Blockworks: What are the five major changes in the crypto space in 2025?

In the mid-16th century, Nostradamus made 942 prophecies in eight years.

He was said to have dictated each prophecy to his secretary as a poem. This was because he had been taking large doses of nutmeg to produce hallucinations.

Here are five cryptocurrency predictions that may come true by 2025. If they don’t, they could easily be repeated over the centuries, just like Nostradamus’ prophecy.

1. AI chatbots will gamify flash loan attacks

We rarely hear about flash loan attacks anymore.

Apparently, the DOJ essentially stopped them after arresting Eisenberg last year (“It was just a profitable trading strategy”).

Until some nefarious edge lord trained an AI model to hunt for potential targets in the seediest, most illiquid corners of DeFi.

After all, who is to blame: the instant engineer or the master of law with a crypto wallet?

2. Bitcoin ETFs or Nation States Will Be Hacked

Never mind that most ETFs have abstracted the actual handling of tokens away from their own responsibility — perhaps replaced by a WhatsApp chat with a Coinbase Custody support representative.

Next year will mark the return of major cryptocurrency hacks.

We haven't seen that in a while. Maybe the Ronin hack was the last hack that actually did any damage.

Be wary of slip-ups by nation states or ETF issuers, perhaps by falling for a fake Chick-fil-A coupon in a North Korean phishing email.

3. The Federal Trade Commission will sue Memecoin

You may have heard that the next SEC chairman should be more cryptocurrency-friendly.

But that's just the SEC. There are still a dozen or so U.S. agencies that may still make some real boomer moves next year.

The FTC has gone after cryptocurrency companies in the past, including Celsius and Voyager, and has also filed federal lawsuits against fraudsters who peddled fake investment schemes.

I will be watching the FTC characterize random meme coins and start prosecuting them. The void left by Gensler can only be filled by another short-sighted regulator.

4. “Crypto Lottery” will become a public product

Cryptocurrency already has its own pseudo-lottery system: Memecoins.

If you really enjoy buying Powerball and Mega Millions, why not buy a random Pump.fun memecoin each week and hope to win big one day (as long as you can time it).

So it’s time for someone — perhaps from the public interest-focused realm of Ethereum — to write an unstoppable, permissionless crypto lottery that pays out weekly.

5. IRL streamers will adopt prediction markets

Suggesting that streamers like Speed ​​and KSI mint their own meme coins (or will they become social tokens?) is too obvious.

Let’s just say it now: the major streamers are going to figure out how to use prediction markets to crowdsource their content.

For example: Speed ​​suggesting that he will compete in the sprint at the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles could be a prediction market. All of his viewers could bet on whether this is the case, or push him to do any other challenge on the matter.