The '1995 Moment' of the Crypto World: History is Repeating, but the Script is Different

The current transformation that cryptocurrency is experiencing is different from the internet of the 1990s; rather, it is driven by financial regulars and AI, likely to give birth to open protocols instead of monopolistic platforms, marking an accelerated transfer of technological normalization. This article is based on a piece by Mars Finance, organized and authored by Foresight News. (Background: El Salvador hints at launching a 'Bitcoin Bank', presidential advisor: BTC is unstoppable) (Background Supplement: Trump will allow 401(k) retirement funds to invest in Bitcoin! Vice President Vance: Soon, 100 million Americans will own BTC) We are at a moment of division in the crypto world. On one hand, there is an unprecedented institutional rush: Wall Street giants like BlackRock and Fidelity are embracing Bitcoin in an unprecedented manner, with their spot ETF products attracting hundreds of billions of dollars in traditional capital like a pump; sovereign wealth funds and national pensions are also quietly incorporating crypto assets into their vast investment portfolios. This wave makes the narrative of 'cryptocurrency becoming mainstream' sound incredibly real. But on the other hand, for the general public, the crypto world seems more distant than ever. Apart from the dramatic price fluctuations and the stories of a few speculators, it has almost no presence in daily life. The once-boisterous NFT market has returned to silence, and the Web3 games that were once highly anticipated have also failed to 'break the circle'. This huge temperature difference constitutes a core contradiction: on one side is a feast for financial elites, while on the other side is the mainstream world's detached observation. How should we understand this disconnection? Against this backdrop, executives at Visa, including CEO Alfred F. Kelly Jr., have made a profound judgment on multiple occasions: cryptocurrency is at a stage similar to 'early 1990s e-commerce', though it is not yet fully understood by the public, its underlying technology and ecosystem are rapidly maturing, and it is about to welcome a 'super inflection point' in the adoption curve. Research from institutions like Wells Fargo provides data support for this analogy. Research reports show that the adoption curve of cryptocurrency users is astonishingly similar to that of the early 1990s internet. Even though the internet was born in 1983, by 1995, less than 1% of the global population was using it. This figure is remarkably similar to today's share of cryptocurrency users. History shows that disruptive technologies need to undergo a long, slow, and confusing ramp-up period before experiencing an explosion. However, this seemingly perfect analogy may obscure deeper truths. History does not simply repeat itself. Today’s crypto world is being fundamentally rewritten by two variables that were unimaginable back then—the entrance of financial 'regulars' and the rise of artificial intelligence (AI). This is not just a replay of history; it is an accelerated and distinctly different evolution. Titans of the old world and pioneers of the new continent The e-commerce revolution of the 1990s was a typical 'disruptor' game. Back then, Amazon, eBay, and PayPal emerged from the fringes of the mainstream business world as 'new aristocrats', challenging traditional giants like Walmart and Citibank with entirely new rules. It was a heroic era for garage entrepreneurs and venture capitalists, with the main storyline being 'disruption' and 'replacement'. Today, however, the story of cryptocurrency presents a vastly different narrative. The most notable pioneers are no longer just hoodie-wearing crypto punks, but also the financial 'regulars' in suits and ties from Wall Street and Silicon Valley. They are not seeking to destroy the old world but are attempting to 'transport' the entire old world onto a new technological foundation. This 'inside-out' transformation will be vividly evident in 2025. BlackRock CEO Larry Fink's prophecy of 'asset tokenization' is accelerating towards realization. After the success of the Bitcoin spot ETF in 2024, BlackRock collaborated with Securitize to launch its first tokenized fund—BUIDL—on Ethereum, turning shares of traditional money market funds into tokens that can circulate 24/7 on the blockchain. Meanwhile, the number of enterprises (referred to as DATCOs) holding crypto assets as strategic reserves has surged, with the total amount of crypto assets on their balance sheets having historically surpassed $100 billion. A more critical variable comes from the change in the U.S. government's attitude. The previously ambiguous and sometimes hostile regulatory environment saw a decisive turning point in 2025. The U.S. government not only became an important holder of Bitcoin (by seizing nearly 200,000 Bitcoins through law enforcement) but, more importantly, began to establish clear 'rules of the game' for the industry. The (GENIUS Act) signed in July is the first comprehensive federal regulatory framework for stablecoins in the U.S., providing a compliance path for a market valued at over $250 billion. Following that, an executive order allowing $9 trillion in U.S. retirement funds to invest in cryptocurrencies and other alternative assets opened a substantial influx of incremental capital into the market. This top-down recognition fundamentally changed the risk-return calculations for institutional entry and made the foundation of this transformation exceptionally solid. AI: The 'new species' seeking native economic soil If the entrance of financial giants paved a highway from the crypto world to the real world, then the explosion of artificial intelligence brought the first truly 'indigenous people' to this new continent. The internet of 1995 solved the connection problems between 'people' and 'information', and 'people' and 'goods'. The essence of e-commerce is to digitize and online the commercial activities of human society. The next era we are entering will be about how 'AI' collaborates economically with 'AI'. AI, as a new productive force, is creating digital content, code, design, and even scientific discoveries at an unprecedented speed. The value created by AI urgently needs a matching, native economic system. Cryptographic technology was born precisely for this purpose. Imagine a scenario: an AI design program autonomously creates a unique piece of art. It can mint the piece into an NFT (non-fungible token) through a smart contract, thus obtaining unique, verifiable ownership. Subsequently, another AI marketing program can discover this NFT and autonomously decide to pay a small cryptocurrency fee to promote it on social media. If an AI purchasing agent for a clothing brand takes a liking to this design, it can directly interact with the smart contract holding the NFT, automatically pay the licensing fee, and obtain permission to produce 1,000 T-shirts. The entire process requires no human intervention; the creation, rights confirmation, circulation, and distribution of value are all completed instantly on the blockchain. This is not science fiction. Ethereum founder Vitalik has pointed out that the combination of AI and cryptocurrency can solve each other's core issues: AI needs trusted rules and asset ownership, while the crypto world needs a 'user' that can act autonomously. This symbiotic relationship is giving rise to entirely new application scenarios. For example, decentralized computing networks (like Akash Network) allow AI developers to rent global idle GPU computing power using cryptocurrency; while on-chain AI models attempt to leverage token economies...