What do you think the next big trend in crypto will be?

[Paddy man]

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?

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?

[passwordnow]

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.

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.

[justdimin]

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.

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.

[Dzwaafu11]

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?

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.

[tygeade]

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.

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.

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.

[M47AK16]

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.

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.

[danherbias07]

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.