Top 15 Trends of the Upcoming Cryptocurrency Bull Run in 2024-2025

There are numerous trends that most people initially dismiss. However, if you perceive their real potential and prove to be correct, you can make a good fortune. Here in this article, I want to give my overview of the nascent crypto industry trends, which I believe is coming soon. I will highlight ideas for you to think about and draw your own conclusions.

This February, I have already spoken on potential trends in the next bull run during the Blockchain Life conference in Dubai. There I just briefly touched the main ones. Now I want to delve into much greater detail, especially since many trends have taken a significant step forward after my speech half a year ago.

When can we expect the next bull run? In a nutshell, the cryptocurrency market operates in cycles, and we are unlikely to see anything interesting in 2023. The key thing is that the next market surge occurs sometime after the bitcoin halving. This reduction in bitcoin supply is the catalyst for a bull market.

The next bitcoin halving will occur somewhere in April 2024. Technical analysis conducted by my team at Jets.capital suggests that by that month, the Bitcoin exchange rate should hover around $42,000. Following this event and by the end of 2024 I think that the cryptocurrency market will start to grow, with a potential of a new all-time high in 2025.

Where will this growth originate from?

1. Boost of new liquidity from institutional investors. Many banks and large institutions will allocate a portion of their assets under management to cryptocurrencies.

2. Emergence of new projects that facilitate mass adoption and new use cases of cryptocurrencies. The current bear market lays the foundation for an extraordinary surge in mass adoption during the upcoming cycle, when a record number of new users are likely to join crypto space. During bull runs the number of new users of the cryptocurrency set a record pace every time: it was in 2013, 2017, 2021 and is likely to be the case in 2025. Historically, bull runs have consistently led to a remarkable influx of new crypto users, as witnessed in 2013, 2017, 2021, and likely to repeat in 2025.

3. Transition of large web2 projects to web3.

   
   

The main driver of the growth will be web2 projects, which will start their transition en masse to web3. This shift is poised to introduce an entirely new audience to the cryptocurrency market. It is important to note that such a transition will be gradual and will start by the introduction of web3 products from familiar companies. A great example is Nike, which recently successfully launched its NFT marketplace, featuring Swoosh NFT-sneakers that would be used in EA Sports games.

4) New projects release

Currently, a huge number of projects are undergoing various developmental and testing phases. Many of them are based on technologies whose potential has yet to be discovered by the cryptocurrency community (e.g. ZK-rollup, Optimistic Rollups). These innovative solutions are slated to enter the market around the first and second quarters of 2024.

Now let's deep dive into the trends.

1. Metaverse

Analyzing the data, the growth projections for the meta-universe market over the next few years are quite impressive.

Here we can see rough estimates of the market size by 2030. On average, this is 10 times the size of the entire current cryptocurrency market. Importantly, this data is based on major new initiatives that are constantly emerging. For example, Dubai has launched an extensive metaverse strategy, setting goals for the next five years: to quintuple the number of blockchain and metaverse companies, and in addition become the top 1 region in the metaverse digital economy. At the same time, we will see the launch of metaverse from big tech companies like Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Alphabet, Nvidia, etc. Furthermore, we may also see state metaverses, e.g. from China.

The logical question is whether we actually need a multitude of metaverses and how public and private metaverses will interact with each other. I believe that only a few will ultimately survive in this competition, but we will witness the development of a large number of metaverses during the next bull run.

2. GameFi

This segment derives from the previous one: metaverse.

Many people believe that the GameFi industry in crypto is dead. But they are talking about past GameFi projects. These are the projects where there were no high-quality graphics, and the games were often built on a Ponzi scheme model. These games thrived as long as there was a continuous influx of new money. However, as soon as withdrawals began to outnumber inputs, there was a significant risk that the game would quickly die out. Many of these projects lacked graphics and sophisticated gamification algorithms; people were primarily attracted only by the promise of quick profits.

Nevertheless, if we shift our perspective to the positive side, GameFi is currently attracting record levels of investment. Even within my fund's portfolio, a substantial number of GameFi projects are present—practically every fourth one.

The world's major video game developers are also preparing their own projects and solutions on blockchain (e.g., the recent partnership of Krafton Ventures, the PUBG developer, and Cosmos). Once again, users were in this industry for the sake of making fast money rather than for the game itself. So, there is a lot of work ahead: building proper tokenomics and AAA graphics in games, addressing the gamification issue so that gamers play for fun and enjoyment rather than just to earn money. When this issue is resolved, the project stands a high chance of experiencing growth and maintaining a long life cycle.

Through the life cycle many popular games have gone down in history, some have been modified, like CS: GO and CS 1.6. FIFA releases a new version of the game every year with new game mechanics and gameplay. But most games after 3-5 years go away and lose their former glory.

I will be glad if we can invest in GameFi projects that will be at the top for decades. However, I won't delude myself into thinking that games will last forever. I am confident that one of the upcoming mass adoption cycles will emerge through GameFi, bringing new users into the cryptocurrency industry. Consequently, we will witness a more profound intersection between the videogames and cryptocurrency industries.

3. Fan tokens

First and foremost, I believe that their era has not yet arrived. It currently lacks any significant use cases. However, if we consider BNB, it allowed to reduce the commission on the Binance exchange only back in 2017. Now, it has transformed into a vast ecosystem.

Presently, a large number of sports teams worldwide have launched their fan tokens, each with its own dedicated audience. Imagine when these teams establish an ecosystem of services, goods and fan tokens.

Let me share an illustrative story. I'm one of those who bought CHZ token at the very early stages. My primary business is Listing.Help agency, where we aid various crypto projects in getting listed on exchanges. Several years ago, my team noticed the emergence of the first fan tokens from soccer clubs PSG and Juventus and I asked them to write teams of these tokens and propose listings, as they were added only on an unknown platform called Chiliz. The response of project teams was something like this: "Thanks for the offer. We would love to start working with you, but we don't understand anything about crypto and we don't want to have separate teams to interact with it. Our focus is on the football business, and everything related to crypto and tokens is Chiliz's responsibility."

When I received this response, I became immediately excited. This was it—a potential gold mine in its early stages that could drive mass adoption. I invested heavily in Chiliz tokens, as well as PSG, BAR, JUV, and a bunch of tokens from other clubs. These tokens were only traded on Chiliz and didn't have a presence elsewhere. During the last bull run, I partially cashed out with around x60 return. However, honestly, the fan tokens didn't quite live up to their potential as I had initially believed they would grow even further.

It's a story of a necessity of strong integration between fan tokens and sports teams, not limited to just football clubs—for example, Formula 1 (the Alpine racing team has a successful partnership with Binance). Sooner or later, new use cases will likely emerge for these tokens.

During the current bear market, I spent a considerable amount of time analyzing the performance of existing fan tokens, especially those that experienced the most significant declines. I identified major undervalued fan tokens with low market capitalization and limited trading volume. Acquiring them was a time-consuming process because even minor purchases had a noticeable impact on the tokens' growth.

I've now reached a point where my portfolio includes a significant number of fan tokens, and I own a substantial percentage of the some of circulating tokens. Which ones, you ask? I might create a special article later in which I'll reveal my choices and explain the reasons behind it, (maybe, at the end of the next bull run). However, please note that I could make mistakes, so I'm not providing financial advice.

The further integration of fan tokens and the emergence of their real-world use cases will likely contribute to additional mass adoption and the entire cryptocurrency sector. While most of these fan tokens will likely remain as tokens, some of them may be hidden gems even at this moment.

4. NFT

First of all, NFTs are high-risk assets, and they are the ones that have suffered the most during the bear market. The main problem here is that most collections lack trading volume on the secondary market. It is just after a couple of months, a NFT drop loses volume, and people end up merely collecting it.

This issue can be attributed to the absence of well-thought-out use cases for such NFTs and the authors' lack of long-term plans. In my opinion, the potential of NFT technology remains largely unrealized. The next significant growth in the NFT market will likely come from brands and the music industry adopting NFTs, as seen in the recent example of Nike. Furthermore, we are witnessing the development of the technology itself, with the introduction of new NFT standards (such as ERC-6551, Ordinals, and BRC-721e), the emergence of the NFT loan market, the expansion of NFTs to more networks, and the rise of large projects like the BAYC ecosystem, which includes offerings like Otherdeed and the metaverse.

5. DeFi

If you examine the charts, you can see that the amount of blocked funds (TVL) in DeFi is already roughly equal to the amount of funds in a large US bank.

In the upcoming bull run, I anticipate the amount of locked funds in DeFi will grow significantly. And the protocols themselves will be more secure. New versions of multichain services and lending protocols will also emerge. We will witness more deeply integrated decentralized protocols on the market that also interact with real assets.

6. New Methods of Fundraising

It’s clear that the most common method for fundraising is through vc, but this has not always been the case. We witnessed the era of ICOs, where all you had to do to raise funds was create a website and run advertisements. Then came the era of IEOs on cryptocurrency exchanges, followed by launchpads and various types of IDOs.

It's challenging to predict what the next way of fundraising will be, but I personally anticipate the emergence of a new automated fundraising methods.

7. Tokenization of real world assets

I spoke about the fact that this trend would not emerge until at least 2025 back in 2018, during my speech at Blockchain Life. My company has been in communication with leading players in the asset tokenization market throughout these years. Nevertheless, we've observed that many large companies are still not prepared, but they are experimenting with the tokenization of individual subsidiaries. They are taking these subsidiaries to smaller exchanges to test how it functions.

At the same time the tokenization of properties, hotels, and similar assets is not yet viable. There are no significant success stories. Frequently, individuals approach me with requests like, "We have a hotel in Montenegro, and we want to conduct a sale or tokenize it." We attempt to explain that there are no successful cases yet, especially no secondary market. For instance, if you acquire a token representing a real estate property e.g. in Bulgaria, where can you sell it, and who would be interested in buying it? The market is not ready. However, the tokenization of real world assets is likely to commence in the next few years during the next bull run due to the development of existing projects like Centrifuge, Ondo, Maple Finance, new solutions and the overall market maturity.

8. DAO

DAO, as a project management mechanism is the future, but its full potential has yet to be realized. Once convenient tools for adapting and implementing DAOs, as well as fine-tuned mechanisms for managing large organizations, are successfully implemented, they will be able to show an incredible popularity growth. That is why our fund's portfolio also includes a DAO constructor, and we are very actively monitoring this industry.

DAO provides a completely different experience within the cryptocurrency industry. Its participants are in constant search for new solutions and governance models. Therefore, the exponential growth of DAO can happen at any moment, and it will undoubtedly happen before the end of the next bull run. By then, our fund will need to select the most promising projects in this direction.

9. AI + web3

Artificial intelligence is already present in crypto space. Projects that are based on AI and offer services that are necessary and convenient for people will likely experience significant growth in the next bull run.

I also discussed the topic of AI in crypto in my speech this February, and less than a month later we saw the emergence of many new projects related to AI. Not long ago, everyone saw the active growth of AGIX, the token of SingularityNET, a decentralized platform for artificial intelligence algorithms. Since then, many similar projects have been launched.

At Jets.Capital, we are actively researching and engaging with such projects. In March alone, we contacted more than 350 new projects. Unfortunately, there are many projects attempting to raise funds on the AI hype wave, despite having nothing substantial behind them. It's shocking to see that some lesser-known funds are chasing after these projects, hoping for huge gains, even though they are fully aware that these projects lack substance.

Unfortunately, the market is overcrowded with many such shady projects, and these tokens are no different from meme tokens, except for the AI prefix.

10. Crypto wallets

I've been talking about this trend since the first TWT airdrop back in 2019. A close friend told me to pay attention to it then. I figured out how and for what and after that I started to talk about the prospect of this token on all fronts.

Next, I started tracking the performance of wallet tokens. But the impulse for capitalization growth will come from a deeper integration of crypto-wallets with services like Telegram or WhatsApp. In the case of Telegram, it is already there now, but not at such a deep level of user interaction. In addition, the popularity of the cryptocurrency wallet trend will be influenced by the entry of the Metamask wallet token into the market.

11. Widespread crypto payments

One of the main outcomes of the next bull run and the rise of mass adoption should be that in many countries we will be able to pay with crypto for everything around us: from hotels, to food in supermarkets. Many payment services for goods, airline tickets will also add cryptocurrency as a means of payment. It is partially possible to do this now, but you have to look for such places.

12. Industry regulation

We are used to the cryptocurrency industry being constantly debated by legislative bodies. However, recently there was a breakthrough in global crypto regulation: the Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) was adopted by the European Parliament. As a result, the EU jurisdiction has become much more attractive for cryptocurrency companies against the backdrop of recent developments in the US. I am sure that MiCA can become a model of cryptocurrency market regulation for other countries and jurisdictions as well.

At the next bull run we will see the proper regulation of the crypto space and permitting the use of cryptocurrencies as a means of payment. Countries that will slow down this process risk being left far behind.

13. L2 and other scalability solutions

L2 solutions are protocolsthat increase the throughput of Tier 1 blockchains by executing off-chain transactions. They are built on top of Tier 1 blockchains (like Optimism and Arbitrum on top of Ethereum) and are designed to provide high throughput and efficiency.

A lot of new L2s have sprouted up in the last couple of years (and even first L3 solutions have emerged). Arbitrum, Optimism, zkSync and StarkNet are the most talked about L2 solutions in the community at the moment. Dozens of solutions and concepts are now in various stages of getting investment and development before the mainnet launches. In the next year or two we will see a whole range of such solutions, launching state-of-the-art DeFi, NFT, GameFi and DAO applications on them, as well as extending existing decentralized applications on them.

14. Security solutions

I think everyone has seen the statistics on the frequency and volume of cryptocurrency projects hacks. On the one hand, it is shocking. But at the same time it is a huge market for creating new security solutions. New smart contract auditing firms, new transaction screening services, secure fund storage providers and many other solutions are still in the process of development. Demand for them far outstrips supply. An even greater demand for them awaits us during the bullrun.

15. Airdrops

When I was asked the question back at Blockchain Life 2019 - how to make money from crypto without any investments - I always said: get into airdrops. Many companies allocate $5-$10 each for various token activities. Many of these tokens grew quite well in the previous bull cycle.

But at that point, few people were using pro airdrops as a money-making tool. Uniswap with its airdrop drew very good attention in 2021. In 2022 the topic of airdrop started to develop actively. And after the successful Arbitrum Airdrop, more and more attention was paid to this topic. For example, those who had used this network before were awarded 4250 ARB, which was equal to about $5000. You've heard many stories about the different returns, but I was surprised by a programmer friend of a member of our fund team. He made over $10 million on this airdrop alone.

Of course, when you hear such stories you want to run to do airdrop, but these are isolated cases when projects give a decent airdrop. It is good for beginners. Earning some small capital here is not bad. Especially if these projects will grow significantly in the next bull market.

I'm sure that in the next 1-2 years the topic will develop and we should especially look at those projects that have collected money well and can afford to keep the token rate after entering the market. Projects benefit from being talked about and shown to funds: look, we have a large and active community.

However, it is important for projects not to get carried away, as they will have to buy back most of these tokens and maintain the exchange rate by competent market-making. Eventually, projects may come to smaller volumes of airdrops for more competent work on the price of their own token.

Another important detail: we are already seeing the development of the very mechanism of getting on the lists of potential recipients of airdrops. New services like Galxe and Zealy are appearing to work with community activities, and anti-sybil mechanics are being improved.

Final Thoughts

These are the 15 major trends that will be strongest during the next bull market period. Overall, I am watching a large number, about 30 of them. I think the article is already too long. As time goes on, I will try to publish a complete list.

Again, the article is not financial advice. It is just my vision of further market development due to my experience. I will note that some trends are still far from their full development (like the DeFi market in 2018) and I have tried to highlight them. It will be interesting to revisit this article at the end of 2025 and see how right I was.

I'd like to end this article with a phrase: the best entry point into the market is now.

If you look at the graph comparing the number of internet users and cryptocurrencies, you can see that they are identical in their growth dynamics. And at the time of writing this article, we are tentatively at 1999. And further, what did we have? The correct answer is: the dot-com boom.

In the next few years, a bullrun of a new scale awaits us. Comparable to the Dot-com bubble. But now there will be a bubble of cryptocurrency projects. After this bubble, many projects will die, but some of them will be new gems that will be tightly embedded in our lives, as the descendants of the Dot-com bubble did: Google, Amazon, Microsoft and others.

I wish you also to define the right gems and make fortune. WAGMI!