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We’ve seen DeFi, NFTs, memecoins, AI tokens… but what’s coming next? Will it be real-world assets (RWA), L2 ecosystems, something in gaming, or maybe something completely new?

Curious to hear your thoughts - where do you think the smart money is going next cycle? ???

I will advise this thread be moved to speculation board or altcoins discussion, because it has nothing to do with the forum, but cryptocurrency at large.

To answer your question, we are going to first consider on what we have on ground, how is it recognized, acceptable and useful for the immediate challenge the world is facing, which i don't think there is a precise innovation now on ground to stand the gap of what cryptocurrency has made, except on other aspects other than digital currency, taking about quantum and the likes, they are coming up on a different pace to what we already had in bitcoin.

I don't have any idea, to be honest. But I believe the hype provoked by Artificial intelligence is going to be very difficult to surpass by any coming trend, as we continue to see this new technology to make it to the headlines, something which was very different from Non  fungible tokens, Defi and memecoins. Artificial intelligence is something which is very linked to Centralized companies and continues (and will continue) to be in the public spotlight for a long time.

Funnily enough, I have seen people investing in sex-related projects, believing the migration to pornography industry was going to be the next thing in the Blockchain, but it never happened. This is pretty much a guessing game, almost a gamble.

Since you are talking about the altcoins cycle next season. I guess next season will going to be altcoins season for people that is hodling altcoins to believe that it is time to sell to earn profi., Do you know some government are planning to launch some new  coins that will make the altcoins hodlers to celebrate potential altcoins.

This year the trend in crypto has fallen on AI and RWA. Looking ahead, I cannot speculate on what trends will be the focus. Perhaps we need to wait and see if the altseason will happen first. This year's cycle is much more difficult to predict. Moreover today ETH is celebrating its 10th anniversary, and it is possible that it will lead to an L2 trend. maybe  ::)

One trend I'm waiting for some time now (but to my knowledge hasn't materialized) are synthetic stablecoins based on different RWA tokens (a bit like Dai works but not pegged to the US dollar but to other assets).

Why do I think this could become a trend? Because the US dollar has recently shown weakness and years of high inflation, and Trump's inflation-inducing measures (like the tariff war) aren't helping.

Let's imagine a stablecoin made up by oil derivative tokens, soybean derivative tokens, precious metal tokens, and stock-based tokens. Such a coin could include a DAO to conduct votings for new asset additions. It could be more stable against consumer prices than the US dollar itself.

The problem is of course here: how to deal with scams and bankruptcies of token issuers? If such a synthetic stablecoin is made up from 10 tokens, one single failure could already mean the stability is gone. Thus either such a coin would have to be made up by dozens (or better hundreds) of tokens, or to request overcollateralization for the tokens, so losses of one specific token wouldn't be that much of an issue.

Regarding the overall impact of altcoins and crypto technology, which is going beyond the scope of the main forum. You mentioned a lack of real innovation, which is somewhat agreed upon. Currently, most crypto projects are more theory-centric or finance-oriented than real-world problems. While some projects (e.g. DeFi, tokenized identity, oracles, privacy tech) are showing limited application, most altcoins are still stuck in the speculative phase. I think the trend of innovation is often evolutionary.

Interesting concept - diversifying away from USD makes sense. But yeah, RWA tokens come with big risks: fraud, defaults, lack of enforcement. Without strong audits and overcollateralization, it’s too fragile.

It's hard to predict since usually big trend just came out of nowhere but I'd bet it's gonna be stablecoin focused blockchains.
I've seen plenty of such project going on and having big investments, some of them got direct investment from the stablecoin issuer so a more reason to think they gonna become big.

But whether they gonna have governance token that we can speculate on is still something that we don't know. I'm sure stablecoin will be pushed a lot more harder in the future.

It’s too difficult to say, could be anything. We only usually know what’s super successful during & after the bype phase. Just try to stay active on social media, in crypto chat forums, on Reddit etc. You can try to see what’s trending, what has a very active & positive community. Nothing is guaranteed but you can try to see what has good utility & is becoming popular.

I don't know yet, because it depends on the problem that coin is solving and how useful it is to the people based on its capacity to hold value. You need to stay updated in the crypto space, and I believe in a few years we might see something new.

Yeah, when it happens then we know, but until then, we have no idea. ıt's clear that we are not going to really see anything happen until it's already too late and we already know what's going on. In this case, usually the first ones break over and make a lot and whoever was involved makes money, and then there will be thousands of same stuff, trying to mimic the success but will fail.

Latest I remember was notcoin, NOBODY talked about it early on, and yet it made a lot ,then there were hamster kombats and whatever there were so many, every day there was a few new ones, and all failed. So we are going to be either part of it beforehand, or we will join the later ones and lose money. So, I do not really hold my breath about it.

RWA with further tradfi integration. We've past the need to developed L2s. Most of these blockchains are fast and cheap enough. What we need is integration to tradfi so that we can have better capital inflow from the tradfi. I see the trend of centralized exchange listing forex and stocks these days in their platform, possibly they're trying to live up to the narrative and bring in more and more tradfi money.

Synthetic stablecoins backed by diverse RWA tokens (oil, soybeans, metals, stocks) are rare, mainly due to risks from issuer failures, the need for large diversification, and challenges in ensuring each asset's reliability and stability

With the knowledge I have acquired so far , I think the big trend now is zk rollup x ai
It’s the next big thing and trend; with different platforms and projects and dev showing up on that route

That’s where funds are going in the next circle

We can't really figure out what it is. But, we can sense that AI seems to be something big these days, and there could be something relevant to it.

I am not saying it will be AI tokens, because they are obviously horrible, at least the ones we have, but we can easily assume that it is going to be something that is at least a bit relevant, something related.

Maybe it would be some projects that uses AI but not AI projects, something like that could be possible. It's clear that we are having some trouble with it, but can't make it work yet. If we do that, and we figure it out, then we do not even have to invest. Because if you find the next trend, before anyone else, even an airdrop could get you a ton of money in return.

I agree, we are in a muddy period, tech is moving so fast that trends will not last here. "AI" is just a buzzword now, over the next years "AGI" or "ASI" are also going to be more buzzwords used to pander towards the general public.

WE already know that if you've created the so called "next bitcoin" you do not have to market it as such.  It has to have a legit use case, as well as mass adaptability.

I personally will be watching, however ZK, RWA and utility based coins will begin to separate themselves from the rest.

Yeah, whoever jumps on the next hype train first is going to come out on top — especially if they catch a promising airdrop. The key is not to confuse 'AI' in the name with actual technological value.

No one knows, it just depends on the research you do on the coins you choose, what you see, what you hear noises on crypto news platforms, maybe it can help you anyway op.
If you are curious enough, you will see which coins are noisy in the crypto space.

And these things mentioned can be seen in defi, Meme coins, Ai and RWA, it really depends, now if you are smart you can keep up with the trend, that's all op.

I think treasury companies are the obvious trend at the moment. We’re seeing lots of Bitcoin treasury companies popping up, but also now some Ethereum and even Solana treasury companies. I imagine this trend will continue as more businesses come up with their own crypto strategies.

That’s a solid question. I think we’re entering a phase where narrative-driven trends will need to be backed by real-world traction to survive. My bet for the next cycle? Real-World Assets (RWA) and permissionless AI-integrated DeFi platforms.

Here’s why:

1. RWA tokens = bridge to institutional liquidity
Governments and asset managers are finally warming up to tokenised bonds, real estate, and commodities. The moment yields on-chain match off-chain demand (with compliance baked in), we’ll see massive inflows. Projects like Centrifuge, Ondo, and even Maker are already leaning this way.

2. AI + DeFi = smarter money management
Forget buzzwords. The projects that integrate AI for actual use — like automated yield farming strategies, smart debt risk analysis, or predictive NFT valuations — will lead the next phase of DeFi evolution.

3. GameFi with real IP rights
If someone nails gaming with actual user ownership of in-game content tied to real-world rights (not just JPEGs), that could be explosive.

I think smart money is rotating from pure speculation to hybrid utility — combining regulation-ready infrastructure with user-centric innovation.

What do others think — are we seeing signs of this shift already, or is it still too early?

People and real investors are already tired of this BS. The next BTC as they always label it will no longer be liked by the community. Even adding bitcoin at its name will never do anything differently. So, for those developers that have made such projects, they know that it's nothing anymore and they're just wasting all of their time in creating those kind of Bitcoins when there's already one and thought that it will become a good project that will be invested by everyone.

Well, thinking about how mastercard/visa keeps on pressuring the adult industry into a corner, we could definitely consider things could be going towards crypto a bit more. Because if in the adult world people can't pay with mastercard/visa, then there are only a few smaller payment processors left and that could be an issue for the industry, they need to make some money somehow, otherwise why would they do it?

And for this reason they could move towards crypto and make it happen, not going to really be that troublesome for most people. Why do I believe that? Because it's clear that we are seeing things changing to a new level with these bans, and that could be a whole new situation for the long term, so crypto could be alternative.

For now I feel like the trend can’t be speculated since we don’t know whether the alt season will come first, so speculating about that currently, I think, may be difficult to do. For that I think we need to wait and see what will happen instead of speculation that could be wrong at the end of the day, so I feel like we always know what the trend will be about before or after the trend. You know, in crypto many of these things only follow the trend, so you should be the one to check which of these have the positive community.

To bad that we are seeing many projects trying to use that marketing ploy, when we know even bitcoin wouldn't be bitcoin today, because it is not the first one. Bitcoin is only up there at the first place because it is the most decentralized one and the first one. All others either are centralized, sucks, or both, there isn't a single project that has what bitcoin has. Sure the blockchain of bitcoin is an old sucky one, there is no doubt about that, there are many better blockchains out there, by far better even.

However, they all have devs working on it, making it not decentralized truly, even if it looks decentralized, the dev could do something, and people will accept it, so there is no need to consider anything as decentralized as bitcoin, which has no dev or central figure anymore.

On the past, only good projects can get a hype but nowadays, indeed that almost anything can do it now but isn't that lowering the difficulty level? Because we have more chances to get successful now. Waiting for the hype before investing might lessen our profits already or may not give us anything anymore because there are projects that are only built for the short-term.

Just to be clear, I'm not saying that investing early is safe either. And I would only like to remind that we are still talking about new projects here because there are also old projects that has more guarantees already like Bitcoin and Ethereum for example.

I really don't have any idea what will come up next, but I doubt it will be just another project that has been made before. Not a repeat. It doesn't work anymore.

If a genius comes out to create a new hype relating to cryptocurrencies, I bet it's going to be one that is so unique that it will be hard to pass. I mean, there are so many projects out there with their own coins, but most of them are projects that were mostly done before but never succeeded. Yes, the ICO days. It's just different now in how they gain support. It's because more people have been intrigued by cryptocurrencies.