In 2025, as global regulations continue to layer crypto-friendly policies on top of the Federal Reserve's interest rate cut expectations, a super bull market in the four-year cryptocurrency cycle seems to be unfolding.

The crypto market has cooled off after the meme frenzy at the beginning of the year. But recently, with Bitcoin's strong rebound, the atmosphere seems to be stirring again.

Yet beneath the surface noise, most investors are confused, completely unaware of where the next hotspot lies. But as investors, the most important thing is to see through the bubble and uncover deep trends that have yet to be priced in by the market.

Historically, the next hotspot will never just be a simple 'replication of a windfall', but rather the intersection of technology, capital, and human nature's game.

Let us tear away the surface and explore the undercurrents that may ignite the future.

1. Market Truth: The Essence of Hotspots is Value Reassessment

Every hotspot in the blockchain industry—from ICOs to DeFi, and then to NFTs—essentially represents a redefinition and redistribution of 'value'. The value of Bitcoin lies in decentralized trust, the value of Ethereum lies in the infinite possibilities of smart contracts, while the hotspot of 2025 will be a dual validation of 'on-chain economic efficiency' and 'real-world penetration'.

The market currently appears prosperous, but data reveals a divergence: the total locked value (TVL) of top public chains is concentrated in a few leaders, while over 70% of Layer 1 projects have daily trading volumes of less than one million dollars (data source: DefiLlama). This means that capital and attention are accelerating towards the direction of 'truly useful' projects.

Insight 1: The next hotspot will not be a technological gimmick, but a 'pragmatic' breakthrough that solves real problems. Investors are no longer satisfied with the utopia in white papers, but are chasing scalable, practical applications. This points us in the direction: hotspots will shift from 'speculating on concepts' to 'building ecosystems'.

2. Under Currents Rising I: The 'Silent Revolution' of RWA

Asset tokenization (Real World Assets, RWA) seems to be a common topic, but its potential is far from being fully recognized by the market. In 2024, the scale of tokenized assets has reached $12 billion, but this is just the tip of the iceberg. A deeper observation reveals that the true value of RWA lies not in 'putting houses on the chain', but in how it reshapes the underlying logic of asset liquidity and ownership structure. Imagine when a commercial property valued at $100 million is divided into 100,000 tokens, allowing retail investors to enter with just $1,000; the barriers to entry in traditional finance would collapse.

A more insightful point is that the explosion of RWA relies on the on-chain migration of 'trust intermediaries'. The current bottleneck is not technology, but legal and compliance issues. In 2025, with the expectation of U.S. stablecoin legislation coming to fruition (such as the House Financial Services Committee's draft), and the comprehensive implementation of the EU's MiCA framework, RWA may welcome a 'silent revolution'. On-chain custody and standardized KYC/AML will enable giants like BlackRock and JPMorgan to stop observing and instead enter the market in force. Polkadot's cross-chain bridge, Chainlink's oracles, and even niche market-focused projects like Centrifuge may all become the pioneers of this revolution. Prediction: By 2026, the locked value of RWA may exceed $500 billion, becoming the largest growth engine outside of DeFi.

3. Under Currents Rising II: The 'Smart Economy' of AI + Blockchain

The fusion of AI and blockchain is transitioning from 'sci-fi narrative' to 'productivity tool', but the market's attention remains too short-sighted, fixated on the hype of 'decentralized computing power' or 'AI tokens'. The true insight is that the ignition point of this trend is the explosive demand for 'data sovereignty' and 'algorithm transparency'. In the Web2 era, AI giants like Google and OpenAI monopolized the intelligent economy through centralized data; in Web3, blockchain provides the soil for data ownership and decentralized computing, while AI brings it to life.

Specifically, 2025 may witness the rise of 'on-chain AI agents'. These agents are not just trading assistants, but 'digital life forms' capable of autonomous learning and decision optimization. Fetch.ai's decentralized AI network is already taking shape, while Virtuals Protocol's 'AI agent generator' even allows ordinary people to customize their own intelligent assistants. At a deeper level, the combination of AI and blockchain may give birth to 'smart DeFi'—dynamically adjusting liquidity pools and predicting market fluctuations through machine learning, potentially yielding 30%-50% higher returns than traditional strategies (based on historical simulation data). Insight: The project that truly ignites the market will be the first to realize an 'AI-driven on-chain autonomous economy', which requires not only technology but also the collaboration of the community and capital.

4. Under Currents Rising III: Bitcoin's 'Second Spring'

The Bitcoin ecosystem has long been undervalued, but 2025 may mark the starting point of its 'Second Spring'. The maturity of Layer 2 technologies (such as the Lightning Network and Taproot upgrade) makes it possible for Bitcoin to transition from a 'store of value' to a 'functional platform'. Stacks' smart contract layer, Rootstock's sidechain experiment, and even the micro-payment scenarios of 'Satoshi' economy are injecting new vitality into Bitcoin.

A more insightful observation is that the rise of the Bitcoin ecosystem is not driven by technology but is an extension of the 'faith economy'. Bitcoin holders (HODLers) are not just investors but part of an almost religious community. When the TVL of Layer 2 surpasses 100,000 BTC (about 5% of the circulating supply), this faith will translate into a surge of developers and capital. Compared to Ethereum's high gas fees and complexity, Bitcoin's simplicity and security may become its trump card for resurgence. Prediction: By the end of 2025, the daily active users of Bitcoin DeFi may surge from the current 50,000 to 500,000, becoming an unexpected hotspot in the market.

5. Under Currents Rising IV: The 'Invisible War' of Stablecoins and CBDCs

The competition between stablecoins and central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) seems calm, yet it hides dangers. In 2025, U.S. stablecoin legislation (such as HR 4763) may propel USDT and USDC into mainstream global payment tools, with daily settlement volumes potentially surging from $100 billion to $300 billion. Meanwhile, China's digital yuan has already been piloted in 50 cities, and the expansion of cross-border payment scenarios makes it a potential standard configuration for 'Belt and Road' countries.

The insight is that the true value of stablecoins is not 'stability', but 'programmability'. When Visa embeds USDC into its payment network, or when PayPal integrates PYUSD with Solana, stablecoins will become the 'invisible tentacles' of blockchain penetrating the real economy. Meanwhile, CBDCs may be the 'counterattack' of the 'national team'—weakening the influence of decentralized stablecoins through on-chain tracking and monetary policy adjustments. Winner prediction: Stablecoins that can balance regulatory compliance with technological innovation (such as EURC in the Eurozone) or CBDCs that can achieve large-scale commercial use first (such as the digital yuan) will become the core of the hotspot.

6. Who will be the next hotspot?

If one were to place a bet, the answer may not be a single track, but rather the spark of 'integrated innovation':

· RWA + Stablecoins: The combination of tokenized assets and programmable currencies may give rise to an 'on-chain asset supermarket'.

· AI + Bitcoin: The application of intelligent agents on Bitcoin Layer 2 may reshape the 'faith economy'.

· Cross-chain + Real Economy: Cross-chain protocols such as Polkadot and Cosmos may become the 'highway' for RWA and AI.

· Insight into the deeper logic of the market: The next hotspot is not 'who', but 'how'—how to connect on-chain and off-chain, how to balance freedom and order, and how to enable technology to truly serve humanity.