From initial hype to eventual release: A scathing critique of 21 mainstream crypto narratives for 2025.

This article critically examines 21 popular cryptocurrency narratives for 2025, categorizing them based on their perceived momentum and potential.

Ramming (High Momentum & Adoption)

Tokenization (RWA): Real-World Asset tokenization is now a reality with ~$20B in value, expanding across major platforms with institutional backing.
Stablecoins: With a $310B market cap, they are becoming key infrastructure for payments and bridging crypto to real-world finance.
Prediction Markets: Seeing record trading volume and user growth as they integrate with mainstream crypto and traditional finance.
Perpetual Contracts: Dominate crypto trading volume; on-chain monthly volume now rivals centralized exchanges, exceeding $1 trillion.

Top (Strong Fundamentals & Growth)

BTCFi: Bitcoin is being used as productive capital for staking, yielding, and collateralization.
Privacy: Gaining importance for institutional adoption, enabling compliant privacy in payments and identity verification.
AI: AI and crypto convergence is evolving as a crucial tool for data processing and verifiable computing.
DeFi: Shifting towards consumer applications (e.g., within Coinbase's app), with TVL at record highs and new apps emerging.

People are superior to others (Important but Progress Varies)

Chain Abstraction: Smart accounts and intents are reducing user friction, though adoption is slow.
InfoFi: Remains a refinery for data markets and signals, with significant progress imminent.
Robotics: Still in an early infrastructure phase; development pace lags behind crypto.
ZK: A core technology, but value will accrue to large-scale applications, not as a standalone investment.
Software Infrastructure: Demand is stable (RPC, indexing, etc.), but competition is fierce.

NPC (Overhyped or Stalling)

Restaking: Yields are shrinking with real risks and complexity; narrative is overheated.
DePIN: Struggles with real-world integration, regulatory pressure, and lack of sustainable models.
L1/L2: Value is shifting to applications and liquidity; momentum for new chains is weak.
SocialFi: Fails to achieve user retention and long-term product-market fit.

Pull (Declining or Flawed)

GameFi: The Play-to-Earn model is flawed; many projects are just re-skinned DeFi with poor UX.
NFT: Remains stuck without new use cases beyond art/avatars; gaming integration hasn't provided a breakthrough.
Meme Coins: Losing market dominance as liquidity moves to legitimate projects; retail investor fatigue is setting in.
Modular Blockchain: A crucial architecture but a poor investment narrative with unclear profit potential for most projects.

Author: DeFi Warhol

Compiled by: Tim, PANews

ramming

Tokenization: With RWA reaching record highs (approximately $20 billion), an increasing number of stocks and commodities are being tokenized. This is no longer just a concept, as mainstream funds and custodians continue to expand across major trading platforms.

Stablecoins: With a market capitalization of $310 billion, stablecoins are gradually becoming the infrastructure for foreign exchange, payments, credit cards, and digital banking distribution, serving as the best bridge from the crypto world to real-world applications.

Prediction Markets: Trading volume and user numbers in prediction markets are hitting new highs. Their adoption is accelerating as they integrate with mainstream crypto applications and traditional financial institutions.

Perpetual Contracts: Perpetual contracts continue to dominate crypto market trading volume, with derivatives trading far exceeding spot trading. Monthly trading volume on on-chain perpetual contract platforms has reached parity with centralized exchanges, surpassing $1 trillion.

Top

BTCFi: Bitcoin is transforming into productive capital, with billions of BTC being used for staking, yielding, and collateralization, with Babylon and Lombard accounting for a significant share of BTC staking TVL.

Privacy: As more traditional financial capital moves onto the blockchain, selective disclosure becomes crucial, and institutions need to achieve compliant and privacy-friendly protections in payments, identity verification, and corporate fund transfers.

AI: AI and encryption technologies continue to evolve, becoming crucial tools for processing data, driving intelligent agents, and enabling verifiable computing, with enormous potential. The sheer size of this industry cannot be ignored.

DeFi: DeFi is shifting towards consumer applications. Coinbase currently offers DEX trading and USDC lending services within its app through Morpho. DeFi TVL has hit a record high, and new consumer applications are emerging rapidly.

People are superior to others

Chain abstraction: Smart accounts, intents, and embedded wallets reduce user friction, making the blockchain increasingly invisible. Significant improvements in user experience are crucial for adoption, albeit at a slower pace.

InfoFi: Despite recent market concerns, uncertainties, and skepticism, InfoFi remains a refinery for data markets, incentive activities, and trading signals. Is InfoFi 2.0 on the horizon? Significant progress is imminent.

Robotics: The prospects are grander than the actual progress. The pace of hardware and deployment development cannot compare to that of cryptocurrencies, so this is more like an early infrastructure phase.

ZK: It is undoubtedly a core technology, but as an investment target, it is quite complex. Most of the value will accumulate in the ecosystem that can apply ZK technology on a large scale, rather than existing as an independent concept.

Software infrastructure: Demand remains stable (e.g., RPC, indexing, interoperability, data availability), but competition is extremely fierce. Nevertheless, high-quality projects may still emerge in this field.

NPC

Pledging and re-pledging: Re-pledging is indeed feasible, but yields continue to shrink, the risk of penalties and confiscations is real, and the complex operations deter ordinary investors. The narrative surrounding this sector has been overheated from the very beginning.

DePIN: Ideally, DePIN should integrate and collaborate with the real world, but many projects still struggle to achieve this goal. Regulatory pressures and a lack of sustainable business models are hindering its development.

L1 and L2: Rollups are already the mainstream scaling solution, but the development momentum of new public chains is relatively weak. Currently, most of the value is shifting towards applications, liquidity, and ecosystem distribution, rather than just becoming another underlying protocol.

SocialFi: Although there are occasional peaks in user activity, user retention and long-term product-market fit have not yet been achieved, and it is unlikely to be achieved in the short term.

pull

GameFi: The Play-to-Earn model has fundamental flaws. While some game chains are still operational, most GameFi projects are simply reskinned DeFi projects with added steps and a worse user experience.

NFT: We have witnessed several attempts to revive the NFT market, but market reactions have shown that if it cannot break through the limitations of JPEG images and avatars and create new application scenarios, NFT will remain trapped in its current predicament. Even attempts to integrate with the gaming industry have failed to achieve a breakthrough.

Meme Coin: While the Meme Coin supercycle was exciting, liquidity is shifting towards legitimate projects, and its market dominance continues to decline. Retail investors are tired of being repeatedly fleeced and chasing the next 100x myth.

Modular blockchain: a crucial architecture, a poor narrative. Users don't care, and investors only care about whether there's a clear and sustainable profit potential, which most modular projects currently lack.