Every time the market declines, the same scene always appears:
A group of people jumps out saying, "See, I told you it was a scam";
Then, when the market turns, the same group lines up, chasing highs and shouting about how great it is.
This extreme back-and-forth of emotions has left me numb after eight years in this industry.
But the fact is:
When we talk about price, we are actually discussing the future. Because price is never "now," but rather the market's discounting of the future. If we continue to focus solely on price, the future will slip away from us.
Moreover, there is a very real pattern in bear markets: while everyone sees a decline, I see a stratification. Emotions are retreating, the industry is filtering, and the future is being rearranged.
At the same time, I am pondering, "Why are there more and more new projects, yet truly meaningful things are becoming fewer and fewer?" "We all know the industry is changing, but how exactly will it change?"
That’s why I want to write this article. Not to pump up enthusiasm, nor to shout that "the bull market will return," but to show you, in the simplest and most genuine way, what "is happening in this industry right now" and "what will happen in the future" through Jiayi's eyes.
A bull market is noise; a bear market is a magnifying glass, a microscope, a truth-revealing lens. In the fog of emotions, I want to help you stand at a higher vantage point to see where the future's path lies after the tide recedes.
1. Why I say the bubble is the biggest boon of 2025
There is a very obvious fact in 2025 that most people are unwilling to admit: we did not wait for the "copycat bull," but instead welcomed a systematic deflation ahead of time.
Many people interpret this as a bad thing, but if you extend the timeline, you will find that these years of "killing before rising" are actually the best period for the industry to develop a truly mature structure.
Why? Because all of this is exactly like the early days of the internet, just amplified by the leverage of crypto.
If you want to truly understand today's crypto, the simplest way is to view it as an "accelerated version" of the early internet.
Many people think that the chaos, bubbles, and speculation in crypto are unique "original sins" of this industry.
But if you extend the timeline, you will find that this is not a special case at all, but rather a standard feature of almost all technological revolutions—
The internet was just as crazy in 2000.
Previously, I wrote an article titled “From 'Burning Money' to Building Industry Ecosystems: Web3 is on the Same Path as the Internet”, discussing this logic: under the premise of amplified leverage efficiency, the market operation methods of Web2, the internet, and crypto are essentially converging. However, while the internet took twenty years to complete its journey, crypto may wrap it up in less than ten.
1.1 Internet finance went through the same "incomprehensible → frenzy → collapse → reconstruction"
If you think crypto's volatility is dramatic, it's just because you've forgotten the first half of the internet's life.
In 1999, as long as a company had ".com" in its name, it could raise funds. eToys surged 900% on its first day of trading, and investors were as crazy as during the early days of crypto's copycat season.
Then the bubble burst.
The Nasdaq dropped from over 5000 points to 1114 points; media headlines screamed "internet scam"; everyone said the internet was doomed.
That emotional climate was almost identical to today's crypto:
- Those who don't understand call it a scam
- Those who do understand are also swept away by the bubble
- In the end, everyone tramples each other
- Then everyone collectively doubts the future itself
But ironically—the real internet era began the moment the bubble burst. When the tide recedes, we not only know who was swimming naked but also filter out the true players most likely to swim to the other shore.
In 2002, Amazon's stock price was only $0.6. Google had not yet gone public. The companies that remained built the real infrastructure, business models, and profit mechanisms during those years when they were least visible.
What crypto resembles most right now is the period from 2002 to 2004: not the hottest years, but the most critical years.
The bubble burst cleared away the noise, and the trends, directions, infrastructure, and real players began to enter the "construction phase."
That’s why I say: the bubble of 2025 is a boon. Because truly important things will only emerge after the bubble.
1.2 The negation of negation: the industry does not rise in a straight line, but spirals upward
I particularly like the concept of "negation of negation" because it perfectly describes the evolution of technology and industries.
“Negation of negation”: the development of things is never a straight line upward. It is more like "moving upward in circles": every time you think you return to the starting point, you are actually at a higher level.
The most typical example is the three iterations of computing architecture.
1950s: IBM mainframe — centralized
Computing power was concentrated in the hands of a few institutions—governments, banks, large enterprises. This was the first centralization: whoever had the machines had the power.
1980s: PC revolution — decentralized
Steve Jobs said, "Computers are the people's bicycles." Computing power moved from data centers to everyone's desktops, and everyone owned their own computers, which was a negation of "centralized power." Computing began to decentralize, becoming personal and localized.
2010s: Cloud computing — centralized "negation of negation," standing at a higher level
AWS, Alibaba Cloud, and various public clouds concentrated computing power back into data centers.
On the surface, this looks like a return to the "mainframe era":
Once again, a few giants control massive computing power.
It seems that cloud computing has returned to "mainframe centralization," but it is fundamentally not the same level:
- Terminal sovereignty comes from PCs,
- Elastic computing power comes from the cloud,
- The advantages of two generations of technology are integrated.
Crypto and internet finance are currently undergoing exactly the same path:
- First stage: no one understands, but the direction is vaguely there
- Second stage: everyone is enthusiastic, the bubble inflates to the sky (we just went through this)
- Third stage: bubble bursts → removing the false to retain the true → spiraling upward (this is 2025)
Do you think the industry "has returned"? In fact, it has not returned to the starting point, but to a higher "starting point."
Trends, technology stacks, capital structures, and regulatory paths are all being rearranged in this round.
2025 will be the most important signal before the next round begins.
2. 2025 is the prologue, 2026 is the main text: the true trends of the industry are taking shape.
Whoever solves the direction of the complete integration of Crypto ✖️ traditional finance will own the world for the next five years.
The feeling of 2025 is actually quite strange.
The K-line looks like a bull market, but the sentiment feels like a bear market;
Regulation is advancing, but expectations are declining;
Narratives are flying everywhere, but making money is harder than any other year.
In the future, I boldly predict that pure Crypto Native innovation will face bottlenecks. Real breakthroughs and effective innovations will emerge in the direction of "complete integration of Crypto ✖️ traditional finance," which means composite innovations that can simultaneously address the financial market needs of both Web2 and Web3.
2.1 Everything happening in 2025 points to the same thing: the industry is "restructuring."
Bitcoin surged to $126,000, mainstream assets followed suit, but altcoins were increasingly lukewarm. The secondary market seemed to be rising, but the final account balance did not increase… This was the most magical experience of 2025.
But when you look at 2025 from a "structural" perspective, this year suddenly becomes very clear: this is the first time that the U.S., Europe, and Asia are all accelerating policy changes in the same year:
- For the first time, the U.S. SEC's attitude towards ETFs and crypto has become friendly
- BTC, ETH, SOL, and XRP successively opened spot ETFs. The door is open
- The stablecoin bill provides a clear framework nationwide for the first time
- Europe's MiCA has truly landed, with dozens of licensed institutions emerging
- RWA has become a key pilot direction for regulators everywhere
Crypto is being institutionalized into the global financial system for the first time. The earliest OGs of crypto hoped for it to enter mainstream finance. Do you remember the title of our article? When we talk about price, we are actually talking about the future. The market's resurgence requires a new story for redemption, which I personally believe is "the complete integration of Crypto ✖️ traditional finance."
2.2 On the track level: high enthusiasm, weak prices, this is a typical "verification period"
RWA, AI, stablecoins, L1 (which lasted less than a month), prediction markets, perpetual contracts, on-chain asset management, DAT… each term can ignite a short-term sentiment. Emotions aside, prices are not rising. The short-term excitement has turned into a longer-term secondary market slump.
? RWA in 2025: the underlying infrastructure is complete, and the regulatory framework is beginning to take shape, providing "implementable" conditions for the future development of RWAFi.
Let's take a moment to highlight the contributions of Plume to the practical promotion of RWA. I'm using Plume as an example not because I invested in it, especially since the secondary market performance has been quite average recently. However, I firmly believe that PLUME best represents the "infrastructure moment" that RWA has experienced this year.
First, Plume allows real-world assets to:
- Legally enter the on-chain yield system,
- Be participated in by ordinary users (not just institutions),
- Achieve on-chain distribution (in collaboration with traditional financial brokers),
- Be DeFi-ified, composable, and liquid.
Here are a few developments from the past two months: Securitize's assets have been introduced into the on-chain yield system; products from Apollo, VanEck, and BlackRock can be utilized in on-chain strategies; Bluprynt's KYI brings "issuer transparency" on-chain; it has become a registered transfer agent with the SEC, connecting with the regulatory-level grassroots interface of the SEC/DTCC.
These things may sound dull, and users might not know how to engage with the secondary market's FOMO. However, at its core, you only need one sentence:
As the world's first public chain for RWA Fi, Plume has essentially flattened the mountain in front of RWA, paving the "road" needed for RWA to take root.
With teams like Plume building the framework for RWA in 2025, more excellent assets under the RWA-Fi system will have the opportunity to truly take off in 2026.
3. AI × Crypto: There are not many truly valuable parts, but the value density is extremely high
To put it bluntly, and I fear offending someone, the AI sector looks lively, but there are actually very few valuable things.
3.1 Too Many False Propositions
Taking the grand narrative of LLM, which has created the most FOMO in the market, as an example, I believe traditional AI's large language models have matured to the point where "Crypto simply cannot compete."
ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, DeepSeek—these models are backed by real global capital, with computing power, data, distributed training systems, and engineering teams amounting to tens of billions of dollars.
Does Web3 want to "create another LLM"? It's not that it's impossible; it's that physical laws do not allow it. And what is it that traditional AI's large language models cannot satisfy you with? Web3 does not need to reinvent the wheel. I suggest that projects of this type stop burning money on technology and quickly seek real demand scenarios as a way out. After all, a typical characteristic of 2025 is that users are harder to deceive.
I hope one example can help everyone understand why most AI projects in 2025 are prone to "becoming hollow as they talk"?
3.2 Building the Foundation for Composite Innovations Addressing Web2 and Web3 Financial Market Needs
First Direction: Building a "Value Incentive and Collaboration Structure" for AI
This involves creating on-chain incentive mechanisms that traditional AI lacks, a globally settlable economic system, and a traceable contribution network. After all, models, data, computing power, and agents all require incentives, collaboration, and distribution. This is the problem Sahara AI aims to solve.
Second Direction: The Economic and Execution Systems of Agents ⚠️ The True Strong Intersection of Web3 and AI.
This still revolves around better addressing the demand for automated decision-making, execution, trading, and settlement, stemming from the limitations of agent capabilities in Web2.
In the Web2 world, the capabilities of agents are currently constrained by:
- Inability to make autonomous payments
- Inability to manage assets
- Inability to call across systems
- Inability to execute tasks without permission
- Inability to transparently track behavior
In the Crypto world, these are all native capabilities:
- Wallets
- Smart contracts
- DeFi strategies
- On-chain identities
- Stablecoin settlements
This is the direction that most people in Web3 AI projects are currently building: establishing the underlying "execution system" for the future Agent era. Starting with financial scenarios related to execution is clearly the most urgent and largest market demand.
3.3 The Third Direction: AI Payments, the Most Disruptive Direction in the Next Five Years
If I had to summarize the super trend for the next five years in one sentence, it would be the innovation of payment methods driven by AI Agents. When Agents begin to execute all instructions from users to application terminals, such as selecting, placing orders, asset allocation, and strategy management, payments will no longer be the endpoint of user actions but rather the "underlying capability" of the agents' operations.
In such a world, security, verifiability, global availability, extremely low costs, second-level settlements, and 24/7 programmable cash flow will all be essential conditions for AI Agents.
Traditional payment systems cannot achieve this. However, with AI combined with stablecoins and on-chain identity systems, everything becomes feasible. In the future, you will see more and more AI applications starting to enable Agents to
- Automatically call stablecoins
- Create multi-signatures
- Set up custody and strategies
- Manage on-chain identities
Seamlessly integrating value transfer itself, just like calling an API.
Even giants like PayPal, which have been in traditional payments for decades, are beginning to accelerate their layout, investing in a new generation of projects with "AI-native payment capabilities," such as Kite AI. Many people might say: Kite isn't really providing payment technology services to AI Agents on a large scale yet; isn't that just hot air?
Let’s return to the title, "When we talk about price, we are actually talking about the future." The real question should never be "How many Agents has it served today?" but rather in the AI-driven future economic landscape:
Who is already building the foundational capabilities needed for the future? Who is laying the groundwork for the value network of the AI era?
Just like after Coinbase released the 402 protocol, dozens of "cryptographic new projects" emerged within days. Bad projects will prematurely overdraw the market's expectations because when everyone discusses price, they represent the future in their hearts. The industry's efficiency in issuing tokens, along with the prosperity promoted by MEME and junk copycats, has made it even more challenging for entrepreneurs. However, good projects in the market are always scarce, and in this regard, raising the entrepreneurial threshold is not necessarily a bad thing.
4. Stablecoins: The Most Underappreciated Yet Worthy of ALL-IN Recognition in 2025
To be frank, if there is one sector in 2025 that is "quiet but must be taken seriously," it is stablecoins.
I believe it is still in the early narrative stage, the market fundamentally does not understand it, and the vast majority of stablecoin-related projects that emerged in 2025 are neither stable nor have practical applications. I personally think the market has not yet entered a true FOMO stage.
1. The Most Eye-Catching Stablecoin Event This Year: The Trump Family Issuing a Coin
Yes, the Trump family has officially issued a stablecoin: World Liberty / World Finance. The less content, the bigger the event.
2. The Real Demand Scenarios for Stablecoins in 2025 Are Quietly Accelerating
① National Debt Reserves Become Mainstream → Compliance Accelerates
All leading stablecoin issuers are basically moving towards transparency and compliance in reserves.
② On-Chain Payments Are Being "Forced to Upgrade"
Please refer to the AI payment content in the previous section.
On-chain payments are the infrastructure driven by the demand for the development of AI Agents. Note that this market is not limited to the Web3 market. As I mentioned earlier, the future trend market will definitely be a larger market that integrates both Web2 and Web3.
Once on-chain payments mature, the ceiling for stablecoins will be directly lifted.
③ The First Appearance of "Structural Stratification" in Stablecoins
Previously, stablecoins seemed to have only one logic: "Is it USDT or USDC?"
But starting in 2025, structural stratification has begun to appear:
- Centralized stablecoins (USDT, USDC) → Policy/Institutional Scenarios
- Exchange stablecoins (FDUSD) → Trading and new issuance scenarios within exchanges
- On-chain native stablecoins (DAI, USDL, etc.) → DeFi scenarios
- RWA stablecoins → Financial institution scenarios, on-chain settlements
- Payment stablecoins → AI Agents, cross-border e-commerce scenarios
3. In the Illusion of Stablecoins, the Vast Majority Are "Desperate Cash-Out Projects Riding the Hype"
Whenever a sector begins to gain visibility, a bunch of "pseudo-themed projects" will emerge first. To issue stablecoin concept tokens, teams naively believe they have come up with a genius scenario, and then the market starts mass-producing shells. A straightforward TVL subsidy activity + an external packaging of a yield scenario is essentially token overdraw, as users love to exploit, so they just repeat the old path of btcfi with TVL, package it, and list it on exchanges without caring about the future mess.
Users may genuinely experience short-term FOMO, but they will also be disappointed with the entire stablecoin sector due to these "pseudo" stablecoin projects in the medium term. In the long run, the real giants will rise, and the secondary value of stablecoins is indeed severely underestimated.
The core value of stablecoins has only two aspects: stability and utility. If you cannot achieve "real reserves + consensus-driven use cases," it is meaningless to issue as many white papers as you want. I suspect someone here might say that USDT's reserve ratio is not 1:1 either. Sorry, but the consensus-driven use case of USDT is something the Trump family cannot surpass at this moment. To put it bluntly, the essence of currency is that as long as everyone believes it is stable, it is stable. USDT's core advantage comes from its first-mover advantage, which brought about the earliest market consensus and years of "maintaining stability" operational experience. I stubbornly believe that this inherent advantage cannot be easily surpassed by a project through so-called stories to casually define an unstable asset.
4. The Explosion of Stablecoins Will Be Bigger, More Stable, and Longer Than Everyone Imagines; the Stablecoin Sector Will Develop in a Structural Manner
- Policy recognition and strategic layouts of various governments
- Entry of financial institutions
- Various payment scenarios represented by AI Agents, growth of cross-border payments, daily payments on L2, etc.
- Understanding the minimum cost for new users to enter Crypto; reserves of CEX; demand for OTC fiat
- Large-scale clearing of RWA
- The medium for the complete integration of Crypto and traditional finance
I tentatively define stablecoins as the "underlying fuel" for all future sectors.
There are many sectors that will perform well in 2025, as long as they focus on more efficient or diverse forms of financial investment. Risk-taking is human nature, and sectors are eternal. What matters is the experience. I won't elaborate further.
Five, When We Talk About Price, We Are Actually Talking About the Future
How can we use the "next 5 years" to reverse-engineer current opportunities? By this point, you may have already sensed one thing:
If you agree with me that the most important mainline for the next 5 years is the "complete integration of Crypto and traditional finance," then during a bear market, we should shift our focus from secondary price adjustments to thinking about industrial value opportunities and pricing. Just like how MATIC (later renamed Polygon) initially broke its price in the early days of the L2 sector, or how SOL fell to 9 yuan. In a bear market, anxiety over prices contrasts with joy over future value opportunities.
From a market perspective, what is price determining? It is determining sentiment; it is determining the fluctuations of expectations; it is determining the heat of narratives.
But I believe the real value gap at this moment is determined by: who is laying the foundation for the framework of the next 5 years; who is building financial infrastructure that serves both Web2 and Web3; who is embedding themselves into "the financial system of the world under future liquidity integration," rather than just self-indulging on-chain.
So, if you agree with the logic I presented earlier,
Then there is a very direct question:
? How should we view the current prices?
1. First, clarify an underlying logic:
In the next 5 years, the vast majority of unicorns will not be "purely Crypto Native giants."
"Purely Crypto Native innovation" occurs in the context of extreme on-chain innovation without the backdrop of traditional financial markets; it is also the crop driven by the economic push where the foundational infrastructure of blockchain or Web3 has not yet been built. Over the past decade of blockchain history, we have experienced countless peaks:
- Native public chains
- Native DeFi Lego
- Native NFT & Game narratives
- Native DEX, derivatives, lending protocols
The previous round of giants (exchanges, public chains, leading DeFi protocols) have basically occupied the high ground of "on-chain native infrastructure."
Most "purely on-chain" projects are either minor innovations, rebranded, or regulatory evasion.
"New projects are increasing, but truly meaningful things are decreasing."
Because the real next layer of innovation must meet three conditions:
- It can connect with Web2 and serve Web3
- It can be used by real-world users, institutions, and funds
- It can be embedded into the real financial landscape, rather than just circulating internally within the crypto circle
In other words:
Whoever can truly connect Crypto to "the flow of money in the real world" and "the real financial system,"
Will be qualified to obtain the largest valuation premium in the next round.
2. From the three mainlines of the next 5 years, reverse-engineer what are the "worth watching" sectors now
Mainline One: RWA-Fi → Transforming real-world assets into on-chain composable production materials → Excellent real yield assets becoming globally accessible
- A large number of excellent assets with annualized returns of over 10% have not flowed into Crypto, currently representing a true vacuum. Most of these assets have high user thresholds, and many people who want to participate are limited to institutions, large holders, and those with connections.
- New listings in US and Hong Kong stocks
- True linkage between crypto and stocks, rather than being limited to pure DAT-based financing investment logic
Mainline Two: AI Agents Flourishing in 2026—A True Era-Level Turning Point
Traditional AI companies have already pushed the "large language model competition" to its limits from 2023 to 2025. The era of models is over; the era of Agents has begun. For Crypto, the future breakthrough lies in—making Agents economic, executable, and trustworthy.
- The "large-scale landing period" of AI Agents, especially the formal surge in financial scenarios
- Web3 will play the most critical role in the landing of Agents: the economic system will become a red ocean
- Agent incentive systems
- On-chain collaboration systems
- Agent task markets
- On-chain economic models (yield, payment, custody)
- Efficient and trustworthy AI stablecoin payments will connect every Agent Task
Mainline Three: Stablecoins & New Settlement Layers (The most difficult to make understandable)
Conclusion: Finally, let's revisit the core arguments of the article:
✍️ When we talk about price, we are actually talking about the future.
If you only focus on price, the future will definitely slip away from you.
✍️ Bull markets are noisy; bear markets are magnifying glasses, microscopes, and truth-telling mirrors.
✍️ The bubble of 2025 is not a bad thing; it is the "fracture period" before the industry truly grows.
The cleaner the bubble bursts, the clearer the future becomes.
✍️ Purely Crypto Native innovation is approaching its ceiling.
✍️ The latest narrative direction for the industry in the next 5 years: "The complete integration of Crypto and traditional finance."
✍️ RWA-Fi, AI payments, and stablecoins are the three super mainlines for the next 5 years. They are not just hot topics; they are the foundation. RWA, AI, and stablecoins are all accelerating the integration of Crypto and traditional finance. RWA bridges the framework and assets, AI addresses actual efficiency and execution, and stablecoins are the underlying fuel for all innovations.
✍️ Crypto is transitioning from a "single-player game" to a "plugin for real-world financial systems." Only those who can connect to real finance will be the long-term winners.
✍️ What truly matters in the AI era is not the model, but execution:
Payments, settlements, custody, identity, automated strategies.
Whoever provides execution power to Agents, whose AI Agents resonate most with users will seize the future.
✍️ All short-term surges are expectations; all long-term increases are structures; price is a lagging indicator, while structure is a leading indicator.
✍️ If you cannot understand 2025, you will miss the entire narrative of 2026.
❤️❤️❤️ Finally, Jiayi's reflections ❤️❤️❤️
Thank you for 2025, a period that is confusing, perplexing, and filled with self-doubt.
It is this "discomfort" that forces me to pull my gaze away from emotions and re-understand the structural changes happening behind the industry, to discern what is true value and what is just noise.
Thanks to the warriors who still choose to BUILD during this cycle.
Your explorations and layouts during the industry's most ambiguous times will be the true starting point for the "negation of negation" in the future—I believe you will be the ones everyone looks back on in the next five years.
I also thank myself and my team, who have been alongside me and endured my daily challenges.
Thank you for maintaining our curiosity about the industry, our awe for trends, and our uncompromising stance on cognition over the years.
Only do what we believe in; only support those we recognize.
Do not cater to the market's short-term emotions; do not betray long-term structural logic.
The future will still experience repeated fluctuations, but cognition will never decline.
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