Introduction
A little over a year ago, I wrote an article laying out the blockchain and Web3 trends I expected would define 2025 and beyond. The topics ranged from central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) over decentralized finance (DeFi) regulation to Web3 adoption, digital identity, scalability and global regulatory developments. Some of these predictions aged well. Others aged less well. A colleague of mine was blunt after reading the original piece and told me that none of it came true and that it was all just a lie. That view is too harsh, though parts of it are fair. The truth sits somewhere in between. This article goes trend by trend and revisits what actually happened, where the predictions held, and where the industry over-promised and under-delivered.
1. Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) and the Digital Euro
Prediction: CBDCs, particularly the digital Euro, would be one of the biggest topics of 2025.
What actually happened: This one aged reasonably well. The European Central Bank completed the preparation phase of the digital Euro project in October 2025 and moved into the next phase of technical readiness. Under the current roadmap, assuming EU co-legislators adopt the regulation in the course of 2026, a pilot could begin in 2027, with potential first issuance during 2029. [1][2] The ECB has also announced it will publish technical standards for the digital Euro by summer 2026, with estimated implementation costs for EU banks of €4 to €6 billion over four years. [3]
The United States went in the opposite direction. On January 23, 2025, President Trump signed the executive order titled Strengthening American Leadership in Digital Financial Technology, which explicitly prohibits federal agencies from establishing, issuing or promoting a CBDC, while actively supporting dollar-backed stablecoins. [4][5] Senator Mike Lee subsequently reintroduced the No CBDC Act in an attempt to make the ban permanent, and the House is working on the Anti-CBDC Surveillance State Act. [6][7] The US framework I referenced in the original article from September 2022 has effectively been rescinded. That is a significant development I would not have predicted with that clarity in early 2025.
Globally, the trend continued. According to FATF-adjacent trackers referenced by the ECB, 134 countries representing roughly 98% of world GDP are exploring CBDCs. [3] In short, the topic did not go away. It split along geopolitical lines. Europe is accelerating, while the US is actively pushing back and betting on private stablecoins instead.
Review: The prediction held. The concerns I raised about surveillance and centralization were not hypothetical anymore. They have become explicit points of political debate, most notably in the US executive order and the Anti-CBDC Surveillance State Act, which use almost the exact language I used in the original piece regarding financial privacy and government overreach. [5][7]
2. DeFi and Regulatory Compliance
Prediction: DeFi would continue to expand, with increased institutional participation enabled by regulatory clarity.
What actually happened: Partially correct, with a significant caveat. DeFi did not die. Total value locked (TVL) across DeFi sat around $130 to $140 billion in early 2026, up from the post-FTX low around $50 billion, though still well below the 2021 peaks. [8] DeFi TVL even held up relatively well through crypto market selloffs in early 2026, dropping only about 12% while the broader market fell harder. [9] Institutional and yield-seeking capital clearly stuck around.
The regulatory piece, however, played out messier than I wrote. MiCA's main provisions became applicable in December 2024, and by late 2025 over 40 CASP licenses had been issued across the EU. [10] Enforcement has been aggressive. More than 50 crypto firms had their licenses revoked by February 2025 for failing to meet AML, KYC or reserve requirements. By November 2025, more than €540 million in fines had been issued since MiCA took effect, including a single €62 million fine in France. [11] On the DeFi side specifically, data from late 2025 suggests that roughly one-third of DeFi projects with European operations either relocated (often to Switzerland, Singapore or Dubai) or paused EU operations. Over 50% of DeFi platforms could not meet KYC requirements because of their permissionless architecture. [12]
DeFi survived and institutional capital arrived. The vision I sketched in the original article about embedded compliance in smart contracts has mostly not materialized at the protocol level. Instead, institutions built MiCA-compliant DeFi products around the edges, while a significant chunk of the permissionless DeFi world moved offshore.
Review: Half-true. DeFi did integrate with traditional finance in ways that look very institutional. Goldman Sachs, BlackRock and others are now active in MiCA-compliant DeFi products. The vision of regulated, compliant, permissionless DeFi protocols has not materialized. [12]
3. Web3 and Cross-Chain Interoperability
Prediction: Web3's growth, particularly in gaming, digital commerce and social media, would drive demand for interoperability, with Polkadot, Cosmos and Layer 2 rollups filling the gap.
What actually happened: The Layer 2 piece was absolutely correct. Layer 2 TVL grew from just under $4 billion in 2023 to roughly $47 billion by October 2025. Daily transactions on L2s exceeded 1.9 million per day in 2025, surpassing Ethereum mainnet transaction counts. [13] Ethereum's Dencun upgrade (March 2024) and subsequent blob capacity expansions in January 2026 reduced L2 data costs by 50% to 90%, and many L2 transactions now cost well under one US cent. [14] Base, Arbitrum and Optimism became the clear consolidation winners. [15]
The Web3 story in gaming, however, went badly. Web3 gaming saw a funding collapse of more than 50% in 2025, with over 300 gaming dApps going inactive and daily active wallets dropping 17% in Q2 2025 alone. [16][17] High-profile projects like Deadrop, Ember Sword, Nyan Heroes, ChronoForge and Aether Games shut down during 2025, with studios consistently citing unsustainable tokenomics, low player retention and dried-up funding. [17][18] Native play-to-earn effectively collapsed. A smaller Web2.5 model, where studios like Sega, Ubisoft and Mythical Games integrate blockchain as a backend rather than a marketing feature, is what survived. [16]
Review: Mixed. The technical side of the prediction (L2 scaling, interoperability frameworks, cross-chain activity) held up and then some. The applied Web3 consumer story in gaming did not. I was too generous in assuming that user demand would follow the infrastructure.
4. Privacy and Digital Identity in Web3
Prediction: Self-sovereign identity (SSI), decentralized identifiers (DIDs) and zero-knowledge proofs would become core to digital interactions.
What actually happened: The technology matured, though adoption happened through state-led programs rather than via Web3 platforms. The EU Digital Identity Framework (Regulation (EU) 2024/1183) entered into force in May 2024. By late December 2026, all 27 EU member states are required to provide at least one compliant EUDI Wallet to citizens, with mandatory acceptance by regulated sectors by 2027. [19][20] The first implementing acts took effect on 24 December 2024, which started the 24 month deadline running until late December 2026. [19]
The catch is that experts surveyed in late 2025 said the deadline is unlikely to be met uniformly. [21] The Netherlands has signaled it is unlikely to be fully ready, Malta expects only partial functionality at launch, and Bulgaria has reportedly not even begun serious work on a state-provided wallet. [21] Standards, certification frameworks and cross-border interoperability are still being finalized. The public infrastructure is being built, though on a staggered and uneven timeline.
The pure Web3-native SSI story (blockchain-anchored DIDs controlled by users through crypto wallets) remains niche outside of pilot programs. The W3C DID specification is now an official Recommendation, and frameworks like Hyperledger Indy/Aries and ESSIF exist. Most production deployments of user-controlled digital identity are happening through government infrastructure, not public blockchains. [22][23]
Review: Partially correct. The direction of travel was right. The assumption that SSI would be Web3-native was not. In practice, the EU is absorbing the SSI design principles into a regulated, state-issued wallet that happens to use some of the same cryptography.
5. Scalability and Sustainability
Prediction: Proof of Stake, Layer 2 rollups and optimized infrastructure would address blockchain's energy and throughput problems.
What actually happened: Confirmed. Ethereum's Merge in September 2022 reduced the network's energy consumption by approximately 99.95% compared to the previous Proof of Work implementation, a figure that has been independently verified by multiple studies and the Crypto Carbon Ratings Institute. [24][25] Post-Merge, Ethereum uses roughly 2,600 MWh per year, down from approximately 23 million MWh. [25] That is essentially the entire sustainability argument I made, and it is not controversial at this point.
The scalability side also worked out. Average Ethereum mainnet gas fell from 7.141 gwei in January 2025 to approximately 0.50 gwei in January 2026, a 93% decrease. L2 transactions routinely settle below one cent. [14] This is the one prediction I would rate as unambiguously correct.
Review: Held up completely. Still one of the clearest wins for the technology.
6. Regulatory Developments and Global Market Adaptation
Prediction: MiCA would set new global standards, with the Travel Rule gaining prevalence and reg-tech becoming essential.
What actually happened: Largely correct, and in some areas understated.
MiCA went into full application on December 30, 2024 and has been actively enforced throughout 2025. [10][11] FATF's June 2025 targeted update found that 85 of 117 surveyed jurisdictions with materially important VASP activity have passed or are passing Travel Rule legislation, up from 65 in 2024. These jurisdictions cover approximately 98% of the global virtual asset market. [26] Implementation is still uneven, and roughly 59% of jurisdictions with laws have not yet taken enforcement action specific to Travel Rule compliance. [27] The trend itself is clear.
What I did not predict was the speed at which the US would move. The GENIUS Act, which President Trump signed into law on July 18, 2025, established the first federal regulatory framework for payment stablecoins in the US. It requires 100% reserve backing with liquid assets like US dollars or short-term Treasuries, plus monthly public disclosures of reserve composition. [28][29] The Digital Asset Market CLARITY Act passed the House 294 to 134 in July 2025 and cleared the Senate Agriculture Committee in January 2026. [30][31] These two bills, together with MiCA, have effectively created a transatlantic regulatory baseline that did not exist in early 2025.
Review: Correct, and in some areas more aggressive than I expected. This is one of the areas where my framing of 2025 as a pivotal year turned out to be understated.
What my colleague was not wrong about
To be fair to the colleague who called the original piece a lie, a lot of what the Web3 industry promised in early 2025 did not happen, or happened in a distorted form. Active Web3 developers dropped by roughly 40% over the year ending March 2025, from around 12,380 weekly active open-source contributors to about 7,600. [32][33] Weekly commits across public crypto repositories collapsed from a peak of 176,000 in August 2023 to under 100,000 by mid-2025. [34] Memecoins became the dominant product-market fit story, ahead of utility. [33] Web3 gaming imploded. Most new L2s beyond the top handful became post-airdrop ghost towns. [15] A significant share of DeFi activity either migrated offshore or got absorbed by institutions, without empowering individual retail users in the way the original Web3 vision promised.
The core infrastructure thesis (PoS, rollups, regulated stablecoins, CBDCs and identity wallets) held up. The thesis that Web3 would replace Web2 did not. Calling it all a lie is too strong, though calling much of it hype is fair. I will address that in a separate piece on whether Web3 itself is still a thing, because the honest answer deserves more than a paragraph.
Conclusion
Reviewing my own predictions a year later is humbling. The infrastructure and regulatory side of what I wrote was largely vindicated. CBDCs moved forward (or got explicitly banned, in the US case), MiCA landed hard, Travel Rule coverage expanded, Ethereum's sustainability story held, L2s delivered on scalability and identity wallets are being built, even if unevenly. The consumer Web3 story, particularly in gaming, did not materialize. The promise that DeFi would mature into regulated, permissionless, compliance-aware protocols was mostly replaced by a split where institutions built around the rules and permissionless DeFi moved offshore.
If there is one lesson, it is that the gap between technology working and people actually wanting to use it remains much wider than the industry has been willing to admit. 2025 confirmed the first and exposed the second.
Sources
[1] ECB, Progress on the digital euro, 2025, https://www.ecb.europa.eu/euro/digital_euro/progress/html/index.en.html.
[2] ECB, Eurosystem moving to next phase of digital euro project, 30 October 2025, https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/pr/date/2025/html/ecb.pr251030~8c5b5beef0.en.html.
[3] Catenaa, ECB Targets Summer for Digital Euro Standards, March 2026, https://catenaa.com/markets/global-markets/ecb-digital-euro-summer-standards-2026/.
[4] The White House, Strengthening American Leadership in Digital Financial Technology, 23 January 2025, https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/strengthening-american-leadership-in-digital-financial-technology/.
[5] The White House, Fact Sheet: Executive Order to Establish United States Leadership in Digital Financial Technology, January 2025, https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/01/fact-sheet-executive-order-to-establish-united-states-leadership-in-digital-financial-technology/.
[6] U.S. Senate, Lee Introduces Bill Making Trump Ban on Central Bank Digital Currency Permanent, February 2025, https://www.lee.senate.gov/2025/2/lee-introduces-bill-making-trump-ban-on-central-bank-digital-currency-permanent.
[7] House Financial Services Committee, H.R. 1919, the Anti-CBDC Surveillance State Act, July 2025, https://financialservices.house.gov/uploadedfiles/2025-07-10_—_anti-cbdc_one-pager_final.pdf.
[8] CoinLaw, Decentralized Finance (DeFi) Market Statistics 2026, February 2026, https://coinlaw.io/decentralized-finance-market-statistics/.
[9] CoinDesk, DeFi's value holds up despite crypto sell-off as yield seekers stay put, 3 February 2026, https://www.coindesk.com/business/2026/02/03/defi-s-quiet-strength-tvl-holds-as-market-selloff-tests-traders.
[10] Skadden, MiCA Update, Six Months in Application, July 2025, https://www.skadden.com/insights/publications/2025/07/mica-update-six-months-in-application.
[11] Cyfrin, MiCA Regulation Explained: A Guide To EU Crypto Compliance, November 2025, https://www.cyfrin.io/blog/mica-regulation-explained-a-guide-to-eu-crypto-compliance.
[12] CoinLaw, Impact of MiCA on DeFi Platforms Statistics 2025, October 2025, https://coinlaw.io/impact-of-mica-on-defi-platforms-statistics/.
[13] Cryptopolitan, Layer 2 Adoption 2026 Predictions, December 2025, https://www.cryptopolitan.com/layer-2-adoption-2026-predictions/.
[14] BlockEden, Ethereum Layer 2 Solutions in 2026: Arbitrum, Optimism, and zkSync Head-to-Head, February 2026, https://blockeden.xyz/blog/2026/02/18/ethereum-layer-2-solutions-comparison-arbitrum-optimism-zksync/.
[15] The Block, 2026 Layer 2 Outlook, December 2025, https://www.theblock.co/post/383329/2026-layer-2-outlook.
[16] CCN, Did Web3 Gaming Die in 2025? The Five Reasons Behind GameFi's Decline, December 2025, https://www.ccn.com/news/crypto/web3-gaming-die-in-2025-the-five-reasons-behind-gamefi-decline/.
[17] CoinDesk, Market Data Shows a Brutal Shakeout is Underway in Web3 Gaming, July 2025, https://www.coindesk.com/web3/2025/07/11/web3-gaming-faces-ongoing-turmoil-market-metrics-reveal-persistent-decline.
[18] GAM3S.GG, Is Blockchain Gaming Dead?, November 2025, https://gam3s.gg/news/is-blockchain-gaming-dead/.
[19] Wikipedia, EU Digital Identity Wallet, 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EU_Digital_Identity_Wallet.
[20] European Commission, European Digital Identity, March 2026, https://commission.europa.eu/topics/digital-economy-and-society/european-digital-identity_en.
[21] Biometric Update, Will the EUDI Wallet be ready in 2026? Experts say probably not, December 2025, https://www.biometricupdate.com/202512/will-the-eudi-wallet-be-ready-in-2026-experts-say-probably-not.
[22] Wikipedia, Self-sovereign identity, 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-sovereign_identity.
[23] ND Labs, Decentralized vs Self Sovereign Identity (SSI), December 2025, https://ndlabs.dev/decentralized-vs-self-sovereign-identity.
[24] Ethereum Foundation, The Merge, https://ethereum.org/roadmap/merge/.
[25] Consensys, Ethereum Blockchain Eliminates 99.99% of its Carbon Footprint Overnight After a Successful Merge According to New Report, September 2022, https://consensys.io/blog/ethereum-blockchain-eliminates-99-99-of-its-carbon-footprint-overnight-after-a-successful-merge-according-to-new-report.
[26] FATF, Targeted Update on Implementation of FATF Standards on Virtual Assets and VASPs, 26 June 2025, https://www.fatf-gafi.org/en/publications/Fatfrecommendations/targeted-update-virtual-assets-vasps-2025.html.
[27] AMLWatcher, What Compliance Leaders Must Know About FATF Travel Rule, January 2026, https://amlwatcher.com/blog/fatf-travel-rule/.
[28] The White House, Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump Signs GENIUS Act into Law, 18 July 2025, https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/07/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-signs-genius-act-into-law/.
[29] Latham & Watkins, The GENIUS Act of 2025: Stablecoin Legislation Adopted in the US, July 2025, https://www.lw.com/en/insights/the-genius-act-of-2025-stablecoin-legislation-adopted-in-the-us.
[30] Arnold & Porter, What You Need To Know About the New Stablecoin Legislation, July 2025, https://www.arnoldporter.com/en/perspectives/advisories/2025/07/new-stablecoin-legislation-analyzing-the-genius-act.
[31] FinTech Weekly, What Is Real-World Asset Tokenization?, April 2026, https://www.fintechweekly.com/news/real-world-asset-tokenization-explainer-institutional-2026.
[32] Cointelegraph, Web3 active developers drop nearly 40% in one year, April 2025, https://cointelegraph.com/news/web3-developer-activity-drop-nearly-40-percent-one-year.
[33] AInvest, Web3 Developer Activity Drops 38.6% in a Year, April 2025, https://www.ainvest.com/news/web3-developer-activity-drops-38-6-year-2504-65/.
[34] Traders Union, Blockchain loses engineers: Why developers exit Web3, May 2025, https://tradersunion.com/news/editors-picks/show/281656-blockchain-loses-engineers/.
