The transition from chatbots with tools to agents that build tools marks the end of the manual integration era.
Stop building custom model scaffolding and start building on top of opinionated agent layers like the Codex SDK.
In 12 months, the distinction between a coding agent and a general computer user will vanish as the terminal becomes the primary interface for all digital labor.
The Capability-Utility Gap is widening. We see a divergence where models get smarter but the friction of human-AI collaboration keeps productivity flat.
Deploy AI for mid-level engineers or low-context tasks. Avoid forcing AI workflows on your top seniors working in complex legacy systems.
The next year will focus on reliability over raw intelligence. The winners will have models that require the least amount of human babysitting.
The Macro Shift: Scaling laws are hitting a diminishing return on raw data but a massive acceleration in reasoning. The shift from statistical matching to reasoning agents happens when models can recursively check their own logic.
The Tactical Edge: Build for the agentic future by prioritizing high-context data pipelines. Models perform better when you provide massive context rather than relying on zero-shot inference.
The Bottom Line: We are 24 months away from AI that makes unassisted human thought look like navigating London without a map. Prepare for a world where the most valuable skill is directing machine agency rather than performing manual logic.
The transition from model-centric to loop-centric development. Performance is now a function of the feedback cycle rather than just the weights of the frontier model.
Implement an LLM-as-a-judge step that outputs a "Reason for Failure" field. Feed this string directly into a meta-prompt to update your agent's system instructions automatically.
Static prompts are technical debt. Teams that build automated systems to iterate on their agent's instructions will outpace those waiting for the next model training run.
The Macro Shift: The transition from writing to reviewing as the primary engineering activity. As agents generate more code, the human role moves from creator to editor.
The Tactical Edge: Build CLIs for every internal tool to give agents a native text interface. This increases accuracy and speed compared to visual automation.
The Bottom Line: Developer experience is the infrastructure for AI. Investing in clean code and fast feedback loops is the only way to ensure AI productivity gains do not decay over the next 12 months.
The Capability-Productivity Gap. We are entering a period where model intelligence outpaces our ability to integrate it into high stakes production.
Audit your stack. Identify tasks where "good enough" generation is a win versus high context tasks where AI is currently a net negative.
Do not mistake a climbing benchmark for a finished product. For the next year, the biggest wins are not in smarter models but in better verification loops.
The transition from simple Large Language Models to Reasoning Models marks the end of the stochastic parrot era.
Build agentic workflows that utilize high-context windows for recursive problem solving.
We are moving toward a world where intelligence is a commodity. Your value will shift from knowing things to directing outcomes over the next 12 months.
ETH's Value is Foundational, Not Fickle. The core investment thesis is ETH as the digital economy's pristine collateral and store of value. Network revenue is just the icing on the cake.
The Real Work is Boring (and Bullish). The next phase of growth depends on integrating Ethereum into the mundane back-office operations of TradFi. This is the key to irreversible adoption.
Privacy is the Next Frontier. Compliant, ZK-powered privacy is the final gateway required to bring massive institutional capital on-chain.
OGs are cashing out. Heavy selling pressure above $120k comes from early Bitcoin whales transferring wealth to "fair-weather" DAT holders, creating a fragile market structure.
Politics now dictate portfolio risk. Zohran Mamdani’s rise signals a shift to redistributionist politics. If this trend goes national, it’s a clear signal to liquidate assets, as redistribution historically crushes asset prices.
Invest in clean assets with real yield. In a market saturated with VC-owned tokens, assets like Hyperliquid (HYPE) stand out due to their airdrop-only distribution and fee-driven buy-and-burn mechanism, creating a direct link between platform usage and token value.
**Privacy Isn't a Feature; It's the Foundation.** For institutions, confidentiality is non-negotiable. Any network aiming to attract serious capital must offer privacy that allows for compliance without broadcasting every move to the world.
**Real Adoption Is a Long Game.** Chasing bull market hype is a losing strategy for enterprise adoption. Canton’s success with partners like Goldman Sachs, DTCC, and Citadel demonstrates the power of prioritizing utility and compliance over a premature token launch.
**The Next Wave Is Tokenizing Everything.** The goal is to move beyond crypto-native assets. The real prize is upgrading the rails for the world's existing financial system—equities, bonds, and treasuries—by making them digitally native, 24/7, and instantly settleable.
Focus or Fade. As the industry matures, companies must shed non-core business units to become world-class at one thing. For Blockworks, that's data, not news.
Buy the Theme. Public market investors will pay a massive premium for the only stock representing a major crypto trend (e.g., Securitize for tokenization), often making it a better trade than trying to pick winners among underlying assets.
Growth is Subsidized. Major L1/L2 foundations are actively paying for enterprise adoption (e.g., Solana and Western Union). This is a standard business practice to kickstart network effects, but the long-term ROI remains unproven.
Social Proof is the New Alpha. FOMO’s core bet is that transparently tracking successful wallets is a more powerful discovery mechanism than traditional research. By making on-chain activity legible and social, it unlocks a new paradigm for retail investing.
User Experience Wins the Next Cycle. The next 100 million crypto users will not be onboarded with seed phrases and gas fees. By abstracting away all technical friction and mirroring the seamlessness of Web2 apps, FOMO provides a blueprint for mass adoption.
Trading is Becoming a Spectator Sport. By turning trading performance into a form of content, FOMO is building a new financial creator economy. The best traders are the new influencers, and their alpha is the content that drives the entire ecosystem.
The Internet Gets Its Native Wallet. x402 uses crypto to finally fulfill the internet's original vision of direct, peer-to-server payments, unlocking an economy of micropayments for everything from accessing an article to running an AI model.
The Ad-Supported Web Is Obsolete. AI agents that retrieve information without viewing ads are killing the web's 20-year-old business model. x402 provides the new economic rails for a pay-per-use internet where value is exchanged for resources, not attention.
Build Composable Money Legos. The biggest opportunity lies in creating simple, single-purpose APIs that agents can easily discover and compose. Think of it as building for the App Store of the emerging AI agent economy.
