What Are Crypto Narratives? Top Narratives for 2025 (UPDATED)

What Are Crypto Narratives? 

Narratives in cryptocurrency refer to the trending ideas, stories, or beliefs that shape how people perceive and value cryptocurrencies. These narratives can influence investor sentiment, market trends, and the adoption of new technologies. 

Key Takeaways

• Narratives in cryptocurrency refer to the trending ideas, stories, or beliefs that shape how people perceive and value cryptocurrencies – they can influence investor sentiment, market trends, and the adoption of new technologies. 

• In 2025, we see an increase in interest from the mainstream, from asset tokenizations and ETF applications, to an inflow of capital into the crypto space via stablecoins. 2025 also started out strong for memecoins, although it remains to be seen if the supercycle holds.

• Top narratives for 2025 are AI and AI agents, memecoins, liquid staking and restaking on Bitcoin, stablecoins, crypto ETFs, asset tokenization and RWA, and DePIN.

• Crypto narratives can also be misleading or even harmful based on false assumptions or hype. Therefore, it's important to critically evaluate narratives and base your investment decisions on sound analysis and research.

This article was updated in February 2025 to reflect new and upcoming narratives by Joel Agbo.

Market participants are always looking for trends to better understand what is taking place, why it's taking place, and its potential impacts. Historically, they use the dynamics of market cycles to act more proactively in future market environments. From Elon Musk's tweets moving the price of DOGE, to believing in the Bitcoin halving driving bull runs every four years, many investors use crypto narratives to predict price action. 

For example, the narrative of cryptocurrencies as a store of value has attracted many investors who view cryptocurrencies as a hedge against economic uncertainty. Similarly, the narrative of blockchain as a disruptive technology has attracted many entrepreneurs and developers working to build new applications on the blockchain.

Why Are Crypto Narratives Important?

Crypto narratives emerge from a combination of factors, including the technological capabilities of crypto and the blockchain, social and economic events, and the beliefs and motivations of the individuals involved in the cryptocurrency industry. Mainstream media, social media, online forums, influencers, and market trends can fuel narratives. In 2025, we’ve seen narratives like memecoins and AI agents taking off, which make the crypto market accessible to anyone, as they don’t require any extensive knowledge of the crypto space to participate. We’ve also seen increased mainstream adoption through asset tokenization, ETF applications, and an inflow of capital through stablecoins.

Narratives are important because they play a significant role in shaping public perception and subsequently market movements. They provide a framework for people to understand the potential risks and rewards of different types of cryptocurrencies, and they can influence the trajectory of the entire cryptocurrency industry. 

However, crypto narratives can also be misleading or harmful based on false assumptions or hype. As such, it's important to critically evaluate narratives and base your investment decisions on sound analysis and research.

Now, there are multiple emerging trends and themes that are trying to define 2025. We’ll look at the top crypto narratives to watch in 2025 in this guide:

AI and AI Agents

Artificial intelligence (AI) has taken off over the past two years, with the market valuation projected to hit 243.7 billion in 2025. With mainstream players like Nvidia boasting a market value of over $3 trillion in 2024, and the prevalence of AI chatbots like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, AI hype has crossed over into the crypto space. In crypto, AI recorded the highest average price gains of over 2,900%.

This rally was largely driven by AI agents, which rose to fame at the end of Q3 2024, and dominated the final quarter of the year. Crypto AI agents are autonomous, AI-powered systems designed to analyze data, make decisions, and execute actions with minimal human intervention within blockchain and cryptocurrency ecosystems. Protocols like Virtuals allow users to easily create, own, and deploy AI agents, which can then be turned into tokenized assets for fractional ownership. 

While the market cap of AI agents looks to be on the decline, AI agents still stand as one of the biggest consumer use cases for the intersection of crypto and AI, with crypto agents like aixbt offering automated market updates and analysis.

AI agents have the potential to offer great insights; however, users are still recommended to do their own research before engaging in any trades or investments.  

Memecoins

Memecoins were one of the most profitable narratives in 2024, recording 2,185% growth, leading to expectations of a memecoin supercycle. Some memecoins that have achieved new heights, like how GOAT became the first Pump.fun token to hit $1 billion in marketcap, or how Fartcoin kickstarted the AI memecoins trend. At time of writing, memecoins have a total marketcap of $63.5 billion.

As the name suggests, memecoins are based on memes and trends, supported by an enthusiastic community. They are usually positioned as fun tokens and usually depend on growing their community to go viral and drive growth. Memecoins can also offer traders an easy way to enter the hype around popular blockchains, as tokens are usually sold for a fraction of a cent upon launch. Unlike other narratives in this list, potential buyers do not need to have a complex understanding of the world of cryptocurrencies before buying into the hype, as most memecoins have little utility (especially upon launch). 

2024 also gave rise to memecoin generators that simplified the process of creating tokens, allowing anyone to launch their own memecoins without needing any technical expertise. The biggest player in this space is Pump.fun, which is built on Solana, taking advantage of its speed and low transaction fees. To date, over 8.1 million tokens have been launched on Pump.fun with almost $573 million in revenue. 

At time of writing, Solana and Base are some of the most popular chains for memecoins. 

Liquid Staking

Liquid staking tokens (LSTs) are cryptocurrencies issued by liquid staking platforms, allowing stakers a means to unlock their illiquid-staked assets and generate more yield. Instead of staking with a Proof of Stake blockchain directly, users can stake their tokens with a liquid staking provider, receiving a derivative token that can be used to engage in other DeFi activities like lending and providing liquidity. 

The cumulative market cap of liquid staking tokens and governance tokens of liquid staking protocols is over $48 billion at the time of writing, according to data from CoinGecko. This sector is mainly dominated by liquid staked ETH and liquid staked SOL. 

Bitcoin has also entered the liquid staking game, with projects like Lombard issuing LBTC, transforming BTC’s utility from a store of value into a productive financial tool by providing yield and DeFi access. According to Lombard, they have over 20.2K LBTC minted and 81.7K LBTC users.

Restaking

Taking LSTs to the next level is restaking – a growing narrative that focuses on capital efficiency, allowing users to stake the same token to secure multiple networks simultaneously. EigenLayer is the pioneer in the restaking space, with over 3.5 million ETH in TVL at time of writing. Users can restake their liquid staking tokens (along with other supported tokens) to secure Actively Validated Services (AVSs) on EigenLayer.

Restaking on Bitcoin is also an area of growing interest and one of the potential top narratives of 2025. Restaking on Bitcoin through protocols like Babylon and Solv enhances the security of Proof-of-Stake chains and applications. For BTC holders, this offers them an opportunity to earn yield from their bitcoin, and even turn their BTC into liquid staked BTC, which can then be used for other DeFi activities. According to data from CoinGecko, the market cap of restaking projects is over $13 billion at the time of writing.

Stablecoins

While stablecoins are not a new innovation in the crypto space, they play a key role in contributing to general liquidity of the crypto market while allowing users to preserve value in the crypto market. In 2025, we are seeing the market cap of stablecoins rise to over $231 billion, suggesting an inflow of capital into the crypto space.

Stablecoin projects like USDe by Ethena and USDS by Sky Finance (previously Maker) are also exploring improved yield opportunities for stablecoins. 

Ethena’s USDe is a synthetic dollar backed by crypto assets and doesn’t rely on traditional financial infrastructure, nor does it require overcollateralization (which is often the case for crypto-backed stablecoins). Users can accrue protocol yield by staking their USDe and receiving sUSDe in return, with no further action required. According to Sky, USDS is an improved version of DAI, where users can accumulate additional USDS when they supply USDS to the Sky Savings Rate.

ETFs

An Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) is an investment fund designed to track the performance of underlying assets such as stocks, bonds, currencies, commodities, and future contracts. Likewise, a crypto ETF is an investment fund that tracks the performance of one or more cryptocurrencies, or even other crypto-related assets. 

Crypto ETFs are regarded as an indication of adoption of cryptocurrencies by mainstream investment firms, as they provide mainstream investors a way to invest in cryptocurrencies. In 2024, we saw the first approval of a Bitcoin ETF, followed by the approval of the first Ethereum ETF in the second quarter of the year. 

Notable mainstream financial institutions with an active crypto ETF include Blackrock, Gray Scale, and Fidelity Investments.

Blackrock reportedly controls about 50% of the Bitcoin ETF market share. The investment firm has acquired over $58 billion worth of bitcoin between the end of 2023 and 2025. Following this are Fidelity and Grayscale with about 17% market share and $19 billion worth of bitcoin each. 21 Shares and Bitwise, control about 7% of the Bitcoin ETF market share between them.

As financial regulatory agencies clarify their positions on cryptocurrencies, the structure of mainstream applications for crypto assets is expected to improve. Trump’s presidency also heralds a more crypto-friendly SEC, with ongoing ETF applications for cryptocurrencies including SOL, XRP, and even DOGE. 

Asset Tokenization and Real-World Assets

As the name suggests, real-world assets (RWA) are assets from the physical world, including financial instruments including fiat currencies, shares, and bonds, along with other asset categories such as real estate, machinery, art, and more. At time of writing, the total market cap of the RWA sector sits at $35.2 billion.

RWA tokenization is a way to render these assets accessible to a broader range of investors through fractional ownership, democratizing access to high-value assets.  

For example, in the case of real estate, investors may not be able to purchase the whole asset, but by tokenizing the property, where each token represents a fraction of the asset, investors can buy tokens to own part of the property. In the case of fiat currencies, a representation of the asset on the blockchain can be minted, which can then be used to engage in DeFi activities as an alternative to traditional finance, or even as a way to retain value for regions suffering from hyperinflation. 

Previously, during the bear market, there was interest in tokenized U.S. treasuries, with projects like Ondo Finance taking off. At the moment, a key project to watch in the RWA and tokenization space is Mantra, which is one of the fastest-growing projects in the space. Mantra is a Layer 1 blockchain used for the tokenization of real-world assets while ensuring regulatory compliance for digital representations of real-world assets onchain. 

Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks (DePIN)

DePIN refers to decentralized physical infrastructure networks, which use blockchains and token rewards to develop infrastructure in the physical world across different fields, such as wireless connectivity, geospatial mapping, mobility, health, energy, and more. At time of writing, the total market cap of projects in the DePIN space is $20.6 billion.

The goal of DePIN is to create resource-efficient physical infrastructure through incentivizing providers to commit their physical resources to a decentralized network. The DePIN project then makes these resources available to users who are looking for cheaper service charges (relative to centralized facilities), and the network generates revenue through fees paid by the users.

Conclusion

In 2024, we saw narratives like prediction markets, blockchain modularity, and an increase in interest around Bitcoin, with the launch of Layer 2s and new token options, such as Ordinals, BRC-20 tokens, and Runes. The interest in Bitcoin is continuing into 2025, with protocols offering liquid staking and restaking for BTC. Other new and emerging narratives to watch in 2025 include AI and AI agents and memecoins, along with mainstream interest as seen in stablecoins, ETFs, and asset tokenization.  

Remember, this article is only for educational purposes and should not be taken as financial advice. Please do your own research (DYOR) before investing in any asset.