Bitwise predicts 2025 as year for crypto IPO — Kraken, Circle to go public

Crypto exchange-traded fund (ETF) issuer Bitwise predicted that at least five “crypto unicorns” will go public in 2025, including stablecoin issuer Circle and crypto exchange Kraken.

So-called crypto bank Anchorage Digital, analytics firm Chainalysis and crypto exchange Figure are the other three firms expected to launch initial public offerings (IPOs) next year, Bitwise investment chief Matt Hougan and research head Ryan Rasmussen wrote in a “10 Crypto Predictions for 2025” report on Dec. 10.

Growing investor demand, institutional adoption, a favorable macro environment and a warmer political environment were the main catalysts that led the pair to name 2025 as the “Year of the Crypto IPO.”

Five strongest candidates for IPO listings in 2025. Source: Bitwise

Here are some of the other predictions that Bitwise’s Hougan and Rasmussen made for next year.

BTC, ETH and SOL to hit new highs, Bitcoin tops gold in 2029

Hougan and Rasmussen forecast that Bitcoin ( BTC ) will hit $200,000 or more by the end of 2025 and said it could surpass gold’s current $18 trillion market cap by 2029.

Bitcoin may even reach $500,000 or more next year if the United States follows through on Senator Cynthia Lummis’ pitch for a strategic Bitcoin reserve that buys 1 million or more Bitcoin over five years.

Bitcoin could eclipse gold even without a US Bitcoin reserve, though it would fast-track the process, the duo said.

Meanwhile, Bitwise expects Ether ( ETH ) to bounce back in 2025 and hit a high of $7,000, fueled by growing activity on Ethereum layer 2s, more spot Ether ETF flows and “massive growth in stablecoins and tokenized projects.”

Hougan and Rasmussen anticipate “serious” projects launching on Solana ( SOL ) and pushing its price to $750 — a 250% increase from its current $215.

Catalysts and headwinds that may impact Bitcoin, Ether and Solana’s price movements in 2025. Source: Bitwise

Coinbase to be most valuable brokerage, enter S&P 500, MicroStrategy joins Nasdaq-100

The pair predicted Coinbase shares would more than double to $700 and overtake Charles Schwab as the most valuable brokerage platform in 2025, earning it a place in the S&P 500.

“The reason? Coinbase is more than just a brokerage,” the Bitwise duo said, predicting that Coinbase’s revenues from its stablecoin, staking and custody services would increase substantially, in addition to revenue from its Ethereum layer 2 Base.

Coinbase entering the S&P 500 and MicroStrategy rising into the Nasdaq-100 index may happen when the two indexes next rebalance, they said.

With $10 trillion worth of assets tracking the S&P 500, fund managers would have to buy about $15 billion in Coinbase shares, while MicroStrategy’s entry into the Nasdaq-100 would have a smaller but still “significant” impact on its share price, Bitwise said.

Bitcoin ETFs attract more Wall Street flows as RWA market hits $50 billion

Analysts expected US spot Bitcoin ETFs to see somewhere between $5 billion to $15 billion in net inflows this year, but they’ve already more than doubled that upper figure, seeing $33.6 billion this year.

“We expect 2025’s inflows to top that,” Hougan and Rasmussen wrote, saying institutional investors are “laddering up” Bitcoin allocations to 3%, while major wirehouses will come online in 2025.

“The largest wirehouses in the world — from Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch to Bank of America and Wells Fargo—have yet to unleash their army of wealth managers, who have largely been prevented from accessing the products. We believe that will change in 2025, and the trillions of dollars these firms manage will start flowing into Bitcoin ETFs.”

They said that gold ETFs saw net inflows increase for five consecutive years from $2.6 billion in their first year to $28.9 billion in their fifth, and added they predict spot Bitcoin ETF inflows will follow a similar trajectory.

Gold vs Bitcoin inflows and project inflows from Year 1 onward.Source: Bitwise

Tokenization of real-world assets will also increase from around $13 billion to $50 billion in 2025, Bitwise said, highlighting instantaneous settlement, 24/7/365 liquidity and lower cost benefits than traditional securitization.

That’s why BlackRock CEO and “tokenization maximalist” Larry Fink thinks the “next generation for markets will be tokenization of securities,” the pair said.

AI agents will spearhead memecoin mania

Hougan and Rasmussen said crypto markets are in for an “even bigger memecoin mania” in 2025, fueled largely by artificial intelligence agents

Related: Microsoft shareholders vote ‘no’ on Bitcoin reserve

AI’s potential to influence memecoins was seen firsthand when AI chatbot Truth Terminal promoted the “obscure” memecoin GOAT, which soared to a $1.3 billion market cap, Bitwise said.

“[This shows] how much potential there is when you mix AI with the wild world of memecoins.”

Bitwise also tipped that the stablecoin market may double to $400 billion, partly driven by long-awaited stablecoin legislation in the US.

The pair expects the United States Department of Labor to “relax its guidance” against crypto in 401(k) plans, enabling another avenue for billions of dollars to flow into the market.

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