RWA is the number one use case in crypto right now, Research lead at CoinMarketCap says

Research Lead at CoinMarketCap Alice Liu has predicted that the number one trend in the digital asset sector in 2025 will be Real World Assets (RWA). According to the official, the RWA trend aligns with the ongoing influx of institutional investors in the crypto industry.

During an interview with Scot Melker, Liu explained that the RWA sector is experiencing strong demand. She also highlighted that the sector will soon witness the first billion-dollar fund, with institutions such as BlackRock’s BUIDL fund accumulating about $800 million a few months after launch.

Liu suggests 2025 will be big for RWA, decentralized AI, and the memecoin sector

RWA is the number use case right now according to @CoinMarketCap pic.twitter.com/RXOy7E0Qki

— The Wolf Of All Streets (@scottmelker) January 10, 2025

Liu emphasized that the RWA sector’s strong demand is a result of it having a solid business model with projects generating operational revenue. According to data from CoinGecko, the RWA sector has a market cap of $18.7 billion, with a 1.9% dip in the last 24 hours.

Liu also highlighted that 2025 will be big on projects related to decentralized science (DeSci), decentralized artificial intelligence (DeAI), AI agents, and AI-powered DeFi. 

The researcher also said memecoins would continue being big in 2025. Liu emphasized that despite being rocked several times on pump.fun, she will continue to pursue opportunities in the memecoin sector. She said the memecoin industry is experiencing growth and developments, which are giving rise to better business models and improved newer generations of fair launch products. 

Liu explained that the CoinMarketCap received over 400 million monthly visits, allowing the platform to collect a lot of data based on what many crypto enthusiasts are looking at and what projects they are engaging in. 

She said memecoins have been by far the number one sector on CoinMarketCap visits last year. She predicts the same trend will continue in 2025 following the engagement scores present in memecoins. Liu told Melker that the memecoin sub-sector is getting more mature with Blue Chip and community-backed projects.

The researcher touched on Bitcoin saying the asset has immense potential this year, especially after Trump’s inauguration on 20th January. Liu said Bitcoin will experience volatility after the inauguration event and a possible uptrend with increased institutional engagement.

Alice Liu says Bitcoin will become mainstream in 2025 

At the beginning of the interview, Liu said that 2025 will be the year when Bitcoin goes mainstream due to corporate and national state adoption. The CoinMarketCap official referenced the reforms that paved the way for institutional capital in 2024 through the approval of spot Bitcoin ETFs by regulators in various parts of the world. 

Liu told Melker that the approvals legitimized Bitcoin and exposed the assets to corporate treasury books for companies as well as reserve assets for countries. 

Data from SoSoValue, a U.S. spot ETF tracking website shows spot Bitcoin ETFs have accumulated $106.82 billion in net assets under management. The data also shows that the ETFs received the largest inflows since the year began on January 6th worth $987.06 million.

The researcher also shed light on Trump’s move to establish a strategic BTC reserve for the U.S. Treasury saying that the move puts pressure on other countries to adopt the crypto asset in their reserves. 

The growing discussions on the policy have already emerged in other countries such as Germany, Hong Kong, Russia, Brazil, and Poland. Germany’s former Finance Minister Christian Lindner proposed that the European Central Bank and the Bundesbank consider adopting the crypto asset to reduce reliance on the U.S. dollar.

Melker predicted that if Trump executes his promise of making Bitcoin a strategic reserve asset for America, Bitcoin will skyrocket to $500,000 in months. According to CoinMarketCap, Bitcoin is currently trading at $94,386 at the time of this publication. The asset is up 1.05% in the last 24 hours but down about 2% in the last seven days.

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