The Blockchain Industry Desperately Needs Real Innovation

On October 29, 2025, NVIDIA became the first company in history to reach a market capitalization of $5 trillion. That same day, a crypto project concluded its Dutch auction, only for the token to immediately drop below its opening price—participants lost an average of 10%.

This perfectly captures the reality of 2025. While NVIDIA surged from $4 trillion to $5 trillion in just three months—eclipsing the total global cryptocurrency market cap—the crypto sector was mired in disappointment. Bitcoin at $120,000 was the industry’s lone bright spot; altcoins fell below post-FTX collapse levels, and trading volumes dropped 32% year-over-year.

Recently, a friend said, “This year, my mom’s returns trading Chinese domestic stocks easily outpaced anything I made trading crypto.” Although it may sound exaggerated, this reflects the reality of the crypto sector in 2025. With more than 440 Chinese domestic stocks doubling in the first three quarters, Hong Kong IPOs achieved an average first-day gain of 38%, gold climbing over 50%, and U.S. meme stocks doubling overnight, crypto investors were left bruised and battered.

Global Markets Are Soaring

2025 is an extraordinary bull year. Nearly every major capital market is posting strong gains.

The Chinese domestic stock market saw its biggest rally in a decade. Sunway New Materials, listed on the STAR Market and boosted by the AI narrative, surged 1,278% in share price from July 9 to October 24, becoming 2025’s first stock that increased tenfold. In just 16 trading days, Sunway reached the maximum allowable daily price increase 11 times. Its market cap rocketed from ¥3 billion to ¥37.1 billion—a pace of wealth creation rarely seen in Chinese domestic stock history.

Hong Kong stocks were equally impressive. The Hang Seng Index rose nearly 29% for the year, with Alibaba’s share price doubling and Tencent gaining over 50%.

The Hong Kong IPO market performed even better. By July, 52 companies had gone public in 2025, with just a 23% rate of declining below the offer price on the first day and an average first-day gain of 38%. Innogen soared 116.7% on debut, ESearch Technology jumped 91.72%, Mao Geping and Lao Pu Gold surged 76.51% and 72.84%, respectively. As some say, “A single IPO this year beats half a year of trading.” This statement is supported by the data.

Gold’s performance was astonishing. International gold prices climbed from $2,590 at the start of the year to $4,100 by the end of October—a gain of more than 50%. This could be the largest annual increase since 1979. The S&P Global Gold Mining Index soared 129%, and Zijin Mining’s market cap surpassed ¥1 trillion.

U.S. stocks were in a league of their own. NVIDIA, Microsoft, and Meta all hit record highs. Even meme stocks generated huge returns for retail investors—OpenDoor jumped 2,000% in three months, Beyond Meat soared 1,100% in just a few days. Once discarded by Wall Street, these companies were revived by retail enthusiasm.

Bitcoin may have reached its all-time high of $120,000, but for most investors, it meant little. Altcoins dropped below post-FTX levels, new launches immediately fell below offering price, trading firms pivoted to Hong Kong IPOs, and Q3 2025 trading volume collapsed 32% year-over-year.

Is Blockchain Still a Technology Sector?

AI dominates the global conversation, with NVIDIA—the $5 trillion market cap giant—leading the charge. That valuation exceeds the combined market cap of all cryptocurrencies, the stock markets of the UK, France, and Germany, and is closing in on India’s entire stock market.

That figure is backed by real technological leadership and commercial value. Worldwide, large model training is powered by NVIDIA chips—OpenAI, Google, and Meta are all clients. Autonomous vehicles, robotics, and AI applications all depend on computing power. This is tangible revenue and real profit: In Q3 2025, NVIDIA’s revenue hit $35 billion, up 94% year-over-year, with net margins above 50%.

Crypto briefly chased the AI trend, but it was just hype. The “blockchain+AI” narrative hasn’t produced any breakthrough applications, and AI tools used in the industry are largely unrelated to blockchain. Not to mention the fake projects launching tokens under the AI banner.

A standard approach has emerged: set a valuation and fundraising goal, identify platforms for listing, secure another round from KOLs, proceed to the next project.

Blockchain is supposed to be a technology sector—Bitcoin should be its flagship. But today, the industry feels all financial, not technological.

Historically, each bull market has been driven by clear technological breakthroughs.

In 2017, the ICO and smart contract boom. Ethereum showed that blockchain could be more than just currency—it could power applications. Most ICOs eventually failed, but that wave advanced public chain infrastructure. Vitalik Buterin’s smart contract concept opened developers’ eyes to blockchain’s potential.

2020–2021 saw explosive growth in DeFi and NFTs. Uniswap revolutionized trading with automated market making; Aave and Compound decentralized lending; Curve optimized stablecoin swaps. The total value locked (TVL) exceeded $200 billion in these protocols. NFTs redefined digital ownership, including art, game items, domains, and digital identity. Both were native crypto innovations solving real problems.

In 2024, the market latched onto the AI story, with some attempts at AI infrastructure—but it lasted just a year.

In 2025, the focus shifted to point farming.

There are many objective reasons for this, and on the surface, it’s a liquidity crunch. However, the fundamental problem is a lack of innovation and inflated valuations.

It took three years for crypto to move from token fundraising to DeFi. Four years have passed since DeFi’s emergence, but no native innovation has matched its impact.

While traditional capital markets find new growth stories in AI, energy, and manufacturing, blockchain remains stuck in its own echo chamber. NVIDIA is developing next-generation chips, Tesla is advancing autonomous driving, OpenAI is training stronger models—blockchain is focused on point farming.

This represents the most significant challenge facing blockchain in 2025.

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