2025 Review of Predictions by 10 Crypto Institutions: VanEck Accuracy Only 10%, Why Did Coinbase Get a “Perfect Score”?

Author: TechFlow

It’s the end of the year again, and it’s foreseeable that major institutions’ crypto predictions and outlooks for 2026 will be released one after another in the coming month.

But before looking at new predictions, let’s review what these institutions said last year; after all, anyone can make forecasts, but accuracy is what really matters.

Thinking back to the end of 2024, market sentiment was high, BTC had just broken through $100,000, and predictions were generally optimistic:

For example, BTC was expected to hit $200,000, stablecoin market caps would double, AI agents would ignite on-chain activity, and crypto unicorns would flock to IPOs… Now, a year later, did any of those predictions come true?

We’ve selected some typical viewpoints from last year’s prediction reports by various institutions and individuals to review one by one and see who had the highest hit rate.

1. VanEck: 10% accuracy, only got the bitcoin strategic reserve right

At the end of 2024, VanEck made 10 predictions, and the only correct one was the establishment of a bitcoin strategic reserve.

The other 9 were all misses, and most were not slight deviations but rather errors of magnitude, such as predicting crypto would peak in Q1 and bitcoin would reach $180k and hit new highs by year-end; in reality, both the timing and price targets were completely off.

Second, their market size predictions were overly optimistic. Tokenized securities were predicted to reach $500 billion, but actually were about $30-35 billion; DeFi TVL was predicted at $2000 billion, but actually about $120-130 billion; NFT trading volume was predicted $300 billion, but the actual estimate was $5-6.5 billion.

Overall, VanEck had a very accurate read on policy direction but systematically overestimated on-chain economic scale.

2. Bitwise: 50% accuracy, directionally right but price predictions wrong

Bitwise made 10 predictions, hitting 5, mainly in regulation and institutional adoption; price and scale predictions were also systematically overestimated.

Policy and institutional adoption predictions were fully realized. Coinbase and MicroStrategy entered US stock indices; the crypto IPO boom was fulfilled, with several crypto companies going public; the number of countries holding BTC grew from 9 to nearly 30.

All price targets missed: BTC, ETH, and SOL price predictions were much higher than this year’s actual performance. Coinbase’s stock price was predicted at $250, 65% off the $700 target. RWA tokenization was estimated at $50 billion, which was clearly an overestimate.

Overall, Bitwise demonstrated sharp policy instincts and accurately gauged regulatory shifts and the pace of institutional adoption.

3. Coinbase: Nearly 100% accuracy, focused on direction not prices

Coinbase’s predictions were divided between “macro” and “disruptive,” mostly directional rather than precise numbers, making them more forward-looking in trends.

Some core verifiable predictions included:

Other predictions were directionally correct but hard to quantify:

You can see that their predictions consciously avoided specific price targets, focusing on policy inflection points and industry trends. As a result, all their core directional predictions were spot on.

Regulatory shifts were all validated: they predicted “the most pro-crypto Congress in history” would bring benefits and more asset ETFs would be approved; in reality, that’s exactly what happened.

Stablecoin and DeFi predictions were directionally correct: they predicted “explosive growth of stablecoins expanding into commercial payments,” and indeed, Mastercard announced support for USDC/PYUSD/USDG in June, Coinbase’s payment platform integrated with Shopify, and Stripe launched USDC subscription payments;

They predicted a DeFi revival, and DeFi TVL reached $120 billion, a new three-year high since May 2022.

This “direction only, not price points” strategy may lack hype, but in hindsight is the most robust and least likely to be proven wrong.

4. Galaxy Research: 26% accuracy, almost all data-driven predictions were wrong

Galaxy researchers made a total of 23 predictions, the most quantifiable and numerous of any institution.

In retrospect, the policy prediction team performed excellently (( 100% hit rate), but price and market size predictions were almost all wrong. In particular, predicting DOGE would break $1 now looks excessively optimistic.

Additionally, Galaxy fared better in ecosystem development predictions. For example, predicting most mining companies would pivot to AI and high-performance computing, which was indeed a significant trend in this year’s AI boom.

When the number of predictions is high and granularity is fine, even professional research institutions can’t get everything right; the market didn’t move as everyone expected.

5. Hashkey: 70% accuracy, too optimistic on price predictions

Overall, HashKey’s predictions were precise regarding regulatory progress (ETFs, stablecoin legislation) and ecosystem structure changes (DEX rise, L2 differentiation), but still too optimistic about the price cycle.

Interestingly, these predictions also reflected the sentiment in the crypto community at the time.

After HashKey Group released its top 10 market predictions for 2025, nearly 50,000 community users voted on the 16 hottest predictions summarized by HashKey researchers, analysts, and traders;

The results showed that 50% of voters favored the prediction that “bitcoin will break $300,000, ethereum will exceed $8,000, and the total crypto market cap will reach $10 trillion.”

Ironically, the prediction with the highest probability according to the votes now looks the least likely to come true at the end of this year.

6. Delphi Digital: 40% accuracy, consumer-grade DeFi prediction was a highlight

Delphi Digital’s predictions were relatively accurate regarding technical infrastructure and consumer applications; their original prediction for consumer applications was:

“2025 will be a major milestone for consumer-grade DeFi, with more and more crypto users fully embracing on-chain financial services.”

This year, we did see the emergence of various U cards and tokenized US stocks, and traditional finance apps like Robinhood are gradually embracing on-chain.

7. Messari: 55% accuracy, no specific price targets

Although Messari is a data analytics platform, its predictions tended to be “trend directions” rather than “specific numbers,” and in hindsight, their judgments on major trends were relatively accurate.

8. Framework Co-Founder: 25% accuracy, more confidence in invested projects

Next, we selected some representative personal prediction viewpoints from last year to see how they turned out.

First is Vance Spencer, co-founder of Framework. We compiled his crypto-related predictions:

Obviously, Vance had high expectations for his own portfolio companies like Glow, Daylight, Berachain, representing the energy and public chain sectors.

Additionally, some quantitative targets were overly aggressive, such as $1 billion daily inflows into ETH ETFs.

9. Blockworks Co-Founder: 48% accuracy, most predictions made

Blockworks co-founder Mippo (X: @MikeIppolito_) made the most predictions among all institutions and individuals we reviewed, but his accuracy rate was pretty good, nearly half correct.

A highlight was the accurate prediction of Robinhood’s rise, and correctly identifying L1 investment opportunities such as Hyperliquid and SUI, both of whose tokens performed impressively this year.

10. Alliance DAO Wang Qiao & Imran: 50% accuracy, too optimistic about BTC price

The two founders of Alliance DAO, WangQiao and Imran, also made predictions for 2025 development during a podcast chat.

We compiled their crypto-related viewpoints as follows:

It’s clear the two founders were overly optimistic about BTC’s performance, even the lowest prediction of 150K was still far from this year’s BTC high.

However, their predictions about prediction markets were very accurate, and they spotted this key trend a year in advance.

Summary

Looking at last year’s predictions, several patterns are clear:

The number of predictions is inversely related to accuracy—the more you say, the more you get wrong.

Attempts to predict specific price points or numbers almost always go awry.

Policy predictions are very reliable—a friendlier regulatory environment and US crypto-friendliness were accurately predicted by almost all institutions and individuals.

Finally, in my opinion, the value of these annual institutional predictions is not to “tell you what to buy,” but to “tell you what the industry is thinking.” We can treat these predictions as an industry sentiment indicator; but if you use them as an investment guide, the results could be disastrous.

At the same time, it’s a good habit to be skeptical of any prediction with specific numbers, regardless of which KOL, institution, or industry leader it comes from.

This isn’t to say we should criticize these industry elites—wrong predictions can be valuable too.

They tell you what the market once believed, and no one can predict the future.