A year ago, I gave my Top 10 Chia Predictions for 2024. As we enter 2025, let’s take a look back to see how I did.
#10 We’ll hear an update on IPO, but no actual IPO in 2024
Outcome: Mostly correct
As predicted, we didn’t see an IPO in 2024 but we did officially hear about two submitted amendments to their draft registration filing:
- March 29, 2024: Chia Network Announces Second Confidential Submission of Draft Registration Statement for Proposed Initial Public Offering
- August 12, 2024: Chia Network Announces Third Confidential Submission of Draft Registration Statement for Proposed Initial Public Offering
One of CNI’s main goals for 2024 was “getting IPO ready” and then waiting for right market conditions. With these two amendments, it seems they have accomplished that though we didn’t see the filing turn public nor hear any specific dates, which I predicted as possibilities. So I’ll score this a mostly correct.
#9 More of the prefarm will be leveraged
Outcome: Correct
At the time of prediction, Chia Network Inc. had made a loan and transferred XCH for sale their market maker. Since then, they have leveraged the prefarm on a regular basis to sell XCH through their market maker. It was happening so frequently that I set up XCH.ninja as a way to track the prefarm movements.
In total, over a million XCH has been sold for over $20M to fund continued operation of the company.
Beyond this, CNI has also started using the prefarm for other purposes such as engaging a marketing partner and investing in seed rounds for Berkeley Compute and SpaceTime. I’ll score this prediction correct.
#8 XCH won’t get a Coinbase or Binance exchange listing
Outcome: Correct
XCH did not get listed on any major exchanges in 2024 though it did get listed on some smaller exchanges like TradeOgre and ByBit (perp) so I score this one correct. I also wrote a piece on why I think Coinbase has not listed XCH.
#7 It will be easier to acquire XCH with the ETH-XCH bridge
Outcome: Correct
I predicted the ETH-XCH bridge to go into testnet by the middle of 2024 but it actually launched on mainnet in that timeframe. What I didn’t expect was the outsized popularity of wXCH due in large part to Michael Taylor’s push for incentivizing liquidity on Aerodrome. This created not only a popular on-ramp from Base to XCH, but also created an opportunity for XCH holders to earn through providing liquidity. I score this prediction correct, though the path to the goal was not one I expected.
#6 Chia will go from zero to 3 stablecoins
Outcome: Technically correct
Similar to above, my prediction was technically correct though the details weren’t quite right. CircuitDAO did not launch on mainnet in 2024 so we get the BYC stablecoin, nor did Stably re-launch USDS on Chia. However with the warp.green bridge, we actually saw four wrapped stablecoins: wUSDC, wUSDT, wUSDC.b and wEURC.b. I score this one technically correct.
#5 NFTs make a comeback
Outcome: Mostly incorrect
I predicted a resurgence of interest in NFTs and that Chia Friends would remain the blue chip NFT project on Chia. Although the Chia Friends part was correct, general art NFT interest is noticeably down.
One exception is the Solomon’s Lot RWA project that uses NFTs to represent a fractionalized share of a property. Naturally it accounted for a lot of NFT trade volume in 2024. Still, I’d score this prediction mostly incorrect.
#4 Fee pressure reduces but does not fully go away
Outcome: Somewhat incorrect
A few things happened in 2024 to affect blockspace usage and hence fee pressure. First, the interest in XCHS inscriptions fell off a cliff. Second, block size limits were slowly increased from the default 50% over several reference full node software versions. This means it takes more to fill blocks and a mempool that empties faster.
But while the mempool never filled up in 2024 the same way as 2023, ecosystem tools and wallets clearly took notice of the possibility and introduced more conservative fee estimates as a norm. Hence with a steady stream of block demand, there were higher levels of average block fees despite blocks rarely being full. Since we didn’t see organic fee pressure emerge in 2024, I would score this prediction somewhat incorrect.
#3 Two more big partnerships outside of carbon credits will be announced by Chia Network
Outcome: Incorrect
There were two seed stage investments announced by Chia Network Inc this year, both unrelated to carbon — Berkeley Compute and SpaceTime but I don’t consider these to be partnerships in the context of the prediction.
It seems this prediction may be off by a few months as I’m expecting several actual revenue generating partnership announcements in Q1 of 2025. I score this prediction incorrect.
#2 iOS Signer gets released but retail will struggle to understand its importance
Outcome: Correct, impact remains to be seen
The prediction of the iOS Signer (now known as Chia Signer) was correct with it showing up in app stores in December 2024. It was released alongside a beta of the Cloud Wallet in testnet.
Although the reception was generally positive from the community and the vision of superior custody became evident, I haven’t seen the product reach the more general “retail” market to observe their response. Hence I score this prediction correct with the caveat that it’s too soon to measure the impact to and reaction from retail.
Honorable Mention: Michael Taylor builds a bunch of stuff
Outcome: Correct, but it was a freebie
Between the DIG network, his push for Aerodrome liquidity, and his joining the Berkeley Compute team, Michael has not slowed down building. This was a no brainer.
#1 Tokenized carbon credits pick up steam
Outcome: Correct
In September 2024 we saw the world’s first global and publicly accessible carbon market on Chia from EcoRegistry tokenizing some of their credits. We also saw more countries and registries onboard onto CAD Trust, making Chia the de facto home for carbon credit tracking and a natural place to tokenize and trade. I score this prediction correct.
Summary: 7.5/10 (Pass)
All in all, I give myself a “pass” with about seven and a half predictions correct.
Stay tuned for my Top 10 2025 Chia predictions! They’re going to be spicy.
