Introduction by Simon Kim: Hashed 2025 Thesis & U.S. Crypto Policy Outlook

As we stand at the intersection of technological innovation and political transformation, I am pleased to present our publication: “Hashed Thesis 2025: Blockchain’s Global Adoption with Asia at Its Core” alongside our special report “Trump’s Second Term in 2025 — Charting the Future of U.S. Cryptocurrency Industry Policy.”

We stand at a transformative moment in blockchain’s evolution, where robust infrastructure development and institutional adoption are converging to create unprecedented opportunities. Our investment thesis for 2025 is shaped by the remarkable journey we’ve witnessed through cycles of innovation, challenge, and maturation across global markets.

The past few years have validated our strategic vision through several key developments: the emergence of more reliable blockchain infrastructure, the sustained growth of stablecoin ecosystems, and the rise of high-performance networks that finally deliver on the promise of accessibility. This evolution, coupled with increasing institutional engagement and expanding digital economies worldwide, creates a strong foundation for mainstream adoption.

Our investment thesis unfolds across three comprehensive sections. We begin by examining our 2024 thesis against real-world data, providing transparent insights into sector-specific growth and market dynamics. The second section articulates our vision and mission, highlighting our strategic focus on high-growth markets and emerging opportunities. Finally, our investment team outlines priority areas that align with our vision of a more inclusive, efficient blockchain ecosystem.

Complementing this investment framework, Hashed Open Research has produced an essential analysis of potential U.S. crypto asset policy directions under the second Trump term. This report examines crucial regulatory scenarios that could reshape global markets, from stablecoin legislation to broader industry regulations. Understanding these potential policy shifts is crucial as we navigate an increasingly interconnected global blockchain landscape.

The synthesis of these reports offers a unique perspective on how political developments could influence market dynamics and investment opportunities. We believe this comprehensive view — combining our market insights with careful analysis of global policy trends — provides our partners with crucial insights for strategic positioning in 2025 and beyond.

We invite you to engage deeply with both reports and welcome your thoughts on our analyses and projections.

Sincerely,

Simon Kim

CEO & Managing Partner

Hashed

Hashed Thesis 2025: Leading Blockchain’s Global Adoption with Asia at Its Core

Hashed has always envisioned a golden era of blockchain marked by mass adoption driven by meaningful utility and global participation. We believe Asia, with its tech-savvy population, dynamic digital economies, and cultural affinity, is uniquely poised to heavily influence this transformation. From the evolution of stablecoins as a financial backbone to advancements in scalable infrastructure and high-performance blockchains, the ecosystem is now ready to support real-world applications. After years of anticipation, we believe 2025 will mark the beginning of blockchain’s true adoption phase, with Asia at the forefront, catalyzing a fair and transparent global distributed ledger.

[Part 1] 2024 Thesis: Data Tells the Real Story

A data-driven analysis of our 2024 investment thesis, examining where market realities aligned with — and deviated from — our expectations. We break down key trends, pivotal moments, and lessons that shaped our understanding of the evolving Web3 landscape.

2024 Key Area 1: Backbone for Mass Adoption of Blockchain-Based Ecosystems

The foundational infrastructure for blockchain adoption continued to mature in 2024, focusing on scalability and usability. Key advancements in stablecoins and scalability solutions demonstrated how specialized solutions are driving new levels of engagement and efficiency in blockchain applications. While specific requests for the year have not all been realized yet or have materialized differently, the overarching theme holds true: 2024 has proven to be a pivotal year in establishing accessible ground for blockchain adoption.

2024 Thesis at the End of 2023:

• Specialized stablecoins will cater to different markets (e.g., B2B payments), disrupting dominant players like USDT and USDC with targeted financial services.

2024 Retrospect:

• Stablecoin metrics show sustained growth in trading volume, users, and transactions, with monthly active addresses rising 150% from 10M to 25M between October 2022–2024, independent of market conditions.

2024 Thesis at the End of 2023:

• Layer 3 rollups will solve computation scalability for high-performance dApps, optimizing controlled environments like games and social apps.

2024 Retrospect:

• New chains are achieving both usability and scalability, exemplified by gaming-focused L3 chain B3, which reached 1.8M Active Accounts and 110M operations in 4 months — 7x faster than Ethereum’s initial growth.

2024 Key Area 2: Consumer-Targeted Products Getting Ready

Building on last year’s advancements in payment rails and streamlined infrastructure, we have consistently bet on the growth of AI-integrated blockchain products, the expansion of transparent IP ecosystems, and the rise of fully on-chain economies. This vision is not ours alone; it represents a shared mega-trend embraced by both institutions and retail participants. Social data has consistently validated this alignment, fueling our optimism that these bets will flourish even further in the coming years.

2024 Thesis at the End of 2023:

• AI and blockchain integration will enhance smart contracts, data privacy, and decentralized AI ecosystems, improving decision-making and ownership rights.
• Blockchain enables transparent IP and royalty management, fostering an open infrastructure for creative content like webtoons, games, and AIGC.
• Fully on-chain games (FOCG) and autonomous worlds (AW) will drive economic activity in virtual worlds with composability, governance, and secure virtual economies.

2024 Retrospect:

• “AI” showed overwhelming user interest and dominated crypto narratives throughout 2024, commanding 45% of all narratives in November according to Kaito’s data.

2024 Key Area 3: Bridging Traditional Finance and Expanding Bitcoin’s Use Cases

In 2024, the tokenization of Real World Assets (RWAs) and advancements in Bitcoin token standards like Ordinals and BRC-20 drove significant innovation at the intersection of traditional finance and blockchain. RWAs attracted billions in institutional liquidity, with major financial entities like BlackRock and Franklin Templeton leading the charge. Concurrently, Bitcoin experienced a transformative year as new token standards fueled ~60% of its network activity, unlocking DeFi-like opportunities and reinforcing its position as more than just a store of value.

2024 Thesis at the End of 2023:

• Tokenizing RWAs and Security Tokens bridges traditional finance and blockchain, with a focus on regulatory compliance and infrastructure development.

2024 Retrospect:

• RWA tokenization is driving billions in institutional liquidity, with major players like BlackRock and Franklin Templeton leading expansion into 2025.

2024 Thesis at the End of 2023:

• Ordinals and BRC-20 on Bitcoin: Ordinals and BRC-20 scale Bitcoin through data inscription and tokenization, creating new DeFi-like opportunities with a focus on tools, infrastructure, and marketplaces.

2024 Retrospect:

• Since Bitcoin’s genesis in 2009, network activity has grown steadily, with a sharp uptick from 2023 due to new token standards like Ordinals and Runes, which now account for ~60% of transactions.

[Part 2] Asia: Conviction Meets Opportunity

Beyond the headlines and hype, we explore why Asia continues to be the epicenter of Web3 innovation. From the user base to developer ecosystems, we unpack the fundamental drivers that make Asia’s opportunities too compelling to ignore.

Hashed believes that the true golden era of blockchain will not be confined to a privileged few in developed countries. Instead, it will emerge as a period when massive user bases, particularly from Asia, engage in diverse economic and non-economic activities on a fair and transparent global distributed ledger. Guided by this vision, we have consistently placed early bets on the Asia-centric consumer market.

In 2021, it seemed as though we were on the cusp of blockchain’s golden age. After Bitcoin reached new all-time highs, Ethereum’s DeFi and NFT ecosystems flourished, driving a massive surge in market capitalization. The dominance of altcoins increased significantly, marking the classic signs of a bull market. By August 2021, blockchain witnessed an unprecedented influx of users from emerging countries in Asia, many of whom embraced the technology enthusiastically despite a limited presence of experts in cryptocurrency. P2E games like Axie Infinity captured global attention, bringing the dream of mass adoption tantalizingly close. Investors were euphoric, viewing blockchain as the “next big thing,” and the narrative of imminent mass adoption seemed almost inevitable.

However, reality fell short of expectations. The surge in activity also brought a dramatic increase in transaction fees, leading to network congestion and transforming Ethereum from a public good into a luxury item. Meanwhile, so-called “Ethereum Killers” promoting high throughput frequently faced chain-level issues. The sustained influx of large-scale Asian users appeared promising but eventually plateaued. Before institutions could step in, macroeconomic challenges and repeated market disruptions curtailed retail-driven growth. The surge came to an end, leaving us with the story of the last cycle as we know it.

Yet, throughout the year-long crypto winter that followed — marked by plummeting metrics and a bearish market — one thing remained relatively “stable”: stablecoins. Ironically, in an industry that champions decentralization, fiat-backed stablecoins gained the most traction. Their consistent usage persisted even amid interest rate hikes, decoupling them from broader market trends. This was possible because, despite the slow and costly development of blockchain-based financial and informational infrastructure, users continued to rely on stablecoins for practical, on-chain value transfers. This highlighted how on-chain value transfer, the original promise of Bitcoin, was maturing through fiat integration.

During this period, as stablecoins solidified their fundamentals, a new wave of high-performance blockchain contenders emerged. These platforms offered a balanced approach to integrity, decentralization, practicality, and business viability. Chains that survived the winter became more robust through stress testing. As a result, the dominance of Ethereum across key metrics began to fragment, with activity increasingly shifting to L2 solutions (as Ethereum itself intended) and flourishing monolithic blockchain ecosystems. Unlike the previous cycle, characterized by prohibitive transaction fees, the current era has ushered in accessible playgrounds for the masses, enabling broader participation.

This shift coincided with deeper adoption of stablecoin rails as a major financial backbone and the formal establishment of high-performance blockchains as ecosystem-level infrastructure. On the institutional front, the approval of major cryptocurrency ETFs signaled a gateway for institutional investment and integration into mainstream financial systems. Unlike the speculative fervor of the previous cycle, institutional interest this time is far more serious, with a growing number of enterprises exploring blockchain applications across infrastructure and consumer-facing solutions.

Asia’s prominence has been particularly striking in this resurgence. Retail participants are returning to a landscape equipped with better infrastructure, diverse applications, and more efficient value transfer mechanisms. Meanwhile, key governments and major corporations across regions like the Middle East, Japan, Hong Kong, and Southeast Asia are taking blockchain seriously, signaling a shift from speculative interest to strategic engagement. This is underpinned by Asia’s unique combination of factors: high mobile penetration rates, tech-savvy populations, and rapidly expanding digital economies. Additionally, the cultural tendency toward gamification and collective participation aligns well with blockchain’s new consumer-facing applications.

We believe this is not a mere repetition of past cycles but a transformative period that lays the foundation for a global distributed ledger capable of supporting mass adoption. Asia’s massive, youthful, and digitally native population makes it uniquely positioned to lead this shift. With its readiness to embrace innovation and its active consumer markets, Asia will continue to be the driving force behind blockchain’s future, catalyzing the global transition to decentralized systems.

[Part 3] 2025: The Moves that Matter

The investment team presents individual theses on what lies ahead, grounded in market signals and ecosystem dynamics. Together, we identify key value drivers and growth vectors that shape our investment strategy, highlighting the trends we believe will define the next wave of Web3 adoption.

Currency Reinvented: Stablecoins Integrating into Traditional Markets, Simon Kim

Stablecoins surpassed Visa’s transaction volume in Q2 2024, expanding beyond crypto exchanges and DeFi into B2C and B2B finance. This expansion is evidenced in South Korea, where stablecoins now process 10% of trade settlements, marking a clear transition from the gray zone to regulated financial systems.

This rapid adoption is driven by traditional financial institutions integrating stablecoins to enhance payment efficiency, reduce costs, and enable faster cross-border transactions. SWIFT is also exploring stablecoin integration into its existing infrastructure, indicating a collaborative evolution of the global payment system toward real-time settlement capabilities.

Beyond payments, stablecoins are creating new opportunities in lending markets by leveraging interest rate differentials between high and low-interest countries. As stable collateral, they enable flexible capital flows across borders, simultaneously improving global financial efficiency and expanding access to financial services for the unbanked population.

These developments are creating significant investment opportunities in infrastructure and application development. While technical foundation expansion and security enhancement remain critical priorities, long-term market growth will ultimately depend on regulatory adaptation and institutional framework development.

Infinite Creators: How Autonomous Digital Entities Will Revolutionize Attention-Driven Social Media, Ryan Kim

Web3 social platforms have struggled to surpass centralized giants like X.com or TikTok. But a seismic shift is coming — one that will be led not by humans but by autonomous digital creators capable of producing endless streams of highly engaging content.

From Facebook’s friend-centric networks to TikTok’s algorithm-driven feeds, social media has always evolved to capture attention. The next frontier is defined by intelligent entities that operate 24/7, generating captivating formats far beyond human limitations. By integrating with smart contracts, these creators will transform engagement into real economic value, redistributing profits to token holders and creating a self-reinforcing attention economy.

Unlike traditional speculative models, this vision turns Web3 social into an economic engine, where creativity and attention flow into ever-expanding ecosystems of value, rivaling the dominance of today’s platforms.

Next Paradigm of AI: Decentralized Intelligence, Baek Kim

The centralized control of computational systems is nearing its breaking point. Opaque governance, unchecked data monopolies, and rising concerns over privacy have left traditional frameworks ripe for disruption. Decentralized intelligence offers a radically new approach: a system where power, ownership, and participation are shared across a distributed network.

This model ensures:

1. Data sovereignty — users own and control their contributions.
2. Collaborative governance — distributed decision-making eliminates single points of failure.
3. Transparent incentives — participants are rewarded fairly and equitably.

By shifting from proprietary, closed systems to a decentralized framework, this approach redefines how computational resources are managed, democratizing access to innovation while building trust, efficiency, and accountability into the foundation of digital ecosystems.

Data Gold Rush: The $20 Trillion Opportunity Hidden in High-Quality Data, Jun Park

Every leap in technological innovation has been defined by overcoming a critical scarcity:

• The early 2010s faced model shortages, resolved by revolutionary architectures like AlexNet and CNNs.
• The late 2010s encountered a compute bottleneck, driven by the rise of massive foundation models.
• Now, the defining scarcity lies in high-quality data, the untapped fuel for the next generation of breakthroughs.

Traditional frameworks hoard proprietary data, leaving vast reserves underutilized. Blockchain-powered systems unlock this hidden treasure, enabling:

1. Ownership and provenance tracking — ensuring contributors maintain control and recognition.
2. Privacy-preserving access — securely utilizing sensitive datasets.
3. Incentive alignment — rewarding data sharing through transparent economic models.

Examples like Zettablock, which integrates decentralized data layers for domain-specific solutions, and Story Protocol, which focuses on provenance for creative assets, show how these frameworks empower industries. By unlocking access to non-public data, blockchain-based ecosystems can drive innovation, scaling customized solutions across a $20 trillion global market.

Retail Unchained: Consumer-First Applications Driving Mass Blockchain Adoption, Edward Tan

The next wave of blockchain adoption will be led by consumer-first experiences that make crypto as seamless as traditional apps. Just as crypto gaming onboarded millions, on-chain retail services will bring blockchain to the mainstream.

By reimagining familiar user journeys with efficiency and transparency, blockchain applications can revolutionize everyday interactions. For example, Modhaus tokenizes fan spending in the entertainment industry, turning transactions into personalized experiences with direct fan-idol engagement. Similarly, intuitive mobile-first interfaces for DeFi protocols can simplify access to tools like DEXs, money markets, and aggregators, eliminating barriers for retail users.

To challenge the retail monopoly of centralized incumbents, teams must focus on accessibility and user onboarding. By designing platforms that integrate seamlessly with users’ lifestyles, blockchain-based consumer applications will unlock mass adoption and sustainable retail ecosystems.

Social On-Chain: Uniting Messenger Platforms and Decentralized Ecosystems, SJ Baek

With 900 million MAUs, Telegram and its blockchain, TON, have showcased the potential for Web3 mass adoption through established social platforms. Their growth stems from clicker and hypercasual games like Notcoin, which have collectively attracted tens of millions of on-chain users. Similarly, Line and Kakao, with over 200 million combined monthly active users, are leveraging Kaia to onboard developers in social, gaming, DeFi, and RWA projects, integrating users into the Web3 ecosystem.

Compared to WeChat’s centralized app ecosystem, Telegram and TON’s open consumer app ecosystem is still in its early stages, marked by rapid user acquisition but short engagement cycles. However, proven consumer application verticals — including vertical social platforms, mid-to-hardcore gaming, short-form contents, and social finance — present compelling opportunities to drive on-chain user and revenue growth with improved retention and prolonged use lifecycle.

As Telegram and TON operate as open platforms with minimal operational teams, critical infrastructure gaps remain, including social data platforms, app distribution channels, and technical support. Bridging these gaps, along with improving scalability, will require a middle layer supported by dedicated teams or established apps that expand to offer dedicated support functions.

Transforming Trades: Revitalizing High-Growth Assets and Antiquated Systems, Dan Park

Blockchain-powered marketplaces are set to revolutionize both high-growth assets and legacy industries, creating efficient, transparent platforms that address untapped opportunities and systemic inefficiencies.

1. High-Growth Assets: Platforms enabling the trading of rapidly expanding novel resources, such as computational power like GAIB is focusing on, address surging demand in areas like decentralized AI and cloud computing. Similarly, marketplaces for unconventional assets, such as urban air rights, unlock liquidity in transaction-heavy but fragmented markets, opening new avenues for participation and innovation.
2. Legacy Infrastructure Modernization: Outdated industries benefit from tokenized systems that streamline processes and enhance accessibility. Examples include diverse platforms modernizing dollar-based stablecoin ecosystems or bringing transparency to equity and commodity trading networks, enabling real-time data and efficient global trade.

These marketplaces don’t just enable transactions — they serve as critical drivers of blockchain’s long-term PMF, transforming how industries operate and expanding access to previously inaccessible opportunities.

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