The world might be extra at peace 🕊️ in 2025. Road artwork by Alessio B in Padova, Italy.
At the moment, we assessment the predictions we made for 2024 a yr in the past, which you’ll view in full by clicking the story beneath. Later this week, we’ll publish our prognostications for 2025. Because the caption to the road artwork to the 2024 publish expressed—’2024 goes to be lit❤️🔥’— and we’re happy to report it was, and most of our desires got here true. The recap of how we did with our forecast follows beneath.
Cryptonite’s prime predictions for 2024…Blessed New 12 months to all!
As our readers nicely know, the value of Bitcoin, which was hovering round $38,000 a yr in the past, blew by its earlier excessive of $68,789, achieved on November 10, 2021. In 2024, Bitcoin reached a excessive of $108,268, and as of the date of this publish, BTC was at $97,533, representing a $121% increase year-to-date. Our different two picks, Ethereum and Solana, posted strong good points as nicely, with 47% and 78% yr, respectively, however did underperform to the general market, which is closely weighted by BTC, which represents 51.4% of the overall crypto market cap. In line with CoinGecko, the overall crypto market cap rose a whopping 118% from $1.7 trillion to $3.7 trillion in 2024.
Despite our model identify, we aren’t crypto merchants; our philosophy is to select belongings that we imagine in and maintain ‘em. We’re nonetheless holding our BTC. 😎👍🏼 FYI, we aren’t selecting crypto bets in 2025, as the market gauges we examine in on are sitting within the greed zone, so we’re ready for the Trump Bump to quiet down just a little.
The NASDAQ composite grew a formidable 33.6% in 2024. Three out of the 4 of our inventory picks for the yr, NVIDIA (up 191.7%), Coinbase (up 78.9%), and Apple (up 39.5%), outperformed the market, with Block nonetheless posting a offered 18% acquire.
Our market assumption on the time was that Trump, who’s crypto-friendly (versus Nice Grandpa Biden, who’s crypto-ignorant), would win the election (see beneath) and that occasion would increase Coinbase, which is the world’s second-largest crypto change, and Block (previously Sq.), whose Bitcoin transaction revenue equals nearly 50% of the corporate’s whole income. The opposite market assumption was that NVIDIA, the main AI chip maker, and Apple, whose plan is to AI-infuse all its units, would each profit from the AI increase. The worldwide AI market dimension reached roughly $184 billion in 2024, up from $50 billion in 2023. Complete VC funding in AI can be anticipated to exceed $45 billion globally for the yr, almost doubling the $24 billion invested in 2023.
FYI, simply as we’re involved about an overheated crypto market, we really feel ditto in regards to the inventory market. Investor exuberance round AI, specifically, has pushed up the S&P 500 157% since March 2020. Fairness possession as a share of family belongings can be at all-time highs. We’re feeling just a little little bit of the 1999 Web Bubble vibe happening proper now, so we aren’t recommending any shares this time round. (We all know just a little bit about inventory bubbles.)
For the final 4 years, solely a handful of individuals knew who was in control of essentially the most highly effective nation on the planet, and we are able to solely guess who they had been.
With no dawg on this race, we appeared on the math and will see that ‘the Democratic Get together was shedding its conventional assist with younger folks, Blacks, and Hispanics, and is perceived as elite and out-of-touch,’ and the reinvented MAGA Get together ‘has turn into a extra blue-collar occasion.’ When the election mud cleared, the 2024 election outcomes certainly confirmed a major shift in voter demographics, much more dramatically than we predicted.
We additional wager that ‘Uncle Joe doesn’t make it to the end line’ and might be changed by one other candidate. We didn’t have to attend till the current Wall Road Journal‘s investigative piece to study that since Day One of many Biden Administration, the White Home employees made a complete effort to handle and conceal President Joe Biden’s cognitive and bodily decline.
We had been lied to consistently by our flesh pressers and the media for 4 years—We knew it, and so did the remainder of the world
‘I’ve served with President Biden for nearly 4 years now… And I’ve spent hours upon hours with him being within the Oval Workplace or the scenario room. He has the intelligence, the dedication, and the judgment and disposition that I believe the American folks rightly deserve of their President.’ 🤔
—Kamala Harris
‘I’ve mentioned it for years now; he is cogent. However I undersold it after I mentioned he was cogent; he is far past cogent. In truth, I believe he is higher than he is ever been, intellectually, analytically, as a result of he is been round for 50 years.’ 😭
—Joe Scarborough, MSNBC’s ‘Morning Joe’ host in March of 2024
Tucker Carlson: Who do you suppose has been making international coverage choices in america? It is a query in america.
Sergey Lavrov: I would not guess. I have not seen [US Secretary of State] Antony Blinken for years. I believe it was two years in the past, on the G20 summit. I used to be representing President Putin there. His [Blinken’s} assistant came up to me during a meeting and said that Antony wants to talk just for 10 minutes. But we were meeting in front of many people present in the room.
Tucker: You’ve not spoken to him since?
Sergey Lavrov: No. 😳
Russion Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s interview with Tucker Carlson in Moscow on December 6, 2024
Note: Trump and Vlad both expressed this week they want to meet up ‘as soon as possible’ about ending the nearly three-year-long war in Ukraine, so it looks like we are back in business and, soon, back on the Peace Train🚂
After Great Grandpa Joe had a ‘bad night’ with the Boogeyman debate, a tiny Cabal including Barak Obama and assorted politicians, Super Donors, and Hollywood players moved in to swap Joe out for his VP, Kamala Harris. At the time, we reminded everyone that 92% of California voters did not support Ms.Kamala’s first run for President in 2020 when she was running behind Elizabeth Warren, Joe Biden, and Bernie Sanders even though it is her home state, and predicted that ‘the rest of the country would soon see why, and vote accordingly or not at all.’ 🤷🏻♀️
The 2024 election saw about 2 million (156.3M-63.9%) fewer votes than the record-breaking 2020 election (158.4M 66.8%).
Elon looks into the abyss and comes up with X.ai, the Dems try ‘Saving Democracy,’ entrepreneurs as artists, and getting a good sleep…
And yes, we still predict the Bogeyman will pardon himself—although it looks less likely there will be any convictions to pardon himself from. We still think Trump will pardon Great Grandpa Joe. After all, even the Bogeyman has the heart not to leave Joe hanging on his own, after he will invariably add his brother James and the rest of his family to his flurry of eyebrow-raising pardons.
We bet last year that the Meta/RayBand ‘creepy glasses’ would be viewed as out of fashion as Zuck’s Ceasar haircut, but kudos for making the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses a ‘surprise hit’ and praised for stylish design and performance, like the Boss’s new look.
We confess we allowed our decades-long Apple cult membership that obviously fogged our view of the 2024 headset business. The Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses have emerged as a surprise hit in the wearable technology market, with estimates that Q2 2024 shipments could reach 500,000 units, with annual sales hitting 2 million units. At an average of $300 for each pair of shades, that’s respectable. We, as well as others, have privacy concerns about these glasses due to the potential for discreet recording, reminiscent of the ‘glasshole’ and negative stereotype issues with Google Glass.
On the goggle front, Apple sells the Vision Pro, which starts at $3,499, while the Meta Quest 3 starts at $499. Paying 7x for your Vision Pro translates into a higher visual fidelity, a more immersive and seamless mixed reality experience, and a much more stylish and comfortable design. While Morgan Stanley analysts predict Vision Pro could generate $4 billion in revenue by fiscal year 2027, it started off to a slower start than Apple had hoped, with estimates that suggest Apple may struggle to sell more than 500,000 Vision Pro units by the end of 2024.
In retrospect, the $3,499 price tag means the Vision Pros are out of reach for almost everyone. Meta’s products are significantly outperforming Apple in terms of unit shipments, providing the company with a dominant position in the VR/AR market, with its more affordable options driving higher sales volumes. In the long term, we remain bullish on the Vision Pro as a sustainable and powerful new work and entertainment form factor, Apple’s first since the Apple Watch launched in 2015.
Into the Metaverse
So what do you do with your VR goggles? Boost VC founder Adam Draper says that ‘the most interesting thing about VR is that it now has two very clear demographics, the 10-20 year old, and then the 20+ year old.’
Strap on your VR goggles; Adam has some hot app tips for you.
10-20 years old:
GorillaTag: This is the generational social company in VR. You run around and play tag with friends… like a gorilla!
Derby: Hang out with friends and hit home runs for fun in VR. It’s an amazing community in which to chat and hang out.
Big Ballers: Fun and competitive sports in Virtual Reality with friends… and enemies.
Yeeps: Hide and Seek in VR.
I am Cat: You get to be a cat. Cat things always work well with new technologies.
20+ year olds
FitXR: Best 10-20 minute workout you can get. Fitness is one of the absolute killer apps of Virtual Reality.
PokerVR: It’s poker… with anyone. Online poker is so dull when you can’t trash-talk others around a table.
Golf+: Play some of your favorite courses with your friends! You can do 18 holes in 45 minutes.
TribeVR: Learn to Bass swap and become a DJ. It’s the best example of learning something in VR.
Space Pirate Trainer: This is my favorite experience, but it’s more of a cult classic in the industry now.
Subscribe to Adam Draper’s Substack newletter, ‘Things I wirte’
Tradable NFTs did make a comeback, with sales volumes showing a significant uptick in late 2024. In November, total NFT sales reached $562 million, marking a 57.8% increase from October. The resurgence was primarily driven by increased activity among top collections, with CryptoPunks and Pudgy Penguins leading the charge.
Pudgy Penguins saw its floor price jump from 13 ETH to 20.9 ETH in early December.
While Ethereum remained the leading blockchain for NFTs, Bitcoin-based blockchains recorded a trading volume of $43.8 million, while Solana, Immutable, Mythos Chain, Polygon, Cardano, and Flow collectively contributed $47 million. The NFT market is projected to expand significantly, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 30.28% between 2024 and 2028, potentially reaching a market size of $68 billion.
This prediction only became true because the SEC begrudgingly approved spot Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs last January—as we predicted would happen in 2024, and opened the floodgates, and there are now over $120 billion in total assets under management (AUM) for US crypto ETFs.
The tokenization of real-world assets (RWAs) experienced substantial growth from $5 billion in 2023 to blow past $15 billion in 2024 and continue to expand exponentially. Analysts predict that this trend will drive the market to reach between $10 trillion and $16 trillion by 2030.
Tokenized RWA growth has been fueled by increased institutional adoption, with major players like BlackRock entering the space and expanding into diverse asset classes, including government securities, private debt, and commodities.
We basically whiffed on this one. The SEC, under the Biden Administration and its Chairman Gary Gensler, took a largely adversarial and antagonistic stance towards cryptocurrencies, characterized by stringent regulatory actions and a focus on investor protection, which left the US behind the rest of the civilized world. Gensler described the crypto world as the ‘Wild West, rife with fraud, scams, and abuse.’ That is true, but leaving the US without a comprehensive regulatory framework for cryptocurrencies—and the industry clearly here to stay—left the largest crypto country in the world handcuffed and painfully uncompetitive. to balance
Ripple launched a new stablecoin called RLUSD.
TheRLUSD is pegged to $1 and is now available on crypto trading platforms and payment services, including MoonPay, Bitstamp, Zero Hash, and Bullish, among others.
RLYEN? Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse foresees strong demand for yen stablecoins in Japan, citing the country’s regulatory clarity on crypto and stablecoins.
Ripple will also use iys new stablecoin in its cross-border payment business, which has processed over $70 billion transactions since its inception in 2017. The RLUSD poses new competition for stablecoins Tether (USDT) and Circle (USDC), the top two stablecoin issuers. The stablecoin sector alone has seen an impressive 3800% growth between 2020 and 2024, surging from $4 billion to over $156 billion.
In contrast, the European Union (EU) approved the Markets in Crypto Assets Regulation (MiCA) in 2023, providing a clear regulatory framework for crypto assets, and the UK government collaborated with industry stakeholders to develop regulations for stablecoins. Germany, Switzerland, Japan, and Singapore are also notable examples of countries that have put in the work to ensure consumer protection and market integrity while supporting the growth of the crypto industry. This will all change under the Trump administration, which we will highlight in our predictions for 2025 next week.
The death spiral of the Internet’s nefarious Walled Gardens happily continues. In 2024, AI dApps skyrocketed 372%, averaging 4.8 million daily unique active wallets (dUAW) in Q3 alone. Also in Q3, AI-powered dApps emerged as the leading category in the dApp industry, accounting for 28% of the industry’s activity, surpassing gaming at 25%. AI-powered blockchain challenges traditional cloud computing-based apps by offering enhanced efficiency, security, transparency, and user control. , and user-friendly decentralized applications across various industries.
Cryptonite 300 top AI-powered blockchain dApps
DeepBrain Chain—An AI computing platform driven by blockchain technology, aiming to reduce computing costs for AI companies.
Figure Technologies—Provides blockchain-based solutions for financial services with integrated AI.
The Graph cofounder & CEO Yaniv Tal who is backed by Coinbase Ventures and has equity and token (GRT) upside.
The Graph—Known as the ‘Google of Blockchains,’ the graph uses AI to index and query blockchain data efficiently.
Ocean Protocol—Ocean Protocol is a decentralized data exchange platform empowering AI applications.
0G Labs (Zero Gravity Labs)—Decentralized AI operating system integrating blockchain technology
Uniswap—A leading decentralized exchange, incorporates AI to enhance its trading capabilities.
While AI funding remained robust for AI company market leaders, with 49 top AI brands bagging $100 million or more in 2024, the AI startup landscape did indeed experience a significant contraction in 2024. Even still, big players like Stability AI, Anthropic, and Jasper AI experienced down rounds. Many early-stage AI startups, lacking profitable use cases, began to fail as AI shifted from novelty to necessity. Early-stage investment into AI startups slowed by 30% lower in the first three quarters of 2024 than the same period in 2023. When the dust clears, the entrepreneurial company law of nature is such that 90% of AI startups will fail.
Cryptonite 300 top AI companies that recently raised big bucks
Databricks—Raised $8.6 billion in funding at a $62 billion valuation, with plans to raise $10 billion total.
Perplexity is taking it to the bank (and saving our editors 70% of our research time). Our saviors: Johnny Ho, Aravind Srinivas, and Denis Yarats
Perplexity—The AI-powered search engine reportedly closed a $500 million funding round, valuing the startup at $9 billion after only 2 years in business.
xAI—Elon Musk’s AI play raised $6B to bolster its battle against the genAI leader OpenAI which was valued at $157 billion last October when they raised $6.6 billion.
There was also a series of high-profile AI acquisitions, including Character.ai, which was sold to Google; Adept AI, which was integrated into Amazon; and Inflection AI, which was bought by Microsoft. These acquisitions underscored the intense competition among tech behemoths to secure the best AI talent and innovation.
There is substantial evidence that tensions between the United States and China over Taiwan rose in 2024. The election of William Lai (Lai Ching-te) as Taiwan’s president in January 2024, whom Beijing views as a ‘separatist’, has only heightened tensions. This political shift has prompted China to increase its large-scale military exercises and announced air and naval drills, increase usage of the China Coast Guard around Taiwan’s outlying islands, and put other diplomatic and economic pressure on Taiwan.
The US has angered the CCP by congratulating Lai Ching-te’s victory, approving arms sales to Taiwan, including a $2 billion package in late 2024, and maintaining high-level diplomatic contacts with Taipei.
The biggest concern for the US is that our computer and defense industries are heavily dependent on Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), which manufactures a whopping 90% of the world’s advanced chips. Most leading US tech companies, including Apple, Nvidia, AMD, and Qualcomm, rely on TSMC to produce their most advanced chip designs. TSMC’s dominance in defense applications, including semiconductors used in F-35 fighters and other military-grade devices, is also a vulnerability for the US. The CCP’s stance on Taiwan as part of ‘one China’ and its goal of ‘reunification’ create a constant threat of conflict and underscores the urgent need for the US to diversify its semiconductor supply chain and reduce its dependence on Taiwan.
Are the VCs funding the noose with which China will hang us?
The entertainment industry, particularly Hollywood, experienced significant consolidation and contraction in 2024, as the fog left by the 2023 actor strikes is still clearing. If the Paramount Global sale to Skydance Media (run by Larry Ellison’s son, David Ellison) receives regulatory approval, the number of major legacy studios will reduced to just four. In 2024, approximately 15,000 jobs were eliminated across broadcasting, television, film, news, and streaming sectors. The number one entertainment content streamer, Netflix reduced its annual volume of original English films from 80-plus to about 20-30 movies. Overall, film production volume decreased by 5% in California during the third quarter so that the contraction will continue.
While still in its early stages, there was a noticeable movement in 2024 towards more direct talent-to-fan engagement models and revenue streams, often leveraging AI, crypto, and blockchain technologies. Web3’s decentralized architecture will invariably challenge traditional entertainment gatekeepers and allow artists to retain more control over their work.
Web3 entetainment disruptors
Anotherblock—A Swedish Web3 music company that connects NFTs with royalty rights, creating a marketplace for music rights management
Cookie3—A MarketingFi protocol and AI data layer platform for users, creators, and businesses
LALA—A digital collectible marketplace that allows fans to own revenue streams from movies and TV shows.
Magic Eden cofounders Zhuoxun Yin and Jack Lu
Magic Eden—NFT marketplace competitor facilitating the purchase and sale of digital artwork, sports memorabilia, andevent tickets.
Medallion—Focused on creating branded digital hubs for artists with social and e-commerce features.
RFLXT—Reimagining the Hollywood studio model through digital doubles, allowing creators to own their identity and fan relationships.
Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) are also emerging as a governance model for some Web3 content projects to prioritize creator interests.
2024 indeed showed a significant trend toward the decentralization and transformation of education in an emerging sector referred to as DeEd, as in Decentralized Education. The global DeEd market was valued at $240 million in 2023 and is projected to grow at an impressive CAGR of 43.94% from 2024 to 2030.
Web3-enabled innovation is beginning to play a crucial role in the following:
Secure credentialing and learning records: Tamper-proof blockchain verification of digital diplomas and certificates of an individual’s educational journey, from primary school through professional development. Blockcerts is an example of a blockchain credentialling startup.
AI-powered personalized learning: Advanced algorithms are being used to tailor and adapt course content to individual learning paces and styles, often outside of traditional classroom settings.
Intelligent Virtual Assistants: AI-powered assistants developed to provide immediate feedback and guidance to students, complementing the role of human educators8.
Peer-to-peer learning: Enabling direct connections between learners and educators, bypassing traditional intermediaries.
Token rewards: Creating new models for educational engagement and using token rewards to incentivize learning and content creation. BitDegree is an example of a company in this space.
Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs): Education-focused DAOs are emerging, allowing community-led decision-making on curriculum development and governance.
Open Campus, backed by Animoca Brands, Sequoia Capital, and Binance, is developing EDU Chain, a Layer 3 blockchain, to facilitate a ‘Learn Own Earn’ Dapps for learners and educators to improve accessibility, quality, and data ownership in education.
Girl power accelerates while the boys are lagging
Based on the available data, there is mixed evidence regarding the continuation of fentanyl-related deaths in 2024. The CDC reported a record 12.7% drop in drug overdose deaths nationally from May 2023 to May 2024. However, the Department of Homeland Security expects fentanyl to remain the leading cause of narcotics-related deaths in the United States in 2024 and for the foreseeable future. Carfentanil, a fentanyl analog 100 times more potent than fentanyl, has also reemerged. Overdose deaths with carfentanil detected increased sevenfold, from 29 in January-June 2023 to 238 in January-June 2024
Until we start treating the addicted as people in need rather than criminals and are willing to offer them a safe space away from the cities—and get them high—we will live with Cartels, gangs, and deteriorating and unsafe cities. We are very passionate about this subject because it can be fixed.
Let’s end the War on Drugs and bring peace to the addicted
In 2024, global Silicon Valley entrepreneurs continued to build on a new AI-powered, decentralized computing paradigm where online creators (i.e., all of us) will eventually own and control our content to browse, delete, download, or share at will. A vast new generation of Web3 dApps is emerging, and the migration away from the Big Tech, cloud-based apps that invade our privacy, turn our data over to governments, and trade us like commodities on the ‘attention-span exchange’ is in full swing. This transition represents a twenty-year, $200 trillion economic boom that will bring unbanked regions online, put the final spike in the back of poverty, and free us from the centralized powers who have lost our faith.
Overall, we are supremely inspired by how many areas of society and industry sectors are trending toward more individual and localized control ✊🏼😎. Feliz año nuevo para ustedes y sus families!
—Anthony Perkins, founder & editor of Cryptonite
Pay for annual subscription with Crypto!
(Overheard on the streets of the global Silicon Valley. Got any hot insider tips? Email us theeditor@cryptoniteventures.com)
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We had to disappoint our pot-smoking, THC-infused gummy bear munching members (now about one in five Americans), but National Geographic is reporting there have been five recent scientific findings that change what we know about cannabis. While humans have been cultivating the plant for 12,000 years and using it as a psychoactive substance for at least 2,500, conventional wisdom holds that cannabis offers a safe, natural alternative for treating pain, nausea, muscle spasms, appetite, and post-traumatic stress disorder. But now, we’re learning that the drug isn’t quite as helpful and harmless as we thought.
Smoking only the best bud might not be so good.
The pain relief myth: Studies show it actually has mixed results for reducing pain in the general population, which led the International Association for the Study of Pain, a leading authority in pain research, to decline to endorse these drugs in 2021. (Read more here.)
Cannabis is harmless: Cannabis strains are much stronger than those you might have had in decades past. Cannabis use can also bring on delusions or paranoia, especially if it’s used daily. Cannabis addiction can develop and is quite common. (Read more here.)
A rare syndrome resulting from regular cannabis use is rising:Cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome (CHS) involves reoccurring episodes of nausea, vomiting, and severe abdominal pain. It has landed millions in the emergency room, a number that’s doubled from 2017 to 2021 and could affect as many as 2.75 million people in the U.S. annually. (Read more here.)
Cannabis can negatively affect your heart: The THC in cannabis also affects blood flow, potentially leading to heart problems. People who use the drug regularly have a higher risk for heart attack, stroke, and other heart disease. (Read more here.)
Cannabis strains aren’t much different: We have all been taught that the Indica strain has a relaxing, sleep-inducing effect and that Sativa stimulates energetic creativity. However, mounting scientific evidence suggests that these labels are essentially meaningless, and the two strains have no significant chemical or genetic differences. That’s a big problem for consumers, who choose either indica or sativa for their advertised effects.
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Silicon Valley ‘25 is a gathering where entrepreneurs and risk investors share how emerging Web3 innovation will create new prosperity and address the world’s most pressing issues. We also celebrate the Cryptonite 300 top Web3 companies in the world. See the current program and other SV ‘25 details here.
When and Where
—April 9th & 10th (Wednesday & Thursday)
—The Presidio Theatre Performing Arts Center (on the grounds of San Francisco’s Presidio National Park)—99 Moraga Ave., San Francisco, CA
Silicon Valley ‘25 is presented by Voting Block USA (VB USA), a 501 c3 non-profit, nonpartisan, grassroots project dedicated to educating the public on how Web3 innovation—including blockchain, AI, crypto, robotics, metaverse, and Greentech—can help create a more private, secure, efficient, and sustainable private and public sector.
Silicon Valley ‘25 is hosted and produced by Cryptonite Ventures and is supported by Silicon Valley OG Tim Draper, founder of Draper Associates and Draper University.
SV’25 tickets @ 33% off here!
Somewhere between the raw startups and the Unicorns are the blockchain, AI, and metaverse companies pioneering Web3 and offering the best equity investment ROI potential in the global Silicon Valley.
List and data profiles on 3,500 venture capital-backed AI/ML companies and blockchain/crypto companies, over 240 of which have made the C300 nomination list thus far.
List of the top Venture Capital funds invest in the top 300 private Web3 companies.
List of the top Web3 Influencers as ranked by top deal relationships.
The ability to nominate companies to the Cryptonite 300 competition for 2024!
