising, with its ecosystem development and technological innovation gaining significant attention. During the Devnet stage, Monad achieved over 10,000 TPS in real performance testing, with a block time of only 1 second and single-slot finality, fully demonstrating the potential of its efficient architecture. Monad's core optimizations include the MonadBFT consensus mechanism, optimistic parallel execution, asynchronous execution (delayed execution), and MonadDB database optimized for EVM storage mode. These technological breakthroughs have not only greatly increased throughput and transaction speed but also significantly reduced network costs. In addition, integration with cross-chain protocols such as LayerZero and Wormhole has enhanced cross-chain interoperability, further enriching its ecosystem.

The recently established Monad Foundation focuses on decentralized governance and ecosystem development, promoting a validator-led governance model and supporting community-driven improvement proposals. The Foundation also provides detailed documentation, technical resources, and market support for developers to drive dApp development and ecosystem collaboration. Nearly 100 independent protocols and dApps have committed to building on Monad, with the ecosystem expected to double in size upon mainnet launch.

Berachain is rapidly rising, with its ecosystem attracting commitments from over 270 projects, mostly consumer applications covering DeFi, GameFi, social, and DePIN, showcasing diversity and vitality. During the testnet phase (B2), Berachain processed over 14 million transactions, with active addresses surpassing 600,000 and unique addresses reaching 1 million. Its core innovation lies in the unique Proof of Liquidity (PoL) consensus mechanism, significantly boosting TVL through liquidity staking and providing strong growth incentives for ecosystem projects.

Berachain's modular design further enhances scalability, supports chain abstraction, and integrates with infrastructure such as the Particle Network to provide developers with flexibility and efficient tools. Additionally, its economic model deeply integrates the interests of users, developers, and validators through a staking mechanism and built-in incentives, ensuring the ecosystem's sustainable development.

By 2025, the Layer1 market will form a multi-tiered competitive landscape. Ethereum will continue to dominate the market cap rankings, while the market share of next-generation public chains like Solana, Sui, and Aptos will continue to grow. Emerging public chains such as Monad and Berachain will inject new vitality into the industry through technological innovation and unique ecosystems, bringing more possibilities.

Forward 13: The Demonstrative Effect of TON and Kaia Will Bring More Internet Companies

The success paths of TON and Kaia represent the core models of the next-generation Web3 applications: "user-traffic-centric super-financial innovation" and "seamless integration of Web2.5 experience." Leveraging Telegram's global user base of 9 billion, TON achieved seamless migration of on-chain functionality through its mini-app ecosystem and TON Space wallet, becoming a representative of blockchain scalable applications. In 2024, TON's market cap surpassed $250 billion, on-chain transaction volume reached $3 billion per day, active wallets exceeded 36 million, and even daily active addresses briefly surpassed Ethereum, paving the way for large-scale adoption of on-chain services. TON's mini-apps are driving geometric growth in user engagement, while laying the foundation for a wider range of Web3 applications through support for stablecoins and cross-chain payment mechanisms.

Kaia, as a blockchain platform launched through the deep integration of Kakao and Line, quickly attracted users and developers by deepening the mobile super-app ecosystem in the Asian market. Kaia has over 30 million independent wallet addresses, processed over 1.3 billion transactions, and reached a peak on-chain daily transaction volume in the tens of millions of dollars. Its ecosystem integrates DeFi, NFTs, payments, and AI services, with over 420 dApps and active users reaching 7 million. Kaia's on-chain DEX Swap transaction volume has surpassed $400 million and is introducing more DeFi infrastructure to enhance liquidity support.

The success of TON and Kaia not only demonstrates the potential of Web3 applications to rapidly expand from social platforms to financial and practical use cases but also showcases how, under the Web2.5 logic, projects worth billions of dollars can be incubated through existing traffic platforms. The mini-app model not only effectively lowers the entry barrier for Web3 but also drives high-frequency on-chain transactions and diversified scenarios through the traffic advantages of super-apps. We predict that such ecosystems relying on a large user base and traffic conversion capabilities will give rise to more projects worth billions of dollars in the future—from on-chain payments, decentralized e-commerce to asset management and RWAs (Real-World Assets). New application innovations combined with liquidity will become the next growth engine.

Outlook 14: Decentralized Science (DeSci): Reshaping the Research Economy

For a long time, the traditional research system has faced challenges such as centralized resource allocation, opaque data, and inhibited innovation. Decentralized Science (DeSci) has reshaped research funding, collaboration, and intellectual property management through blockchain technology and tokenization mechanisms, injecting new vitality into the research economy.

The core innovation of DeSci lies in fund distribution and intellectual property management. IP-NFTs not only provide legal protection for research outcomes but also allow researchers, communities, and investors to participate in funding and benefit sharing. For example, Molecule has distributed $2 million through an IP-NFT protocol to support multiple biomedical research projects, with its ecosystem's TVL reaching $30 million and continuing to grow.

In the medical data field, DeSci projects have also shown significant potential. AminoChain raised $5 million to develop a decentralized biological sample market, helping patients control data usage rights and benefit from them while reducing sample acquisition costs for research institutions. Similarly, GenomesDAO leverages a decentralized genomic database to provide solutions for personalized healthcare and data privacy.

In research publishing, ResearchHub has completed 2800 peer reviews with token rewards, reducing the average turnaround time to 9 days, far better than the traditional journals' 70-98 days, significantly improving research transparency and efficiency.

Furthermore, research DAOs like VitaDAO achieve community-driven research funding through governance tokens, reducing intermediaries and minimizing fund waste. With the gradual clarification of the policy environment and increased institutional participation, it is expected that the scale of on-chain research funding will further expand, driving the further development of intellectual property commercialization, open publishing, and medical data management.

The rise of Decentralized Science is driving scientific research from closed to open, from centralized to democratic. DeSci's transparent mechanisms, efficient collaboration, and data sharing models will have a profound impact on global research innovation.

A Note on OKX Ventures

OKX Ventures firmly embraces the future of decentralized development, far beyond mere financial returns. In our view, decentralization is not just a direction for technological innovation; it is a force that disrupts the traditional order, reshaping industry structures, embodying a profound reflection on individual freedom, value distribution, and social structures. We deeply understand that the true driving force behind decentralized development is not merely financial support but rather through comprehensive resource empowerment, strategic partnerships, and the promotion of technological innovation to truly implement the decentralization concept. OKX Ventures is forward-looking, always making decentralized innovation the core of our investment philosophy, rather than pursuing short-term financial gains.

We are not traditional financial investors. We are not just funders, but also service providers, resource providers, and partners who empower entrepreneurs. In this regard, OKX Ventures is committed to being a long-term supporter and driver of projects, accompanying every entrepreneurial partner through every step of growth. We are dedicated not only to discovering excellent teams, products, and technologies but, more importantly, to helping these innovative projects establish a solid presence in the market and truly unleash their potential through resource integration and deep empowerment.

At the same time, OKX Ventures also plays a connector role, serving as a key link between projects and the OKX Group. Through deep collaboration with the OKX ecosystem, OKX Ventures provides projects with a multidimensional support platform, including OKX Web3 Wallet, NFT Marketplace, XLayer, and more, helping projects strategically in various aspects such as technology, market, users, and ecosystem. Leveraging OKX's years of accumulation and deep cultivation in the industry, OKX Ventures offers platform resources and industry chain support for the rapid development of blockchain projects, helping them stand out in fierce competition.

Our focus is on the intrinsic development of the industry itself, rather than short-term market fluctuations. What OKX Ventures values more is genuine innovation in the industry—not just theoretical breakthroughs but also new applications with operability, visible user inflow, and steady growth in the industry's scale. We believe that with the maturity of blockchain technology and the continuous expansion of application scenarios, the decentralized industry will usher in a profound dividend period in the next 3 to 5 years, bringing huge market opportunities. OKX Ventures will continue to stand at the forefront of this trend, leveraging deep industry insights, strong resource advantages, and long-term strategic vision to support industry innovation and drive the widespread application and profound impact of blockchain technology globally.

Disclaimer

This article is for reference only, representing the author's views and not the official position of OKX. This article is not intended to provide (i) trading advice or recommendations; (ii) an offer or solicitation to buy, sell, or hold digital assets; (iii) financial, accounting, legal, or tax advice. We do not guarantee the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of such information. Holding digital assets (including stablecoins and NFTs) involves high risks and may experience significant volatility. You should carefully consider whether trading or holding digital assets is suitable for your financial situation. For your specific circumstances, please consult your legal/tax/trading professionals. It is your responsibility to understand and comply with relevant local laws and regulations.

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