ARK's "2025 Big Ideas": Analysis of Bitcoin, AI Agents, Stablecoins and Expansion Blockchain

Author: ARK Invest

Source: ARK Invest official website

Compiled by: Nicky, Foresight News

1. Bitcoin: The maturity and institutionalization process of the global

monetary system

Bitcoin ushered in a milestone development in 2024, with its network fundamentals and institutional adoption rates significantly increasing, demonstrating its long-term value as "digital gold".

1. Market performance and institutionalization process accelerate

• Price and ETF Breakthrough: In 2024, Bitcoin price hit a record high, breaking through $100,000, and its market capitalization dominance (proportion of the total market capitalization of cryptocurrencies) exceeded 65% for the first time. Behind this growth, the launch of spot Bitcoin ETFs has become a key catalyst. The first batch of spot Bitcoin ETFs in the United States attracted more than $4 billion inflows in first-day trading, far exceeding the historical record of gold ETFs in September 2004. As of the end of 2024, the total asset management scale of Bitcoin ETFs (AUM) has exceeded US$100 billion, and the proportion of institutional investors has increased significantly. Meanwhile, Bitcoin’s annual volatility has dropped to its all-time low, while its risk-adjusted returns remain better than most major asset classes
• Half and scarcity: Bitcoin completed its fourth halving, with annual inflation falling to 0.9%, lowering the long-term supply growth rate of gold (about 1.7%) for the first time, highlighting its deflationary attributes once again. The total cap of 21 million coins and mathematical monetary policy set in its code further consolidates the narrative of "digital gold". On-chain data shows that long-term holders (holding for more than 3 years) account for 45%, a record high, indicating that Bitcoin’s recognition as a value store tool continues to increase.
• Corporate holdings and strategic reserves: 74 listed companies around the world include Bitcoin in their balance sheets, with a total holding of more than 550,000 coins and a value of approximately US$55 billion. MicroStrategy, as the largest holder, holds 446,000 coins (2.1% of Bitcoin circulation). In addition, Pennsylvania became the first state in the United States to propose to establish a strategic reserve of Bitcoin, marking the government's exploration of cryptocurrencies.

2. Technology evolution and network health

• Computing power hits a new high: Although miners' income was halved after halfway down, the computing power of the entire network still set a historical record, indicating miners' long-term confidence.
• Runes protocol activation: The Bitcoin-based Fungible Token protocol drives a surge in on-chain transaction volume, with daily transactions exceeding 800,000, and ecological application scenarios continue to expand.
• Long-term holding behavior: More than 45% of Bitcoin supply has not moved for more than 3 years, and on-chain liquidity has dropped to a 14-year low, reflecting its positioning as a value store tool.

3. Price forecast for 2030

ARK predicts Bitcoin’s price outlook for 2030:

• Bear market price: $300,000
• Neutral price: $710,000
• Bull price: $1.5 million

2. AI Agents: Reconstructing human-computer interaction and business

efficiency

AI Agents are evolving from a single task tool to a universal intelligence platform. Its core abilities include: natural language understanding, context reasoning, tool calling and continuous learning.

1. Consumer side change

• Search and Advertising Refactoring: AI-driven personalized agents will replace traditional search engines, and AI advertising revenue is expected to account for 54% of the digital advertising market in 2030, with a scale of US$600 billion.
• E-commerce revolution: AI agents are deeply integrated into the operating system, and users can complete the entire process of product search, price comparison and payment through voice or text instructions. For example, shopping agents embedded in digital wallets can automatically filter the best products and complete settlement, driving digital wallets to 72% of global e-commerce transactions and creating additional corporate value of US$200 billion per year. Such agents are expected to contribute to $9 trillion in online consumption by 2030, accounting for 25% of the total global e-commerce.
• Hardware popularity: After 2025, most consumer electronic devices will have built-in AI proxy capabilities, and the penetration curve may surpass smartphones.

2. Corporate efficiency leaps

• Customer Service Cost Optimization: AI customer service can reduce the cost of a single conversation from USD 1 to USD 0.125, processing 70% of consulting needs, saving more than $500 billion in labor costs for global enterprises.
• Software development revolution: AI coding tools (such as GPT-4, Claude 3.5) have been able to solve 70% of real tasks, shortening the software development life cycle by 40%, and promoting enterprises to shift from purchasing software to customized development. If AI agents automate 81% of their knowledge work time, it will release a $117 trillion productivity dividend by 2030. The software market size may surge from the current $1.5 trillion to $13 trillion (CAGR of 48%), with the underlying cloud infrastructure and demand for AI chips exploded simultaneously.

3. Stablecoins: Reshaping the digital asset landscape

In 2024, the annualized transaction volume of stablecoins reached US$15.6 trillion, surpassing Visa (13.1 trillion) and Mastercard (7.8 trillion) to become the fastest-growing payment network in the world.

1. Market explosion and innovation

• Scale and efficiency: The annual settlement amount of stablecoins reaches US$15.6 trillion, and the value of a single transaction is far greater than that of credit cards. On-chain settlements such as Solana and Tron account for more than 60%. The volume of stablecoins on-chain single-month transactions in December reached US$2.7 trillion, of which small transactions (<100 USD) accounted for more than 85% of Layer 2. Users in emerging markets (Brazil, Nigeria, etc.) use stablecoins for cross-border remittances and anti-inflation savings, pushing the number of active addresses to exceed 23 million. At the same time, the adoption rate of stablecoins in Layer 2 (Base, Arbitrum) and emerging public chains (TON, Celo) has surged, driving the demand for cross-chain interoperability.
• The rise of income stablecoins: Ethena Labs' USDe provides 20%-30% returns through Delta neutral strategy, locking assets of US$6 billion in 12 months, pushing the proportion of illegal currency collateralized stablecoins to 10%.
• Dollarization trend: Although many countries promote de-dollarization, the proportion of US dollar stablecoins still exceeds 98%, and Tether and Circle hold US bonds in the world has ranked among the top 20 holders in the world. Stablecoins have become the core tool for the US dollar's "digital export", especially under the "de-dollarization" trend, the demand for US dollar stablecoins in emerging markets offset the impact of some countries' reduction in holdings of US bonds. ARK predicts that the stablecoin size will reach US$1.4 trillion by 2030, accounting for 0.9% of the global M2 money supply, becoming the 13th largest currency in circulation.

2. Regulation and Challenges

• Accelerate compliance: The framework of the US Payment Stablecoin Act has begun to emerge, requiring 100% reserves and audit transparency, and the market share of leading issuers has been further concentrated.

4. Expanding blockchain: Layer 2’s competition with high-performance

public chains

Ethereum Layer 2 and Solana lead the wave of expansion and promote the evolution of the smart contract ecosystem toward high throughput and low cost.

1. Ethereum ecosystem upgrade

• EIP-4844 Effect: The EIP 4844 upgrade reduced Layer 2 transaction costs from USD 0.5 to USD 0.05, and the average daily transaction volume jumped from 3 million to 15 million.
• Base develops rapidly: Base chain DAU accounts for 46%, TVL exceeds US$15 billion, Coinbase ecological synergy effect appears, and Ethereum shifts from settlement layer to application layer.

2. Solana's retail breakthrough

• Performance advantages: The average 800 TPS is far beyond the Ethereum ecosystem (200 TPS), with an average daily active address count exceeding 1.2 million, and the on-chain fee revenue accounts for 22% of the cryptocurrency market. Its low rates (USD 0.001 per transaction) attract a large number of retail users, and forecast market platforms Polymarket and DEX Raydium have become ecological benchmarks. Firedancer clients are expected to increase throughput to hundreds of thousands.
• Developer migration: In 2024, Solana's new developers surpasses the Ethereum main network, and Memecoin and DePIN (decentralized physical network) become dual engines of ecological growth.

3. Application layer explosion

• DeFi Challenge CEX: The share of DEX trading volume increased from 8% to 14%, and the derivatives market grew to 8%. Uniswap's single employee performance is 200 times that of Binance.
• Predicted market rise: Polymarket's monthly transaction volume exceeded US$1.2 billion with more than 3 million users, thanks to the US election, sports betting, etc.

• The re-pled economic model is more mature: liquid pledge agreements (such as Lido and EigenLayer) manage more than 5.5 million ETH (accounting for 17% of the total pledge), promoting the maturity of the re-pled economic model.

Conclusion: The integration and breakthrough of Web3

In 2025, Bitcoin’s monetary attributes, the release of productivity of AI Agents, the expansion of payment networks of stablecoins, and technological breakthroughs in expanding blockchains together form the core of ARK’s “2025 Big Concept”. The intersection of these technologies will reshape the global economy: AI drives the demand for computing power to drive the energy revolution, stablecoins enhance the hegemony of the US dollar, and blockchain expansion unleashes the potential for decentralized applications. Web3 practitioners need to pay attention to the evolution of underlying protocols, grasp key tracks such as cross-chain interoperability, AI native DApps, and compliant stablecoins, and capture value in technology integration.