By Sandy Carter, COO, Unstoppable Domains

Compiled by: BitpushNews

It’s been a long wait, but at the end of 2024, Bitcoin finally fulfilled the predictions of countless people and successfully broke through the $100,000 mark. If you want, you can celebrate with some champagne. But I think that Bitcoin’s breakthrough of this historic mark is just the beginning, and more significant events are coming. I firmly believe that 2025 will be the long-awaited first year of decentralization.

The reason has little to do with Bitcoin’s soaring valuation. Anyone who has paid attention to the promise of erstwhile centralized technologies over the past year has witnessed an explosion of new use cases. Many are quirky, others are cool, and still others hold the promise of solving some of the biggest challenges facing humanity today. Together, they propel the utility of decentralization into the stratosphere with measurable impact rather than mere speculation. More importantly, they provide a compelling set of reasons for people to adopt and join decentralization in 2025.

Buckle up, here are my top five predictions for the year ahead.

1. Bitcoin is expected to soar

December would be missing without a bold prediction for the price of Bitcoin. But rather than throwing out another $250,000 or $500,000 number like everyone else, let’s explore a more radical possibility: Bitcoin becoming the basis of a global strategic reserve.

Fundamentals support this possibility. If a world power (or unexpected power) officially holds Bitcoin as part of its treasury reserves, current price predictions could be overturned. We’re not just talking about $500,000; prices of $1 million or more could become the new normal, with countries scrambling to get their hands on the world’s scarcest digital asset.

Even without geopolitical adoption, Bitcoin’s scarcity alone makes it a unique asset. There will only ever be 21 million Bitcoins, far fewer than the world’s 60 million dollar millionaires. With institutions and now potentially governments buying up large Bitcoin reserves, it will soon become a very small minority who can hope to own one Bitcoin — unless they are smart enough to invest in advance.

Coupled with Bitcoin’s continued growth in utility as a decentralized network, and its role as a volatile alternative to fiat, we are seeing exponential growth.

But here’s the wild card: What happens when the price of Bitcoin is no longer driven solely by the market, but by nations hedging against each other in their quest for digital dominance? That’s where things get really tricky. With several countries already piloting Bitcoin fiscal programs, $500,000 may just be the starting point.

2. Depinners get rich quick

Admittedly, the cryptocurrency industry is sometimes not very good at communicating its vision to the outside world: slogans such as "financial sovereignty" mean little to ordinary people unless their bank accounts are frozen.

So, what if we look at it from another perspective? Just imagine: decentralization allows you to make money without doing anything. Don't think this is a fantasy, because "Depinners" have already done it. By utilizing and "farming" your computer resources, such as your mobile phone processor, anyone can earn passive income by contributing to the decentralized physical infrastructure (DePIN).

The DePIN revolution perfectly demonstrates how decentralization can change the concept of ownership and put (earning) power in the hands of users. Just as importantly, it is spawning incredible new use cases that are solving a wide variety of problems, from addressing noise pollution to managing energy networks to warning of natural disasters. Although DePIN is still in its infancy, its almost endless application possibilities mean that by 2025, early adopters will soon be able to earn a passive income equivalent to 5% of the average person’s income - all without much effort on their part.

3. Memecoins get serious

I predict that in 2025 there will still be “serious” financial commentators who do not recognize any practical value in meme coins and believe that they are nothing more than an over-the-top internet joke, but these financial commentators’ views are not only wrong, but also ridiculously wrong.

In some ways, I can’t really blame them: on the surface, most memecoins seem like a joke, especially the archetypal, ubiquitous DOGE. But ignore them at your peril: memecoins are growing fast, and they’re outgrowing their origins. The value of these tokens isn’t driven by speculation, but by their ability to bring people together on projects ranging from entertainment to politics.

In fact, memecoin can teach us a lot about the nature of community and participation in a decentralized world. By 2025, we will see brands realize the extraordinary potential of memecoin to attract new audiences, cultivate new communities, and reimagine the relationship between business and consumers. To be sure, memecoins can make money - but in the long run, their value to forward-looking brands will far exceed their token price.

4. Time Magazine's Person of the Year - Probably a Robot

I predict that in 2025, Time magazine’s Person of the Year will not be a single person. For the first time in its 98-year history, the annual award will go to what I call “Mrs Humanoid”—a composite character that represents the rise of artificial intelligence and robots and their integration into human society.

This humanoid robot (sometimes called a "gynoid") will represent the huge impact that artificial intelligence and robotics will have on a variety of fields, from health care to education, highlighting the ability of machines to gradually blur the line between human and machine labor. Time magazine has chosen some controversial figures in the past (such as its Person of the Year in 1938), but I think there is nothing wrong with choosing a robot. I even think it would be socially irresponsible not to put a robot on the cover.

The rapid rise of robots should spark a global conversation about the ethics of AI, the way we work, privacy and the redefinition of human identity. Many of these changes are positive, but there are also ethical grey areas and even worrisome situations. Therefore, the debate over how to respond to these challenges and seize opportunities and develop new regulatory frameworks should be one of the most important issues of this century, along with climate change. Putting Mrs Humanoid on the cover of Time magazine will be an important step in driving attention to this issue, especially among regulators and lawmakers.

5. Traditional search loses to AI

Will 2024 be the last time we “Google” something we don’t know? With Gen AI applications on the horizon, there’s good reason to think so.

Tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity represent the biggest change in search since the advent of Google 25 years ago. Harnessing the power of AI not only results in more accurate results (thanks to its ability to understand semantics), but it also changes the dynamics of search.

These new apps pass the Turing test with flying colors, enabling people to have meaningful conversations about everything from cooking to philosophy. As such, they represent a fundamental change in our emotional relationship with technology, and make “traditional” search (exemplified by Google’s long-standing near-total monopoly) look downright outdated.

Just as the advent of the internet sparked an “SEO arms race” among brands to secure a spot on page one of Google’s search results, in 2025 we’ll witness businesses begin to figure out how to stay relevant in the age of AI-driven search.

One of the biggest changes will be the evolution of websites, which will increasingly cater to AI agents rather than human users. In 2025, we will see domain names take on new significance, and the most successful brands will be those that are able to leverage on-chain domains to protect consumer data, integrate AI capabilities, and provide revolutionary online experiences for their audiences.

Regardless of whether these predictions are wholly, partially, or completely untrue, one thing is certain—as we enter the second half of the 2020s, decentralization is no longer a distant future, but is about to become an inescapable and inseparable part of everyone’s present.