Prediction of dark horses in the crypto circle in 2025: core tracks and potential projects
1. Layer2: zkSync
Technical breakthrough: ZK-Rollup technology achieves 2000+ TPS, and the gas fee is only 1/50 of Ethereum. After ZK-EVM matures in 2024, it may become the first choice for developers to migrate.
Ecological opportunities: If Uniswap V4 deployment is attracted, and the native derivatives protocol innovation is superimposed, TVL may exceed 10 billion US dollars.
Challenges: It is necessary to deal with the first-mover advantage of the Arbitrum ecosystem, relying on airdrop expectations and account abstraction to improve retention.
2. Modular blockchain: EigenLayer
Model innovation: ETH stakers "rent" security to external chains, activating a $30 billion re-staking market.
Growth engine: EigenDA data layer costs are 1/3 lower than Celestia, attracting Rollup chains to settle in.
Upper limit: If the Ethereum pledge rate reaches 35%, the valuation may catch up with Lido (US$7 billion).
3. DePIN: Akash
Demand matching: fill the global AI computing power gap by 30%, reduce training costs by 40%, and have been tested by Stability AI.
Synergy effect: build a computing power pool with Render Network to push AKT pledge APY to 18%.
Key node: complete TensorFlow/PyTorch adaptation in 2024, and break through the CUDA ecological blockade.
4. RWA: Mantle 4. RWA: Mantle
Product logic: US debt tokenization (annualized 4.8%) + L2 leveraged mining to form an arbitrage combination.
Policy window: Hong Kong license may introduce US$5 billion in funds, pushing TVL to double to US$3 billion.
Risk: US SEC regulatory attitude and policy changes after the presidential election.
5. New public chain: Monad
Performance innovation: parallel architecture achieves 10,000+ TPS, compatible with Solidity to reduce the migration threshold.
Ecological breakthrough: high-frequency trading protocols (such as order book DEX) may be migrated first.
Stability test: 99.9% availability needs to be verified on the test network in 2024.
Commonality of dark horses
Solving core pain points: Fee reduction (zkSync), efficiency improvement (EigenLayer), gap filling (Akash)
Economic model binding: Token value is strongly linked to ecological benefits (such as GPU leasing profit sharing)
Valuation space: FDV is less than US$2 billion, which is 3-4 times the space of similar projects in the previous cycle
Risk warning
Technical risk: ZK development delay may weaken zkSync competitiveness
Policy risk: Fed rate cut reduces the attractiveness of RWA US bond yields
Demand risk: The slowdown in AI computing power growth impacts DePIN valuation
