Article Summary
- Review and analyze the accuracy of cryptocurrency price predictions and market trends made by financial institutions and individuals at the end of 2024.
- Evaluate the performance of predictions made by VanEck, Bitwise, Coinbase, Galaxy Research, Hashkey, Delphi Digital, Messari, Framework, Blockworks, and Alliance DAO.
- Identify common patterns in successful and unsuccessful predictions, focusing on the role of regulatory factors and market sentiment.
- Emphasize the importance of caution when relying on predictions for investment decisions.
Introduction
As the year draws to a close, various institutions' 2026 cryptocurrency predictions and outlooks are expected to emerge over the next month. Before diving into new forecasts, it's worthwhile to revisit what these institutions said last year. After all, anyone can make predictions, but accuracy is the true test. Looking back to the end of 2024, when market sentiment was high and Bitcoin surpassed $100,000, forecasts were generally optimistic. For instance, some predicted Bitcoin would hit $200,000, stablecoin volume would double, AI agents would ignite on-chain activity, and crypto unicorns would flock to IPOs. Now, a year later, have these predictions materialized? We've sifted through various prediction reports from last year to assess the views of several institutions and individuals, evaluating how accurately they forecasted the market.
1. VanEck: 10% Accuracy Rate
VanEck gave 10 predictions at the end of 2024, with the only one hitting the mark being the establishment of a Bitcoin strategic reserve. The remaining nine all missed, and most weren't slight deviations but rather order-of-magnitude errors. For example, they predicted crypto would peak in Q1 with Bitcoin reaching $180k, followed by a new high at year-end. In reality, the timing and price targets were completely inverted. Additionally, market size predictions were overly optimistic. Tokenized securities were predicted at $50 billion, while the actual figure was around $30-130 billion. DeFi TVL was forecast at $200 billion, while the actual was about $120-130 billion. NFT trading volume was predicted at $30 billion, with an actual estimate of $5-6.5 billion. Overall, VanEck was quite accurate in judging policy directions but systematically overestimated the size of the on-chain economy.
2. Bitwise: 50% Accuracy Rate
Bitwise gave 10 predictions, hitting five, mainly concentrated in the regulatory and institutional adoption areas. Price and size forecasts were also systematically overestimated. Policy and institutional adoption predictions were spot on. Coinbase and MicroStrategy entering US stock indices came true; the crypto IPO year materialized, with several crypto companies going public. The number of countries holding Bitcoin increased from nine to nearly thirty. Price targets all missed: Bitcoin, ETH, and SOL's predicted prices were far higher than the actual performance of these tokens this year. Coinbase stock price at $250 was 65% off the $700 target. RWA tokenization estimated at $50 billion was also an overestimate. Overall, Bitwise has a keen nose for policy and an accurate grasp of regulatory shifts and the pace of institutional adoption.
3. Coinbase: Nearly 100% Accuracy Rate
Coinbase's predictions were divided into "macro" and "disruptive" categories, mostly directional judgments rather than precise numbers, predictive in nature. Some core verifiable predictions are as follows:
Other predictions were generally correct but difficult to quantify:
You can see that this company's predictions clearly avoid specific price targets, focusing on policy turning points and industry trends. As a result, the core predicted directions all hit the mark. Regulatory shifts were all verified: predicting that the "most crypto-friendly Congress ever" would bring benefits and more ETF approvals; this was indeed the case. The general direction of stablecoins and DeFi was correct: predicting "explosive growth and expansion into commercial payments" for stablecoins, and this year Mastercard announced in June that it would support USDC/PYUSD/USDG, Coinbase's own payment platform integrated with Shopify, and Stripe launched USDC subscription payments; predicting a DeFi recovery, and the reality is that DeFi TVL reached $120 billion, nearly its highest since May 2022. This strategy of "only saying the direction and not the points" lacks excitement but seems the most stable in retrospect and is not easily refuted.
4. Galaxy Research: 26% Accuracy Rate
Galaxy Research's researchers made a total of 23 predictions, the largest and most quantitatively specific of all institutions. Looking back, the policy prediction team performed excellently (100% accuracy), while price and market size predictions were almost entirely wrong. In particular, the prediction that DOGE would exceed $1 could be said to be overly optimistic at present. Additionally, Galaxy's predictions were good on ecosystem development. For example, the prediction that most mining companies would transition to AI and high-performance computing was a notable trend in this year's AI fever. When the number of predictions is large and the granularity is fine, even specialized research institutions will not be able to do everything correctly; the market did not go the way everyone expected.
5. Hashkey: 70% Accuracy Rate
Overall, HashKey's predictions were accurate in assessing regulatory and compliance progress (ETFs, stablecoin legislation) and structural changes in the ecosystem (the rise of DEXs, L2 differentiation), but overly optimistic about the price cycle. Interestingly, this prediction also reflects the sentiment of the crypto community at the time. After HashKey Group released 2025's top ten market predictions, nearly 50,000 community users voted from among sixteen popular predictions summarized by HashKey researchers, analysts, and traders. The results showed that 50% of voters were optimistic about the prediction that "Bitcoin will exceed $300,000, Ethereum will exceed $8,000, and the total market capitalization of the crypto market will reach $10 trillion." Ironically, the prediction that received the highest vote share is the least likely to materialize, considering the end of this year.
6. Delphi Digital: 40% Accuracy Rate
Delphi Digital's predictions were accurate on technology infrastructure and consumer applications; the prediction on consumer applications was the highlight: "2025 will be an important development node for consumer-level DeFi, and more and more crypto users will fully embrace on-chain financial services." We've already seen various types of U cards and tokenized US stocks this year. Additionally, traditional financial applications like Robinhood are gradually embracing the chain.
7. Messari: 55% Accuracy Rate
Although Messari is a data analysis platform, its predictions tend towards "trends" rather than "specific numbers." Looking back, its judgment on major trends was relatively accurate.
8. Framework Co-founder: 25% Accuracy Rate
Next, we also selected some of the more representative individual perspectives from last year to assess the results. First, the predictions of Vance Spencer, co-founder of Framework. We selected the part related to crypto to compile:
Clearly, Vance gives high prediction expectations for the projects he invested in, such as Glow, Daylight, and Berachain, which represent the energy and public chain fields, respectively. Additionally, some quantitative goals were overly ambitious, such as the average daily inflows of $1 billion into Ethereum ETFs.
9. Blockworks Co-founder: 48% Accuracy Rate
Mippo (X:MikeIppolito_), co-founder of Blockworks, is the person who made the largest number of predictions among the institutions and individuals we reviewed, but the accuracy of his predictions was good, hitting nearly half. A highlight was that the prediction of Robinhood's rise was completely correct, as well as seizing investment opportunities in L1, such as Hyperliquid and SUI, whose tokens have performed well this year.
10. Alliance DAO Wang Qiao & Imran: 50% Accuracy Rate
WangQiao and Imran, the founders of Alliance DAO, also made predictions about developments in 2025 in a podcast conversation. We compiled the perspectives related to crypto:
As we can see, the founders were overly optimistic about the performance of Bitcoin. Even the lowest predicted value of $150k is still far from the highest price of Bitcoin this year. However, the judgment on the prediction market was very accurate, and it can be said that it predicted this major trend a year in advance. In short, after looking at last year's predictions, it is clear that there are several rules:
The number of predictions and accuracy are basically negatively correlated; the more predictions, the more mistakes. Trying to predict specific price points and numbers mainly leads to counterproductive results. Predictions related to policies are highly reliable. Almost all institutions and individuals correctly predicted improvements in the regulatory environment and the United States' friendly attitude towards crypto.
Finally, I believe that the value of these institutions' predictions each year lies not in "telling you what to buy" but in "telling you what the industry is thinking." We can regard these predictions as indicators of industry sentiment; and if you are going to use them as an investment guide, the results may be dire. At the same time, maintain a good habit: be skeptical of any predictions with specific numbers, regardless of who issued them, whether it is a KOL, an institution, or a top figure in the industry. This does not mean that we should criticize these industry elites, but that wrong predictions also have value. It will tell you what the market once believed. No one can predict the future.
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