2024 in Review: The Year Everything Converged
Spot Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs launched. Bitcoin crossed $100,000. RWA tokenisation crossed $2 billion. AI reasoning models arrived. And a pro-crypto president was elected. 2024 was the year that every thesis I have been developing — institutional adoption, tokenisation, AI convergence — came together.
2024 in Review: The Year Everything Converged
Every year since I started writing this blog, I have tried to identify the single most important development. In 2024, I cannot. There were too many — and they were all connected.
The spot Bitcoin ETF launched in January and attracted over $100 billion in assets by year-end. The spot Ethereum ETF followed in May. Bitcoin crossed $100,000. The fourth halving reduced supply into the strongest demand environment in Bitcoin's history. BlackRock tokenised a fund on Ethereum. RWA tokenisation crossed $2 billion. Stablecoins crossed $200 billion. The EU's MiCA took effect. US stablecoin legislation advanced. A pro-crypto president was elected. And AI continued its exponential trajectory — with reasoning models, agentic systems, and coding assistants transforming how we work.
The Convergence
The convergence I wrote about at the end of 2023 accelerated dramatically in 2024. The threads are no longer separate — they are woven together.
AI + Crypto. AI agents are beginning to transact on crypto rails. AI-powered compliance tools are monitoring on-chain activity. AI coding assistants are accelerating smart contract development. The intersection is producing real products with real users.
Crypto + TradFi. BlackRock's BUIDL fund on Ethereum. Tokenised Treasuries in DeFi protocols. Spot ETFs on every major brokerage platform. The boundary between crypto and traditional finance has not just blurred — it has dissolved in many areas.
AI + Finance. Every major financial institution is deploying AI for analysis, compliance, customer service, and risk management. The productivity gains are measurable and accelerating. The firms that adopted early have a visible advantage over those that waited.
What I Got Right
The institutional adoption thesis played out more completely in 2024 than in any previous year. The ETFs, the tokenisation, the corporate treasury allocations — all of the structural changes I have been tracking since 2017 reached critical mass.
The AI thesis — which I have held since the OpenAI private beta in 2021 — was validated by the continued acceleration of capabilities. The o1 reasoning model, the proliferation of agentic AI systems, and the integration of AI into professional workflows all confirmed that this technology is as transformative as I believed.
The RWA tokenisation thesis exceeded my expectations. BlackRock's involvement, the growth to $2 billion, and the expanding range of tokenised assets all suggest that the trajectory is steeper than I predicted.
What I Got Wrong
I underestimated the political dimension. The crypto industry's political mobilisation — the PACs, the lobbying, the campaign contributions — produced results that I did not anticipate. The election of a pro-crypto president changes the regulatory landscape more dramatically than any legislation or court ruling.
I also underestimated the speed of AI capability improvement. The jump from GPT-4 to o1 — from pattern matching to genuine reasoning — happened faster than I expected. The capability curve is steeper than my models predicted, and I need to adjust my expectations accordingly.
Looking Ahead to 2025
2025 will be defined by execution. The regulatory window is open. The institutional infrastructure is mature. The technology — both AI and crypto — is more capable than ever. The question is whether the industry can execute on the opportunities that 2024 created.
The specific developments I am watching: the implementation of the strategic Bitcoin reserve proposal, the passage of stablecoin legislation, the continued growth of RWA tokenisation, the maturation of agentic AI systems, and the convergence of AI and crypto into products that serve mainstream users.
The foundation has been laid. 2025 is the year to build on it.
2024 was the year that every thesis converged — institutional adoption, tokenisation, AI, and regulatory progress all reached critical mass simultaneously. The opportunity that this convergence creates is the largest in crypto's history. The responsibility to execute on it is equally large.