Author: OKX Ventures, Bixin Ventures, ABCDE Capital, Foresight Ventures, BTX Capital

Compiled by: Scof, ChainCatcher

Editor's Note:

At the beginning of the new year, the global investment environment continues to change, with various emerging technologies and market trends constantly emerging. In this context, how investors formulate long-term strategies and how they assess and select investment projects have become widely discussed topics both within and outside the Crypto industry.

In response, RootData, in collaboration with ChainCatcher, hosted this interview, inviting several representative investment institutions, including OKX Ventures, Bixin Ventures, and ABCDE Capital, to engage in an in-depth discussion on investment trends and recommendations for 2025.

What are the investment strategies and promising sectors for 2025? What is the logic behind them?

OKX Ventures:

OKX Ventures will focus on promoting the deep integration of AI, RWA, stablecoins, and emerging DeFi in 2025. As blockchain technology matures, regulatory frameworks become clearer, and the global economy accelerates its digital transformation, these areas will play a core role in driving industry innovation and progress.

We will support breakthroughs in both Ethereum technology and ecosystem while continuing to pay attention to multi-chain ecosystems, including Bitcoin, Solana, Sui, as well as emerging public chains Monad and Berachain, aiming to bring more choices and possibilities to blockchain infrastructure and application scenarios.

Specifically, we believe that:

• The application of AI in blockchain will break traditional boundaries and become a core driving force for innovation across various industries, especially in the integration of smart contracts, decentralized applications, and AI agents.
• RWA will lead the diversification and compliance of blockchain assets, promoting the digitization of traditional assets and their circulation in DeFi and other blockchain application scenarios. As the infrastructure of blockchain finance, the decentralization, cross-chain compatibility, and compliance of stablecoins will determine the stability and liquidity of future blockchain finance.
• In the DeFi sector, we will focus on new liquidity models, modular architectures, and more efficient cross-chain and user experience (UX) solutions to provide better services for global financial users.

For more predictions and investment strategies for 2025, you can check our published "OKX Ventures Annual Report: 60+ Project Layouts and 14 Major Trends Outlook."

AI Redefining the Internet Economic Structure

The combination of AI and blockchain is redefining the economic structure of the traditional internet. The traditional model relies on a few internet giants controlling demand and content creators' income through advertising or other means, while AI breaks this pattern. AI tools can now generate and summarize content, and users no longer need to click links to access content providers, undermining the economic model of content creators.

However, AI itself cannot independently participate in market exchanges and lacks the ability to operate and manage resources autonomously. Blockchain can provide AI with decentralized transaction and data management mechanisms, especially in building AI Agents, where blockchain offers the infrastructure for self-management. For example, AI agents can conduct transactions through crypto wallets, becoming independent market participants, thus promoting the role of AI in DeFi and other distributed networks, with over 80% of DeFi transactions potentially completed by AI Agents in the future.

The global AI agent market is expected to reach $1.81 trillion by 2030, contributing approximately $16 trillion to global GDP. The autonomy of AI Agents is an important direction in current technological development. Traditional AI exists more as an auxiliary tool, but with technological advancements, AI is gradually transitioning to an "agent" role, possessing more autonomous decision-making and action capabilities. For instance, decentralized AI chatbots will establish their fan base through decentralized social media, generate revenue, and manage their assets with cryptocurrency. Furthermore, these AI agents can become truly independent business entities, creating unprecedented value.

As technology matures, AI agents will also be able to better manage infrastructure networks like DePIN. The underlying technological support is Trusted Execution Environment (TEE), which allows AI to operate independently without human intervention. These agents coordinate through consensus protocols of decentralized nodes, ensuring that their activities and revenues are transparent and decentralized. The impact of AI technology on software development is also noteworthy. As AI agents can efficiently generate code and automate deployment, the cost of software development will significantly decrease. This change will accelerate the innovation and popularization of blockchain applications, allowing more small projects to start at lower costs and rapidly iterate and optimize.

AI infrastructure and frameworks for interactions between multiple agents are worth long-term tracking and attention. As AI agents become increasingly independent, ensuring the compliance and autonomy of their behavior will be key indicators of their success. Current investment opportunities in this sector mainly focus on the following aspects:

1. Automation of DeFi and AI Integration

The current market size of DeFAI is approximately $1 billion, which has significant growth potential compared to DeFi's $150 billion. AI will enhance the efficiency of the DeFi market through smart contracts and automated trading strategies. Areas such as automated trading, risk management, and liquidity allocation will become important directions in 2025. AI will enhance trading algorithms on DeFi platforms, helping them provide more accurate risk predictions and capital flow management.

AI will provide intelligent decision support for trading platforms such as DEX and derivatives by analyzing market dynamics, social media, and on-chain data. By real-time analysis of market sentiment, capital flow, open interest, trading volume, and other data, it will offer automated decentralized trading assistance to traders. Additionally, AI will transform wallets from mere asset storage tools into intelligent, personalized trading entities. It can automatically optimize trading routes, manage cross-chain bridging, reduce fees, and monitor risks in real-time to prevent users from encountering potential scams and bad projects. For example:

• Automated Trading of Smart Contracts: AI will analyze data such as funding rates and market volatility to adjust trading strategies in real-time, further enhancing market liquidity and trading efficiency.
• Risk Management Systems: By automating the management of trading risks and users' margin levels, DeFi platforms can maintain stability even during large-scale trading and volatility. It will provide users with data analysis and suggestions before and after trading, helping them make more informed decisions in complex markets and improve trading skills.
• Agent to Agent Payments: Future AI wallets and decentralized applications will be able to operate across chains, optimizing cross-chain transactions, asset management, and risk control, making payment experiences smoother for users and enterprises. As stablecoin regulations gradually loosen, "interoperable payments" by AI agents will become a norm.

1. Decentralized AI Economy, Coordination, and Governance

As the PMF of agents gradually finds its footing, multi-agent swarm intelligence and collaboration layers will gain more attention, promoting collaboration among more agents and forming an agent-agent economy. As more AI agents enter the decentralized economic system, how to coordinate interactions among agents and establish effective market mechanisms will be important focal points for future development.

• Decentralized AI Governance Models: AI will support DAOs in proposal and voting management through real-time data analysis, making decision-making more intelligent and considering more variables. In the future, AI may become the governing entity of DAOs, providing data-driven decisions and gradually replacing traditional voting mechanisms, pushing DAOs towards AI-centered autonomous organizations.
• Training and Inference Experiments: With advancements in technologies like model distillation, AI training platforms will achieve decentralized data sharing and model training and inference through blockchain. Through improvements in coordination and incentive mechanisms, community members can jointly contribute data and computing resources, promoting efficient and accessible AI models to run on edge devices and mobile platforms, further enhancing productivity.

From the user's perspective, as these agents become more autonomous, they will ultimately form an agent-dominated workflow capable of automatically handling tasks, significantly enhancing productivity. Agents will begin to use each other's services, creating the desired outcomes for users through these services and interactions, thus solving the fragmentation issue among AI agents.

3. Reverse Challenges and Risk Management

AI Agents will be active in protocol governance, facing risks such as smart contract vulnerabilities, malicious attacks, and technical errors, and may experience the first AI-driven governance attacks. Deepfake attacks have increased over the past year and are expected to rise by 50% to 60% in the future, with security-focused AI agents finding PMF, and Trusted Execution Environments (TEE) potentially growing exponentially:

• Smart Contract Security: AI-driven static analysis tools will automate the identification of potential vulnerabilities in smart contracts, especially in code like Solidity or Rust, improving developers' efficiency in fixing issues.
• Defensive AI: AI can not only detect attacks but also enhance defense capabilities through real-time red team testing and vulnerability remediation, promoting the secure operation of decentralized projects and protocols.
• Smart Authentication/DID: AI will provide intelligent authentication services by analyzing multidimensional user data, ensuring effective protection of user privacy in decentralized environments and addressing the "Proof of Humanity" (PoH/PoP) issue.
• Privacy Computing and Data: Unique data sources will become scarce resources, leading to explosive growth in data markets. AI will enhance the efficiency of privacy computing, particularly in encrypted computing and zero-knowledge proof technologies, ensuring data privacy while providing efficient computation and data analysis.

RWA, Stablecoins, and New DeFi

By the end of 2024, the total market value of on-chain tokenized assets has surpassed $14 billion, with Ethereum accounting for nearly 80% of the market share, becoming the core driving force behind the development of this field. RWA has already accounted for over 20% of Ethereum assets (mainly high-credit-rated debt instruments such as U.S. Treasury bonds). As macroeconomic policies and regulatory frameworks become standardized, more traditional financial assets are being transferred on-chain, bringing higher yields and further promoting the maturity of DeFi.

The on-chainization of RWA is a key strategic direction. Large asset management companies have realized that on-chain asset transfer can achieve lower issuance and maintenance costs while increasing asset accessibility. As more traditional assets enter the blockchain, DeFi protocols are expected to gradually replace existing financial infrastructure, forming a new decentralized financial system.

The on-chainization of traditional financial assets will lead to "capital outflow." For a long time, DeFi has primarily relied on the cyclical flow of endogenous capital, such as on-chain lending through platforms like Maker and Aave or trading on DEXs. However, most of this capital comes from crypto-native assets, which exhibit strong reflexivity (i.e., capital quickly flows in and out when the market rises or falls).

The on-chain activities related to RWA are expected to generate fees exceeding $100 billion annually. The inclusion of RWA brings external capital from traditional financial markets to DeFi, and this capital injection can not only enhance the liquidity and stability of DeFi but also support its diversification. Especially in areas like lending, trading, and asset management, the on-chainization of traditional assets can significantly reduce market volatility and improve the predictability and stability of financial products, thereby attracting more institutional investors. The tokenized government bond market has become a core component of the on-chain DeFi ecosystem, with a locked value exceeding $3 billion, accounting for 21.38% of the total RWA market value. We particularly focus on the diversified applications of RWA, including stablecoins in DeFi, providing stable liquidity and risk management tools for tokenized RWA:

1. The Role of Stablecoins in Payments and Settlements

Stablecoins in the DeFi ecosystem are no longer merely value storage tools; their role has gradually expanded to the core aspects of payments and settlements. As the global financial system transitions to digitalization, traditional financial service providers and payment platforms are actively embracing blockchain technology. Stablecoins, as cross-chain payment tools, have become an indispensable part of the global payment system due to their programmability, low transaction costs, and high liquidity. OKX Ventures focuses on the following dimensions:

• Network Distribution and Penetration: The value of stablecoins lies in their wide range of use cases and cross-industry ecological penetration. The participation of merchants and users directly affects the liquidity and market demand for stablecoins. Therefore, we particularly value projects that can achieve large-scale applications and cross-industry collaborations, such as stablecoin solutions supporting cross-border payments and supply chain finance. We not only look at industry leaders like Circle and Tether but also pay attention to how emerging projects can expand their market share through innovative network distribution mechanisms and accelerate their implementation in emerging markets.
• Compliance and Infrastructure Development: As financial regulatory frameworks in various countries gradually improve, compliance has become a key factor in the sustainable growth of stablecoins. We focus on stablecoin projects that can operate under the legal frameworks of multiple countries and conduct in-depth assessments of their investments in compliance infrastructure. Additionally, platforms that provide comprehensive cross-chain payment support and compliant "stablecoin as a service" may become core components of future financial network infrastructure.
• Innovative Applications of Stablecoins: The applications of stablecoins are not limited to traditional payment areas; they also show great potential in lending, derivatives trading, and cross-border remittances. We pay special attention to projects that can bring market transformation through innovative applications in niche markets, especially in emerging economies and undeveloped markets.

1. RWA and DeFi Platformization

Protocols like Uniswap and Morpho are gradually evolving from single-protocol services to platformization, enabling stablecoins and other assets to flow efficiently and further promoting the scaling of DeFi. DeFi protocols can provide more flexible liquidity and customized financial products, offering more innovation space for DeFi application developers and creating more opportunities for the issuance and application of RWA assets, including stablecoins. Here are several key trends and opportunities:

• Cross-Chain and Asset Integration: DeFi protocols that support the cross-chain flow and integration of RWA are becoming important players in the market. New protocols are achieving smarter risk management through the introduction of AI technology, including automated risk assessment, asset repricing, and dynamic adjustment of lending rates, thereby ensuring market liquidity and asset security. Meanwhile, AI agents will become core roles in multi-chain verification networks, aiding the popularization and efficiency enhancement of DeFi.
• BTCFi: With Bitcoin reaching new highs, institutional and regulatory interest in it is deepening, creating opportunities for new breakthroughs in Bitcoin's DeFi applications. The penetration rate of Bitcoin in DeFi is only 3% of its total asset value, with the potential for a hundredfold increase in the future. There is strong market demand for Bitcoin yields, and Bitcoin staking ETFs may also gain favor.
• Platform Modularization: DeFi is evolving from single-protocol services to modular platforms, similar to the path of traditional SaaS platforms. By breaking down functions into independent, composable modules, DeFi platforms can provide shared liquidity, making capital allocation more efficient; offer developers flexible customization capabilities, such as creating personalized lending protocols or exchanges; and lower development barriers through open APIs and tools, attracting more participants.

As traditional assets gradually enter DeFi protocols, especially with the help of stablecoins, the boundaries between traditional financial markets and DeFi will become increasingly blurred. DeFi protocols can provide more efficient lending, clearing, and insurance services for RWA. RWA, centered around high-rated assets, will become the "engine" of the DeFi market, driving exponential growth in market scale and liquidity.

Bixin Ventures:

Investment Strategy for 2025

Our investment strategy at Bixin Ventures for 2025 will focus on the following points:

1. Post-Investment Empowerment, "Working" for Invested Projects

Bixin Ventures has invested in over 100 projects in the past few years. For those with potential, we provide more support, such as white paper consulting and revisions, benchmarking against similar projects, sector research, competitor analysis, introducing media resources, writing investment research articles, and connecting with exchanges and other VC institutions. We not only provide funding but also "work" for the entrepreneurial teams to help projects grow better.

2. Focus on Exits, Ensuring Capital Reflow

Last year, the Federal Reserve began a rate-cutting cycle, injecting liquidity into global markets. At the same time, the rise of the Trump team supporting Crypto is expected to bring a series of favorable policies, such as Bitcoin reserves and stablecoin support legislation.

All of this provides good external conditions for project exits. Therefore, we believe that 2025 will be a good year for exits; only with successful capital exits can we help more projects in the future.

3. Focus on the Secondary Market and Some Promising Sectors

In 2025, regarding investments in the primary market, we will be more cautious, considering the exit cycle, rhythm, and the rotation of different industries. We will pay attention to some promising sectors, not limited to the Web3 industry, but also traditional Web2 sectors like artificial intelligence and biomedicine, by introducing different industries to hedge the investment cycle itself.

At the same time, we will also look for opportunities in the secondary market, such as AI-related infrastructure and applications, DeFi categories (including Lending, DEX, Restaking, LST, LRT, etc.), and tokens related to U.S. politics.

Promising Sectors

1. Artificial Intelligence (Web2)

As algorithms and data mature, ushering in a development singularity, we believe the timing for AI to empower traditional industries is becoming ripe, especially in sectors like smart driving, military, and efficiency software, which harbor enormous investment opportunities.

2. Biomedicine

The application of AI in biomedicine can advance the industry's development, such as cancer screening, image recognition, and new drug development. We believe that the support of AI will bring many opportunities.

3. The Combination of AI and Blockchain

The intelligent integration of AI with the tokenization and liquidity of blockchain assets can generate numerous opportunities. We focus on AI-related infrastructure, such as L1 with AI narratives, AI computing networks, data, and related applications, including AI Agents, agent development frameworks, AI+DeFi, AI+gaming, AI+social, etc.

4. Applications Related to Stablecoins and RWA

With Trump and his team taking office, changing the previous ambiguous or even opposing stance on Crypto, many favorable policies for Crypto will be introduced, promoting the development of sectors like stablecoins and RWA.

5. DEX

With the emergence of Hyperliquid, it has gradually proven that optimizing underlying public chains and developing decentralized DEXs is a viable path. Compared to CEXs, which are constrained by regulatory frameworks in various countries/regions, DEXs, including Spot and Perp, can naturally reach every corner of the globe, with a higher ceiling.

6. Gaming

Although the gaming sector is currently somewhat neglected, it can bring more users into the Web3 industry, which itself can promote mass adoption, thus holding potential.

ABCDE Capital, Research Partner, Lao Bai

The logic is simple: AI is the biggest narrative both inside and outside the circle. Although the first wave of AI frameworks and agents is still too simplistic and many bubbles have burst, the next generation of smarter agents for DeFi or other sectors, as well as the infrastructure and applications for collaboration, communication, cross-validation, trading, governance, etc., will certainly present opportunities.

ETH recently proposed the concept of Native Rollup, which is novel and should help empower and expand ETH L1. Hardware acceleration on Solana, such as Solayer, Magicblock, Soon, and new clients like FireDancer, will likely bring opportunities for infrastructure on Solana.

RWA is also gaining attention due to Trump's administration, which supports the purchase and backing of tokens like WLFI, AAVE, Link, and ENA, and it is evident that more policy support for compliant RWA tokenized assets will emerge in the future.

Foresight Ventures, Co-Founder

Our investment strategy has remained unchanged. We aim to discover disruptive innovations with long-term value. More specifically, we hope to find business models that solve large markets and demands in innovative ways; technological transformations that improve productivity; and tokenomics that change production relationships.

If we talk about specific sectors, I believe that infrastructure linking DeFi and TradFi, as well as innovative products or advantageous channels for crypto payments, will be the theme this year. We will be cautious about crypto AI, as it currently shows signs of overheating, and we need to be wary of trend-following entrepreneurship.

BTX Capital

In 2025, BTX Capital's investment strategy will focus on three core areas: AI-driven blockchain applications, the scaling of RWA applications, and breakthroughs in next-generation blockchain infrastructure.

The logic behind choosing these sectors lies in their intersection of technological maturity, explosive market demand, and the improvement of regulatory frameworks, which possess long-term growth potential and short-term feasibility.

(1) Deep Integration of AI and Blockchain

We believe that the combination of AI and blockchain will unleash value far beyond that of a single technology. AI can optimize the efficiency and decision-making capabilities of blockchain, while blockchain provides data credibility assurance for AI. We will pay special attention to teams that have validated their effectiveness in real-world scenarios.

(2) Scaling RWA Applications

The core value of RWA lies in combining traditional assets with the transparency and liquidity of blockchain. We are optimistic about two types of opportunities: first, the on-chain mapping of standardized assets, which have high liquidity and clear compliance pathways; second, the securitization innovation of non-standard assets. Overall, we focus on innovative solutions that can overcome compliance and market access barriers. Successful RWA projects must have the ability to prove their compliance.

(3) Upgrading and Popularizing Blockchain Infrastructure

As the user base expands, the availability of infrastructure will become a competitive focus. We are particularly interested in three directions: first, modular architecture, achieving high performance and low cost through layered design; second, user experience innovation; third, cross-chain interoperability, ensuring that assets and data can flow seamlessly in a multi-chain ecosystem.

What suggestions can you share for projects planning to raise funds in 2025?

OKX Ventures:

In 2025, financial tools and new structures for crypto financing will continue to emerge, with community-driven ICO platforms like Echo providing founders with more innovative opportunities. The first suggestion: use AI, become a tacit partner with AI early on, and fully leverage AI's potential to accelerate decision-making and iteration. Others include:

1. Focus on solving specific problems and quickly launch an MVP
   Don’t aim for a massive market right from the start. In the early stages, it is crucial to focus on solving a small, specific problem. You can gain insights by personally using the product and engaging with real users, focusing on a small group of core users to deeply understand their needs and identify pain points. This approach allows for more efficient product iteration and avoids distractions from market complexities. Launch your product early, collect user feedback, and validate core assumptions to avoid wasting time on over-planning and over-building.
2. Start from the product and users, avoid over-reliance on financing
   For founders entering the crypto space for the first time, don’t become too enamored with the speed of financing. What truly matters is the product and user experience. Often, the core competitiveness of a product comes from user feedback and word-of-mouth, especially high-quality users who are the best marketing channel. Therefore, avoid inflating the product's features or the community's size in pursuit of financing; maintain the simplicity and focus of the product, and continue to iterate and optimize to truly win the market.
3. Token design should be pragmatic, avoid excessive hype from the start
   Many teams, when issuing tokens, overly focus on maximizing liquidity and short-term prices, often neglecting long-term community building. Start with a reasonable market cap and provide tangible incentives for token holders, supporting the token's value through actual use cases and good product experiences.
4. Emphasize developer ecosystem and community building
   Focus on building a healthy developer ecosystem and community, rather than maintaining appearances through "fake activity" on social media. Choosing a stable and sustainable ecosystem to build is more important than simply pursuing short-term market hype. The team's and community's long-term building capabilities, whether there is good developer support, and whether there is systematic technical and financial investment to drive project growth are crucial. Truly supporting the developer community can help enhance the project's value and trustworthiness.
5. Pay attention to the business model
   The clarity of the business model is important for attracting investment. Once the product has a stable user base, it should start developing commercialization paths to ensure a continuous revenue source. Whether through transaction fees, value-added features, or token sales, find a business model that can withstand market fluctuations and economic cycles. Continuously optimize marketing strategies, product features, and resource allocation based on growth data to ensure the business model can operate stably in different market environments.

Bixin Ventures:

1. Identify promising sectors

Choosing high-potential sectors is crucial, as they will attract a large influx of entrepreneurs and capital, creating momentum and bringing more opportunities. Smaller sectors struggle to produce large projects.

2. Benchmarking and leveraging

Find the best projects in this sector, conduct more research and analysis, identify their strengths and weaknesses, then leverage creativity to inherit their advantages while improving their shortcomings, and heavily promote the improvements.

3. Spend more time finding the "right" people

Identify the core capabilities required for the project, then compare them with the existing team's capabilities to find the missing skills, and locate the corresponding individuals. In this process, focus not only on their professional abilities but also on their creativity, sense of mission, passion, and focus.

ABCDE Capital, Research Partner, Lao Bai

Control the financing amount and burn rate; the market is no longer buying into the previous high financing and high FDV. It is necessary to raise funds and survive under a relatively low FDV.

Focus on the core or surrounding areas of the main sector and narrative, striving to create projects with real users and real revenue. Last year, HyperLiquid, PumpFun, Kaito, and GMGN were all excellent learning examples.

If the sector is highly competitive, consider stepping out of the current sector and thinking from a different perspective. For example, when everyone is focused on AI Agents or Frameworks, consider what businesses could "sell water" to thousands of Agents on-chain in the next year, such as shared memory layers, communication layers, and collaboration layers among Agents.

Foresight Ventures, Co-Founder

I believe that the community is becoming increasingly important, and the financing structure needs innovation, making distribution changes among institutions, KOLs, and communities, such as allocating more quotas to KOLs and communities. However, it is important to note that whoever is unwilling to lock up their tokens is certainly not your supporter. Entrepreneurs also need to do enough work to make the community believe in their long-term value. Simply relying on discounts or token giveaways does not easily create an effective community.

BTX Capital

For projects planning to raise funds in 2025, BTX Capital suggests building competitiveness from the following four aspects:

(1) Clearly define the value proposition: Ensure that the project's core innovation matches market demand and can clearly communicate the value proposition. At the same time, avoid vague "disruptive narratives" and focus on quantifiable improvements.

(2) Design a phased milestone system

Break down the long-term vision into executable short-term goals. Prepare comprehensive materials, including financial models, market analysis, and technical roadmaps, to demonstrate the project's execution capability and prospects; also set up risk buffer mechanisms, such as reserving 20% of funds to cope with extreme market fluctuations.

(3) Focus on long-term potential. Seek differentiated ecological niches

Investors are concerned with sustainable growth models, so projects need to demonstrate long-term competitiveness and differentiated advantages. Additionally, showcase synergies with strategic partners, such as technical integration plans between infrastructure projects and mainstream public chains.

(4) Establish strong industry connections and transparent project operations

Actively participate in industry activities to build trust and recognition with potential investors and partners. At the same time, enhance trust by regularly disclosing on-chain verifiable data (such as TVL, user growth curves, protocol revenue).

Success in 2025 will belong to projects that balance "technical depth, compliance capability, and user value." Regardless of the sector, the core lies in solving real pain points and continuously validating feasibility through phased results.

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