Dear Partners,

Bizantine Multistrategy returned 63.4% in Q4 of 2024. Bizantine has now returned +182.0% since our inception on January 1st, 2022. In Q4, we outperformed Bitcoin by 14.3% and outperformed the S&P 500 by 60.5%. Since inception, we have outperformed Bitcoin by

9/30/2024 - 12/31/2024 (Fourth Quarter):

1/1/2024 - 12/31/2024 (2024):

1/1/2022 - 12/31/2024 (Inception):

This past year has marked the reinforcement and validity of the cryptocurrency markets on a global scale. Our fund has kept steadfast in our commitment to navigating the ever-shifting market dynamics, and has firmly positioned itself at the forefront of the crypto currency landscape. Most importantly, our fund has held an industry standard by benchmarking our performance against Bitcoin, which we have firmly outperformed since inception. Without a doubt, 2024 has been one of the most important years in crypto’s entire history and has firmly affirmed the inherent velocity nature of crypto. Never has political and macro developments played such an important role in the industry, highlighted by an 88% increase year over year in overall market size. As of year-end, the cumulative crypto market cap sits at 3.4 trillion USD, with Bitcoin’s market cap alone close to 2 trillion alone. We had outlined in our 2023 year-end report how excited we were for new asymmetric opportunities that would emerge in 2024, which has helped led to our overall market outperformance this year. We frequently comment on the role of price and liquidity in terms of asset reflexivity, and that could not be more prevalent than in the performance of these assets. If one were to look at the top 100 digital assets on January 1, 2024 vs those of the top 100 on January 1, 2025, one would notice a wide mixture of asset and coin positioning. Accordingly, it remains important to position ourselves to maximize the correspondence between macroeconomic liquidity and true crypto fundamentals.

New Trends Outperform

At the end of 2023, a range of new narratives within crypto were begun to take shape. Artificial intelligence, GameFi, Memecoins, the Solana Ecosystem, Decentralized Science, and real-world assets began to take shape and have been outperformers in this entire cycle. Previous cycle incumbents, namely NFTs, Decentralized Finance, and Ethereal Layer Two’s, have shown fundamental developments but still lag significant price discovery as opposed to these newer trends. Solana has experienced a 3x multiple in its price since the beginning of 2024, and has centered itself as the main hub for Memecoin trading, one of 2024’s most prominent trends. Artificial intelligence tokens (TAO, FET, RNDR) developments were led on Ethereum and custom built-chains, and the top AI coins have seen multiples in priced increases as well. These AI coins have benefited from growth drivers such as AI-blockchain integrations, agent-based ecosystems, and general market momentum for this niche. Overall, AI tokens market value surpassed $39 billion.

Bizantine has capitalized on the general market momentum by holding a weighted balance between Bitcoin, ETH, and Solana. We are also at the forefront of a new emerging asset class within crypto that took shape in Q4, notably Decentralized Science (DeSci). With endorsement from Vitalik Buterin (Founder of Ethereum) and CZ (Founder of Binance), the sector shot up rapidly with further innovative applications, increased adoption, and institutional interest. The sector’s expansion signals further growth, with half of the top 10 DeSci projects by market cap launched in 2024. We will be on the lookout for further volatility in the sector, and navigating the regulatory uncertainty around bridging pharmaceuticals to blockchain technology. With realworld assets (RWA) as a prominent trend in crypto, we expect that DeSci will integrate as an asset class within this broader development. We summarize the top crypto narratives of the last 2 years in the charts below, which we will use to reinforce our investment outline for 2025.

Top Crypto Narratives 2024

The top 20 crypto narratives accounted for a total 78.72% of global investor interest, out of a diverse pool of 200 narratives that received attention this year. The remaining 21.28% of crypto narrative interest was spread across 180 narratives.

Top Crypto Narratives 2024

In 2025, Bizantine will create and scout new trends in AI, biosciences, and high velocity token plays. We believe Decentralized Science and AI coins will continue on the come up, and see a potential synergy for cross integration in investment thesis there. We also anticipate that trends of the previous cycles such as NFTs and DeFi may have another leg up in them.

Crypto Macro

2024 on the macro was filled with key events and developments. Most notably, Bitcoin surpassed 100,000 USD for the first time, driven by record ETF adoption, continued geopolitical tensions, and resultant major institutional adoption. With over 2 trillion USD in market cap, Bitcoin ranks as one of the top 10 asset classes in the world now. Bitcoin’s market cap trajectory reflects its role in as a macroeconomic hedge and digital gold, and, with further macroeconomic developments in 2025, is anticipated to continue growing. Coincidentally or historically, Bitcoin always seems to perform well in Halving cycles (block reward reductions) with 2024 being the first one since 2020. In all, Bitcoin’s ETF saw over 35 billion USD in flows all last year. Ethereum, the leading indicator asset of all crypto altcoins, saw ETF approvals in May and has since attached over 12.01 billion USD in net flows as well.

With increased institutional interest in crypto’s macroeconomic utility, there has been more than $485 million in VC funding for blockchain start-ups throughout 2024, spread out in sectors such as layer 1s/infrastructure, AI crypto startups, and web3 gaming. Geographically, US markets dominated VC funding with HK/Singapore in second. Increased regulatory clarity throughout the globe, including mandates for crypto advancement, will carry a renewed focus on real world applications and infrastructure in these deals.

As highlighted in our Q3 annual, MicroStrategy's Bitcoin Strategy may serve as a future blueprint on companies seeking to increase funding by crypto. They increased Bitcoin holdings by 11% this year, and now hold over 400,000 Bitcoins. MicroStrategy contributes to 2.2% of Bitcoin’s total supply

Politically, Crypto saw over 119 million USD spent on 2024 US election influences, with major donors including a16z, Fairshake super PAC, and Coinbase. Politics aside, the 2024 US election outcome was a major win for crypto as an industry and resulted in overall market price appreciation. President Trump has advocated thus for pro-crypto policies, including a national Bitcoin reserve, an Ethereum-native DeFi application, and a Solana meme coin.

A transformative year 2024 truly was marked by significant price milestones, regulatory approvals, technological advancements, and increased mainstream adoption. Bizantine remains very optimistic in the intersection of macroeconomic conditions, improved regulatory clarity, and blockchain’s growing technological adoption for an even greater 2025. Strategic positioning in major crypto niches will set us up to outperform traditional markets. We have set a targeted emphasis on the leading non-sovereign moneys and the most innovative, yet undercooked applications, and embark on our ability to greater merge the traditional and crypto markets.

On Ethereum 2025 and Beyond

Ethereum’s ecosystem, despite varied price action, showed significant progress and growth in 2024. In 2025, we expect intensive price variability, driven by the belief that the markets will come to recognize Ethereum’s leading edge in crypto market trends, smart contract technology, institutional adoption, and AI positioning.

Ethereum saw major upgrades in layer-two infrastructure development, and continued display of its lead among innovative on-chain application development. As the most malleable blockchain, Ethereum has the potential for the entire tokenization of real world assets, which is predicted to represent 10% of global GDP by 2030. With further increases in staking, transaction throughput, and application innovation, we believe Ethereum is prime positioned as the best smart contract platform to integrate with traditional markets.

Bizantine continues to re-affirm our thesis of Ethereum’s major value preposition in terms of utility, classifying its stronger monetary function and premium than Bitcoin’s. We expect the underlying factors helping Bitcoin outperform these two years such as MicroStrategy, positioning within a macro narrative, and the digital gold story will also apply at scale to Ethereum. Due to Ethereum’s extensive use case availabilities, we believe the effects will be even more profound. On these developments and firmly as the world’s second largest crypto asset, we expect Ethereum to revisit All-time highs and re-establish a consistent price uptrend. Optimistic scenarios including 6,000-10,000 USD at year end. Additional factors influencing growth including layer 2 scaling (roll up enhancements improving transition speed and reducing costs), Defi/NFT expansion (Ethereum remains a leader in decentralized applications), and institutional interest through investment and ETF staking approvals.

In 2024, real transactions per second on Ethereum Layer 2 (l2) solutions exploded along with Total Value Locked (TVL) in L2s. Transaction fees remain low after implementation of EIP 4844, allowing users to send any amount for less than a cent on l2s. Most vividly, the total number of unique Ethereum addresses increased by 39.6 million (+15.76%), with an average daily growth of 108,200 addresses. A key technical development we see in 2025 for Ethereum is the further value accruing mechanisms of L2 protocols to the underlying L1 platform level which is Ether itself. We expect the Ethereum development community to globally be on onboard with this track.

We are very bullish on Ethereum’s interaction with AI which has evolved rapidly the last few years. The Ethereum Foundation, with recent changes at its stalwart, has recently announced that AI focused enterprise partnerships are in the near term pipeline. These collaboration aims to improve the efficiency and capabilities of smart contracts on the Ethereum network. AI algorithms are also playing an increasingly significant role in Ethereum trading, accounting for 30% of total ETH trading volume in 2024 alone. We are seeing the onset of various machine learning applications applied within the Ethereum ecosystem that will be used to optimize transaction processing efficiency, enhance smart contract security, etc. AI efficiencies will help security enhancements, a key factor and risk of multiple blockchain platforms. The key trends we see in Ethereum’s further integration with AI include further innovation, security enhancement, and create new ecosystem opportunities in the blockchain space.

Ethereum is expected to maintain dominance in the blockchain space, with price movements reflecting broader crypto market trends. Despite this, we are aware of other Layer 1s in their competition aspect against Ethereum. Price action reflects this as Ethereum appreciated 70% in 2024, while Bitcoin and Solana reached 142% and 107%. We would like to see the scalability and regulatory uncertainties be addressed as they have limited the growth potential of Ethereum in the last 2 years. These developments are already in the works with Ethereum scheduled for the Pectra upgrade this Spring which aims to address critical protocol issues and improve user experience. On top of this, Ethereum continues to cater and steward the world’s largest decentralized developer community, with an outsized mindshare in technical blockchain progresses.

Decentralized Science

HairDAO, a decentralized autonomous organization focused on hair loss research and treatments, has made significant progress in the DeSci space as of December 2024. Its governance token, HAIR, reached an all-time high of $150.38 in November 2024. HairDAO's key features include token-based governance, funding for early-stage hair loss research, and minting intellectual property as NFTs. Analysts predict the HAIR token price could reach as high as $220.09 by the end of 2025, with long-term projections for 2030 estimating into the hundreds of dollars per token. As part of the growing DeSci movement, HairDAO's unique approach to funding and developing hair loss treatments through a decentralized model distinguishes it in both the crypto and biotech sectors. The organization recently launched an on-chain telehealth service, demonstrating innovation in blockchain-healthcare integration. Further upcoming developments include HairDAO implementing a pipeline for hair loss research studies designed for funding, conducting, and minting as IP-NFTs. HairDAO is part of the growing DeSci movement, utilizing cryptocurrency and blockchain technology to facilitate real-world innovation in biomedical research.

The Decentralized Science (DeSci) landscape in 2025 is characterized by rapid evolutions which has leveraged blockchain technology to address inefficiencies in traditional scientific research and funding systems. Key trends for 2025 include more innovative DAO funding pools, enhanced data transparency, community collaborations, and the tokenization of intellectual property. Emerging applications such as decentralized clinical trials and AI-integrated DAOs are streamlining processes and accelerating funding decisions. However, regulatory uncertainties and resistance from traditional researchers pose challenges to widespread adoption. Despite these hurdles, DeSci is transforming the scientific ecosystem by democratizing access and improving funding efficiency. With the global biotech and science industry valued in the hundreds of billions of dollars, with believe that DeSci (currently around one billion USD in market cap among all projects) has a legitimate chance of capturing a significant share of the overall market. As infrastructure, data services, and decentralized governance continue to advance, DeSci has the potential to bridge critical gaps in scientific research and accelerate innovation across various fields.

On 2025

We believe 2025 will primarily be driven by deregulation, with much improved sentiment among developers and builders in unlocking new paradigms for crypto expansion. We could potentially see a major influx of companies and mindshare migrating back to the US, as the US has created a concerted effort to establish itself as the world’s crypto hub. As for the broader macro thesis, lower interest rates and tax cuts would signal higher demand for risk-on assets. We believe AI is, in tandem with crypto, the most important industry of the coming years, and the crypto market’s chance to intersect with AI and create extremely efficient digital systems remains a key opportunity for Bizantine. Specifically, the advent of AI agents on the blockchain has for the first time led to automated application developments instead of manual programming. However, we take caution in the fact that the last 2 years has seen the proliferation of an asset class with 10s of millions of new crypto tokens. Likely, the threshold to be a well-developed and strong project will only get harder, which makes the demand for top tier experience and visibility in the space even more prevalent. Very likely, crypto may reverse soon back to more fundamental aspects of valuation, as the last two years has redefined investment philosophy in a more memetic and velocity-driven approach. A renewed focus on institutional adoption and technological integration will expand entire use cases for blockchain technology. Nonetheless, crypto markets have exhibited ongoing maturation and diversion as a real asset class in institutional portfolios.

Citations:

1. [1]https://coincredin.com/blog-detail/top-crypto-events-to-look-forward-to-in-2024
2. [2]https://explodingtopics.com/blog/cryptocurrency-trends
3. [3]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcZzhCU41Pc
4. [4]https://pony.studio/design-for-growth/top-crypto-blockchain-and-web3-events-2024
5. [5]https://beincrypto.com/top-five-crypto-events-2024/
6. [6]https://coin360.com/news/top-12-crypto-headlines-of-2024
7. [7]https://www.bitcoin.com/conferences/
8. [8]https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/crypto-market-forecast-top-trends-will-affect-crypto-2025
9. [9]https://u.today/2024-crypto-rally-is-over-with-trading-volume-down-by-64
10. [10]https://www.cryptotimes.io/2024/12/22/a-throwback-at-the-major-events-of-crypto-space-in-2024/

Download PDF