a16z: 14 Big Crypto Ideas to Get Excited About in 2025

Author: a16z crypto partner; Translator: 0xjs@黄金财经

a16z recently released a comprehensive list of "Big Ideas" that technology builders may solve in the next year. These big ideas come from partners in AI, American vitality, bio/health, encryption, enterprise, fintech, games, infrastructure and other fields.

Here are some of the crypto Big Ideas that a16z crypto partners are excited about in 2025.

AI needs its own wallet to take intelligent actions

As AIs move from NPCs (non-player characters) to protagonists, they will begin to act as intelligent agents. However, until recently, AIs have not been able to truly act as intelligent agents. They still cannot participate in the market in a verifiable autonomous (i.e., not controlled by humans) way-exchanging value, revealing preferences, coordinating resources.

As we’ve seen, AI agents (like @truth_terminal) can transact using crypto, which opens up all kinds of creative content opportunities. But there’s even more potential for AI agents to become more useful — both in fulfilling human intent and as independent network participants. As networks of AI agents begin to custody their own crypto wallets, signing keys, and crypto assets, we’ll see interesting new use cases emerge. These use cases include AIs operating or validating nodes in DePIN (Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Network) — for example, helping distributed energy resources. Other use cases include AI agents becoming true high-value game players. We may even eventually see the first blockchain owned and operated by an AI.

—Carra Wu @carrawu on Twitter | @carra on Farcaster

“Decentralized Autonomous Chatbot”

In addition to the AI ​​with a wallet, there’s also an AI chatbot running a TEE (Trusted Execution Environment). A TEE provides an isolated environment in which applications can be executed, allowing for more secure distributed system designs. But in this case, the TEE is used to prove that the bot is autonomous and not controlled by a human operator.

By extension, the next Big Idea is what we call a decentralized autonomous chatbot, or DAC (not to be confused with a decentralized autonomous corporation). Such a chatbot would attract followers by posting engaging content, whether entertaining or informative. It would attract followers on decentralized social media; generate revenue from its audience in a variety of ways; and manage its assets in cryptocurrency. The relevant keys would be managed in the TEE running the chatbot software — meaning that no one except the software would have access to them.

As the stakes expand, regulatory guardrails may be necessary. But the key point here is decentralization: a chatbot running on a permissionless set of nodes and coordinated by a consensus protocol could even become the first truly autonomous billion-dollar entity.

—Dan Boneh, Karma, Daejun Park, and Daren Matsuoka
@danboneh on Twitter

@0xkarmacoma on Twitter | @karma on Farcaster

@daejunpark on Twitter

@darenmatsuoka on Twitter | @darenmatsuoka on Farcaster

As more of us use AI, we need unique proof of personhood

In a world of online impersonators, scams, multiple identities, deepfakes, and other realistic-yet-deceptive AI-generated content, we need “proof of personhood” — something that helps us know we’re interacting with a real person. The new problem here, however, isn’t fake content; the new problem is that it’s now possible to produce that content at a much lower cost. AI radically lowers the marginal cost of producing content that contains all the cues we use to tell if something is “real.”

So now more than ever, we need ways to privately connect content to people. “Proof of personhood” is an essential component of building a digital identity. But here, it becomes a mechanism for increasing the marginal cost of attacking an individual or compromising the integrity of the network: getting a unique ID is free for humans, but expensive and difficult for AI.

This is why the property of privacy-preserving “uniqueness” is the next big idea for building a network we can trust. It not only solves the proof-of-personhood problem, it fundamentally changes the cost structure of attack for malicious actors. As a result, “uniqueness” — or Sybil resistance — is a non-negotiable property of any proof-of-personhood system.

—Eddy Lazzarin
@eddylazzarin on Twitter | @eddy on Farcaster

From prediction markets… to better aggregation of everything

With the 2024 US election coming up, prediction markets are going mainstream, but as an economist who studies market design, I don’t think prediction markets themselves will be transformative in 2025. Instead, they lay the foundation for more information aggregation mechanisms based on distributed technologies — mechanisms that can be used in applications ranging from community governance and sensor networks to finance.

The past year has been a proof of concept, but note that prediction markets themselves aren’t always a good way to aggregate information: they can be unreliable even for global “macro” events, and for more “micro” problems, prediction pools can be too small to pick up meaningful signals. But researchers and technologists have decades of design frameworks for incentivizing people to (truthfully) share what they know in different information environments — from data pricing and purchasing mechanisms to “Bayesian truth elixirs” for eliciting subjective assessments — many of which have been applied to crypto projects.

Blockchains have always been a natural choice for implementing such mechanisms — not only because they are decentralized, but also because they facilitate open, auditable incentive schemes. Importantly, blockchains also make outputs public, so everyone can interpret the results in real time.

—Scott Duke Kominers
@skominers on Farcaster | on Twitter

Corporate Acceptance of Stablecoins for Payments Will Increasingly Become a Stablecoin Payment

Stablecoins have found product-market fit over the past year — not surprising, as they are the cheapest way to send remittances and enable fast global payments. Stablecoins also provide a more accessible platform for entrepreneurs building new payment products: no gatekeepers, minimum balances, or proprietary SDKs. But large enterprises have yet to realize the massive cost savings — and new margins — that can be gained by switching to these payment rails.

While we’re seeing some corporate interest in stablecoins (and early adoption in peer-to-peer payments), I expect a much larger wave of experimentation to occur in 2025. Small and medium-sized businesses (e.g. restaurants, coffee shops, corner stores) with strong brands, loyal audiences, and painful payment costs will be the first to move from credit cards to stablecoins. They don’t benefit from credit card fraud protection (given the in-person transaction), and transaction fees hurt them the most (30 cents per cup of coffee is a lot of lost profit!).

We should also expect large businesses to adopt stablecoins as well. If stablecoins do accelerate the growth of banking, then businesses will try to disintermediate payment providers — adding 2% directly to their profits. Businesses will also begin to seek new solutions to problems currently solved by credit card companies, such as fraud protection and identity verification.

—Sam Broner
@sambroner on Farcaster | on Twitter

Countries Explore Putting Government Bonds on Chain

Putting government bonds on chain would create a government-backed, interest-bearing digital asset — without the surveillance concerns of CBDCs. These products could unlock new sources of demand for collateral use in DeFi (decentralized finance) lending and derivatives protocols, further enhancing the integrity and robustness of these ecosystems.

As such, as pro-innovation governments around the world further explore the advantages and efficiencies of public, permissionless and immutable blockchains this year, some countries may experiment with issuing government bonds on chain. The UK, for example, has been exploring digital securities through its financial regulator, the FCA’s (Financial Conduct Authority) sandbox; the UK Treasury has also expressed interest in issuing digital gifts.

In the US—given that the US SEC will require the clearing of treasury bonds through legacy, cumbersome and expensive infrastructure next year—expect more discussion about how blockchain can improve transparency, efficiency and participation in bond trading.

—Brian Quintenz
@brianquintenz on Twitter | @brianq on Farcaster

We will see wider adoption of “DUNA,” the new industry standard for US blockchain networks

In 2024, Wyoming passed a new law recognizing DAOs (decentralized autonomous organizations) as legal entities. DUNAs (decentralized unincorporated nonprofit associations) or “decentralized non-profit organizations” are designed to enable decentralized governance of blockchain networks and are the only viable structure for US projects. By incorporating DUNA into a decentralized legal entity structure, crypto projects and other decentralized communities can give legitimacy to their DAOs — enabling greater economic activity and shielding token holders from liability, as well as managing tax and compliance needs.

DAOs (communities that govern the affairs of an open blockchain network) are a necessary tool to ensure that the network remains open, non-discriminatory, and non-unfair in capturing value. DUNA can unlock the potential of DAOs, and there are already multiple projects implementing it. As the US prepares to promote and accelerate progress in its crypto ecosystem in 2025, I expect DUNA to become the standard for US projects. We also expect other states to adopt similar structures (Wyoming was a pioneer; they were also the first state to adopt the now ubiquitous LLC)…especially as other decentralized applications outside of crypto (such as physical infrastructure/energy grids) take off.

—Miles Jennings
@milesjennings on Twitter | @milesjennings on Farcaster

Online Liquid Democracy Goes to the Real World

As dissatisfaction with current governance and voting systems grows, there’s an opportunity to experiment with new technology-enabled governance — not just online, but in the real world. I’ve written before about how DAOs and other decentralized communities allow us to study political institutions, behavior, and rapidly evolving governance experiments at scale. But what if we could apply these learnings to real-world governance through blockchain?

We could eventually use blockchains for secure, private voting in elections, starting with low-risk pilots to limit cybersecurity and auditing issues. But importantly, blockchains also allow us to experiment with “liquid democracy” at a local level — a way for people to vote directly or by proxy. The idea was originally proposed by Lewis Carroll (author of Alice in Wonderland and a prolific voting systems researcher); however, it has been impractical at scale… until now. Recent advances in computing and connectivity, as well as blockchains, are enabling new forms of representative democracy. Crypto projects are already applying this concept, generating a wealth of data on how these systems work — see the results of our recent research — that local governments and communities can learn from.

—Andrew Hall
@ahall_research on Twitter | on Farcaster

Developers will reuse, not just reinvent, infrastructure

Over the past year, teams have continued to reinvent the wheel in the blockchain stack — yet another custom validator set, consensus protocol implementation, execution engine, programming language, RPC API. The results sometimes offer slight improvements in specialized features, but often lack broader or fundamental functionality. Take a specialized programming language for SNARKs: while an ideal implementation might allow an ideal developer to produce more performant SNARKs, in practice it may fall short of a general-purpose language (at least for now) in terms of compiler optimizations, developer tooling, online learning materials, AI programming support, etc… and may even result in worse SNARK performance.

That’s why I expect more teams to leverage the contributions of others and reuse more off-the-shelf blockchain infrastructure components in 2025 — from consensus protocols and existing staked capital to proof systems. Not only will this approach help builders save a ton of time and effort, it will also allow them to stay relentlessly focused on differentiating the value of their product/service.

The infrastructure is finally ready to build prime-time-ready web3 products and services. As with other industries, these products and services will be built by teams that can successfully navigate complex supply chains, not by those who scoff at “not invented here.”

—Joachim Neu
@jneu_net on Twitter

Crypto companies will start with the end result (user experience) instead of letting infrastructure dictate the UX

While blockchain technology infrastructure is interesting and diverse, many crypto companies are not just choosing their own infrastructure — in a way, when it comes to user experience (UX), the infrastructure is choosing for them, and therefore for their users. This is because specific technology choices at the infrastructure level are directly tied to the end user experience of a blockchain product/service.

But I believe the industry will overcome the ideological hurdle implicit here: that technology should dictate the end user experience, not the other way around. By 2025, more crypto product designers will start with the end user experience they want, and then choose the right infrastructure from there. Crypto startups no longer need to obsess over specific infrastructure decisions before finding product-market fit — they can focus on actually finding product-market fit.

Instead of obsessing over specific EIPs, wallet providers, intent architectures, etc., we can abstract these choices into a holistic, full-stack, plug-and-play approach. The industry is ready for this: a rich programmable blockspace, mature developer tooling, and chain abstractions are beginning to democratize cryptocurrency design. Most technology end users don’t care what language the product is written in when they use it every day. The same thing will start to happen in crypto.

—Mason Hall
@0xMasonH on Twitter | @mason on Farcaster

‘Hidden Wires’ Could Help Usher in Web3’s Killer App

The benefits of blockchain technology are what make it so special, but have also so far held it back from mainstream adoption. For creators and fans, blockchain unlocks connection, ownership, and monetization… but industry jargon (“NFTs,” “zkRollups,” etc.) and complex design create barriers for those who stand to benefit most from these technologies. I’ve seen this firsthand in countless conversations with media, music, and fashion executives interested in web3.

Many consumer technologies’ mass adoption has followed this path: it started with the technology; a few iconic companies/designers abstracted away the complexity; that move helped unlock a few breakthrough apps. Think of the origins of email — the SMTP protocol was hidden behind a “Send” button; or credit cards, payment rails that most users today don’t even consider. Similarly, Spotify revolutionized music not by showing off the file format — but by delivering playlists of songs to our fingertips. As Nassim Taleb observed, “Over-engineering breeds brittleness. Simplicity scales.”

That’s why I think our industry will adopt this ethos in 2025: “Hiding the wires.” The best decentralized applications are already focused on more intuitive interfaces that make it as easy as tapping a screen or swiping a card. In 2025, we’ll see more companies designing simply and communicating clearly; successful products don’t explain things, they solve problems.

—Chris Lyons
@chrislyons on Twitter | on Farcaster

The Crypto Industry Finally Has Its Own App Store and Discovery

When crypto apps were blocked from centralized platforms like Apple’s App Store or Google Play, their ability to reach top users was limited. But we’re now seeing new app stores and marketplaces offer this distribution and discovery without restrictions. For example, Worldcoin’s World App marketplace — which not only stores proof of identity but also allows access to “applets” — served multiple apps to hundreds of thousands of users in just a few days. Another example is the free dApp Store for Solana mobile users. Both examples also show that hardware (not just software, e.g. phones, orbs) may be a key advantage for crypto app stores… just like Apple devices were to early app ecosystems.

Meanwhile, within the popular blockchain ecosystem, there are other stores with thousands of decentralized applications and web3 development tools (e.g. Alchemy); and blockchains that act as game publishers and distributors (see Ronin). It’s not all fun and games, however: if a product has an existing distribution method (e.g. on a messaging app), it can be difficult to port it on-chain (exception: Telegram/TON network). The same is true for apps with large web2 distribution. But we may see more of these ports in 2025.

—Maggie Hsu
@meigga on Twitter | @maggiehsu on Farcaster

Crypto Owners Become Crypto Users

In 2024, crypto has made significant progress as a political movement, with key policymakers and politicians taking a positive view of it. We also continue to see it develop into a financial movement (see how Bitcoin and Ethereum ETPs have expanded investor access, for example). In 2025, crypto should further develop into a computing movement. But where will the next wave of users come from?

I think now is the time to re-engage current “passive” crypto holders and turn them into more active users, as only 5-10% of crypto holders are actively using crypto. We can bring the 617 million people who already own crypto on-chain - especially as blockchain infrastructure continues to improve, resulting in lower transaction fees for users. This means new applications will start to emerge for both existing and new users. At the same time, the early applications we’ve seen — spanning categories like stablecoins, DeFi, NFTs, gaming, social, DePINs, DAOs, and prediction markets — are also starting to become more accessible to mainstream users as the community focuses more on user experience and other improvements.

—Daren Matsuoka
@darenmatsuoka on Twitter | on Farcaster

Industries may begin to tokenize “unconventional” assets

As the crypto industry and other emerging technology infrastructure matures and costs continue to fall, the practice of asset tokenization will spread across industries. This will make it possible for assets that were previously considered unattainable due to high costs or lack of value recognition to not only achieve liquidity, but more importantly, participate in the global economy. AI engines can also use this information as a unique data set.

Just as hydraulic fracturing has produced oil reserves that were once considered untappable, tokenizing unconventional assets may redefine revenue sources in the digital age. As a result, seemingly science fiction scenarios become more likely: for example, individuals can tokenize their biometric data; then rent the information to companies through smart contracts. We’re already seeing early examples of this, such as DeSci’s use of blockchain technology to bring more ownership, transparency, and consent to medical data collection. We’ve yet to see how this future plays out, but these types of developments will allow people to tap into previously untapped assets in a decentralized way — rather than relying on governments and centralized intermediaries to provide them with these assets.

—Aaron Schnider
@aaronschnider on Twitter