This Crypto Sector Could Rally by up to 5x in 2025 and Outperform Bitcoin, Ethereum and Solana, Says Analyst

Real Vision’s crypto analyst Jamie Coutts is outlining the major trends that the cryptocurrency industry is likely to witness in 2025.

Coutts says on the social media platform X that the decentralized finance (DeFi) sector could go up by between 4x and 5x as a result of the traditional finance (TradFi) sector entering the space.

Amid the massive growth, Coutts predicts that some DeFi protocols could outperform Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH) and Solana (SOL). He also sees the start of an entanglement between DeFi and TradFi next year.

“Big Trends For 2025

1. TradFi starts catching up – expect CEX (centralized exchange) acquisitions and more crypto integrations (Robinhood/Arbitrum)

2. Several CEXs file and list on TradFi exchanges.

3. Several CEXs build out their own DEX platforms (L2s) or multichain integrations

4. RWA (real-world asset) pumps the sector valuations as financial asset tokenization ramps up (esp stocks and fixed income)

5. TradFi growth investors start adding crypto sleeves – DeFi sector a priority because they can be modeled on cashflows

6. DeFi sector goes up by a 4-5x. Several protocols outperform ETH/SOL/BTC.”

Coutts adds the numbers show that crypto is quickly gaining ground against the more established TradFi industry.

“This is wild. Crypto is eating TradFi’s lunch.

1. Coinbase: 11% of global exchange revenue, ranked 5th, ahead of Nasdaq.

2. DEXs (decentralized exchanges): 5%, outranking HKEX (The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong) and CBOE.

3. Total CEX revenue could hit parity with TradFi in 2024.

4. CEX and DEXs are growing 2.5-4x faster than TradFi.

5. DEXs are some of the most ‘profitable’ applications in the world.

6. If you value the CEX sector on Coinbase’s P/S (price to sales) multiple: total market cap would be $749 billion vs TradFi’s $610 billion.”

At time of writing, the total DeFi market cap stands at $152.616 billion.

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