Bitcoin all-time highs. Digital asset treasuries. Billions of dollars of institutional inflows. 2025 has been a breakout year for the cryptocurrency space, and this momentum may continue into 2026.
The industry’s brightest minds painted an optimistic outlook for the remainder of the year at Cointelegraph’s exclusive LONGITUDE event during Token2049 in Singapore.
Maelstrom chief investment officer Arthur Hayes, Ethereum co-founder Joseph Lubin, acclaimed author Neal Stephenson and Aave Labs founder Stani Kulechov headlined a program that delved into the major narratives dominating 2025.
LONGITUDE was co-hosted by Unlimit, a global fintech leader in payment processing, banking as a service (BaaS), and an on-ramp fiat solution for crypto, DeFi, and GameFi.
Rayls, Flipster and ICB Labs also featured as partners of Cointelegraph’s flagship event.
Hayes’ $3.2 million Bitcoin prediction
Hayes’ fireside chat was jam-packed with his signature spicy takes. He unpacked his thesis for Bitcoin hitting $3.2 million, driven by models predicting continued monetary expansion by the US Treasury.
“The majority of it will go into Bitcoin, and I think the new meta is fundamental season — cash flow and revenue. The token projects that do really well in this altseason will have sort of a Hyperliquid-style profitability, taking those profits, buying back their token or doing some sort of emissions,” Hayes said.
The Maelstrom chief investment officer also said that the digital asset treasuries (DATs) will likely be dominated by a handful of first movers.
“It’s another financial product to trade. It’s great that this is sort of a back door to give crypto exposure to investors who otherwise wouldn’t be able to own it,” Hayes said. “The capital is going to be concentrated in the larger names like Strategy or Bitmine. They’re going to receive the lion’s share.”
DAT treasury meta
LONGITUDE also fielded a DAT debate between three major players focused on drastically different assets. SharpLink Gaming CEO Joseph Chalom championed the company’s Ethereum playbook, saying Ether provides a broad spectrum of benefits over other tokens.
“I have a belief that most of finance will be fundamentally disrupted by Ethereum and its L2s, and I believe we’re at the point where it’s not just going to be financial markets changing, it’s going to be civilization-level change.”
Related: Ethereum DATs are the next Berkshire Hathaway: Consensys founder
The Smarter Web Company CEO, Andrew Webley — the man behind the UK’s most successful publicly listed Bitcoin treasury company — was adamant that there is no second-best to BTC on the balance sheet:
“So there’s simply two qualities that I like about Bitcoin. The fixed number that will ever exist and the fact that no one controls it.”
David Namdar, who has raised $500 million for BNC’s BNB (BNB) treasury, pointed to BNB Chain’s utility and significant usage as well as Binance’s position as the world’s largest exchange as key reasons for adopting BNB.
“If you think about Facebook, Google, Apple, the largest companies in each of their verticals, they’re publicly listed in the US. In the crypto space, the biggest company in the space, Binance, is potentially five to 10 times larger than any other crypto exchange,” Namdar said.
Metaverse vision
Lubin and Stephenson’s fireside took things in a more philosophical direction, as they unpacked the latter’s astute predictions for a future that hinged on cryptography and decentralized systems in his critically acclaimed novels Snow Crash and Cryptonomicon.
Lubin said that he drew a lot of inspiration from Stephenson’s novels as a youngster and resonated deeply with the way Stephenson imagined a cypherpunk future.
“The thing that was really positive and compelling was how he articulated what cyberspace might look like and feel like and how you might get into cyberspace and interact with objects and space. It was a crisp, stark vision. I think it showed the way for a lot of builders of my generation,” Lubin said.
The Consensys founder provided deeper insights into his hopes for SharpLink and Ether-based DATs and also revealed that SWIFT is using Consensys-based Ethereum development tools to evolve its existing infrastructure to blockchain rails.
Trillion-dollar infrastructure
The event wrapped up with a quickfire panel exploring the synergies between TradFi and DeFi infrastructure rails.
Kulechov highlighted Aave’s growing dominance of the DeFi landscape, as net deposits eclipse $70 billion.
“To put that into context, that would be like the 35th biggest bank in comparison in the US, and we’re not thinking of being that end-user product. We think of Aave and DeFi as an infrastructure that is then embedded into these fintechs and traditional financial services that will distribute this.”
Unlimit’s founder Kiril Eves said his company had no choice but to onboard crypto services due to demand from its expansive customer base:
“Everything’s going to be crypto. And of course, stablecoins would replace the classic way of wire transfers completely. That’s what they can be for us. This future is super clear. So that’s why we need we need to serve this industry.”
Privacy is another major reason why TradFi is looking to blockchain infrastructure. Rayls CEO Marcos Viriato said that Rayls’ service is tapping into a growing sector that is primed for decentralized evolution.
“When it comes to infrastructure for banks and financial institutions, it needs to be secure, reliable and abstract the complexity for the end-user. Our focus has been to provide this to banks so they can serve clients in a way that the client doesn’t know that’s being tokenized, but will take the benefits from it,” Viriato said.
Cointelegraph will host its next LONGITUDE event in Abu Dhabi on Dec. 11. If you’re interested in joining one of the industry’s most exclusive events, more details can be found on Luma.
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