Five takeaways about the future of crypto from Consensus 2025 | 2025-05-23 | Investing News
As I strolled through the exhibitor hall in Toronto at Consensus 2025, one of the most important crypto and blockchain conferences of the year, admiring the glittering and glamorous displays, I did my best to take stock of an industry with an uncertain future, one where long-term use-cases remain to be seen simply because there hasn’t been much of a long term to speak of quite yet.
With crypto momentum only picking up steam coming out of the Global Financial Crisis, I marveled at how nearly 15,000 people from 102 countries would visit the Metro Toronto Convention Centre as Consensus attendees, keen on furthering due diligence, closing deals or simply learning about how decentralized technology is bringing efficiency to spaces reliant on legacy intermediary institutions to make a market. Think banking, supply chain management, real estate and product/identity authentication, to name just a few.
The excitement of doing business in a barely charted industry was palpable, with passionate conversations unfolding at every turn and multiple well-attended stages lending a platform to some of crypto and blockchain’s leading lights. Taken as a whole, they offered a working picture of the present state of the industry marked by cautious optimism, but also a sense of permanence likely lacking when the inaugural Bitcoin Pizza Day took place in 2010. Here’s what I managed to sketch out:
A nascent market means opportunities for the seasoned investor
While crypto has attracted over half a billion investors as of 2024 – drawn by the ability to make global payments for minimal fees, diversify into non-fiat assets and hopefully harvest some life-changing returns – about half of these investors are non-accredited, increasing the likelihood that they’re approaching the space without much in the way of due diligence as to the likelihood of turning a profit.
This puts a premium on delineating a reasonable path to value creation before committing any funds, though that path becomes more difficult if your target investment isn’t publicly listed and subject to financial disclosures, as is the case with the vast majority of crypto ventures. Consequently, the specs of a high-conviction investment can get esoteric rather quickly, relying on intangible metrics in the absence of revenue or income, incentivizing institutions and savvy active investors to allocate into the space.
Websites like Coin Market Cap and Crypto Fees can be of some assistance, adding actionable data to your research process, but it will take a mature regulatory environment to fully unlock the potential of fundamental crypto investing.
Public crypto and blockchain stocks differentiate themselves through technology
A brief survey through Consensus 2025’s publicly traded exhibitors reveals that stocks tied to a specific cryptocurrency, similar to mineral explorers, developers and producers, will track that currency’s price fluctuations depending on the purity of exposure. Stocks tracking innovative technologies, on the other hand, perform more idiosyncratically, representing their ability to potentially deliver differentiated returns.
BitDeer (NASDAQ:BTDR), a Bitcoin mining technology company, for example, has rewarded investors with a 157 per cent return year-over-year, more than twice Bitcoin’s 61 per cent effort, thanks to the added value of its computing expertise spanning equipment procurement, transport logistics, datacenter design and construction and daily operations.
Compare this to Bitfarms (TSX:BITF), a pure-play Bitcoin miner, which has managed to decrease net losses over the past three years, but nevertheless has been unable to navigate Bitcoin volatility into consistent profits. The stock has given back over 40 per cent year-over-year while gaining 200 per cent since 2020, failing to match Bitcoin’s 61 per cent and 1,100 per cent returns, respectively.
In crypto and blockchain, you’re either a commodity tracker or a value-creator, and that really comes down to what problem a company is solving for its customers. If a solution is more efficient than legacy competition, it’s only reasonable to expect commensurate investment returns.
Tokenization is a long-term, high-conviction catalyst
Numerous panels and speakers at Consensus addressed the hot topic of tokenization, the process by which any asset, tangible or intangible, is registered on a blockchain, divided into units and subsequently distributed to stakeholders or investors. There’s an obvious level of utility in facilitating the sale of non-traditional assets and there was a diversity of perspectives on offer about how it will all play out.
Beyond the Game: the New Era of Sports Partnerships, Crypto, and Culture, moderated by sports journalist and St. Bonaventure Basketball General Manager, Adrian Wojnarowski, explored the potential for athletes to tokenize elements of their contracts and/or likenesses to secure their financial futures.
Uranium on-chain: Enabling Access to New Markets, delivered by Tezos co-founder, Arthur Breitman, got into the platform’s new uranium tokenization initiative, where the traditional constraints of directly owning the radioactive element are sidestepped with the help of blockchain technology.
The air of inevitability running through Consensus’ tokenization talks makes sense on a rational level, since the technology allows literally any kind of untapped value to test its worth in the marketplace.
The potential for accelerating revenue across industries, driven by platforms such as Securitize, another notable Consensus exhibitor, is monumental to say the least.
Institutional interest is both a green flag and a matter of incentives
Financial institutions held a strong presence at Consensus, offering insights into how these well-capitalized players are sizing up opportunities in the crypto and blockchain space. I noticed two distinct but not mutually exclusive paths to market participation as I covered ground on the conference floor:
Asset managers and exchanges, such as 3iQ, Grayscale and Ndax, collect fees and offer exposure to crypto directly or through mutual funds and ETFs, serving as a signal about how markets fluctuate over time. Given that these institutions are compensated by transaction or based on assets under management, they have an incentive to cater to market sentiment, not go against it.
To the contrary, players such as investment banking outfit Cannacord Genuity and data analytics specialist S&P Global, are free to follow the data and highlight opportunities for value that broader sentiment may be missing in the hopes of harvesting an outsized long-term return.
While institutional ownership de-risks retail ownership as a matter of course, following the money is key to making an informed investment decision where size and time horizon are aligned with your financial goals.
Crypto and blockchain’s status as a speculative asset class is selective at best
Rounding off my romp through Consensus, after absorbing dozens of projects and potential value propositions, it struck me that the common objection to crypto, that it’s a speculative asset, no longer applies across the board as it may have a decade ago.
While there are certainly projects that set a higher bar for due diligence, as highlighted by Eric Trump’s involvement in American Bitcoin, a new subsidiary of Hut 8, and meme coins such as Dogecoin, Pepe and President Trump’s recent contribution, these projects are in the public eye and have a decreasing incentive for funny business as regulation evolves.
There are also just as many projects that combine rational business plans with strength of character, such as Kula and Filecoin, allowing you to sleep well at night as your capital compounds over the long term.
Wherever your crypto journey takes you, know that the industry is in the earliest days of demonstrating its added value, which investors must identify and allocate into to maximize the probability of a satisfactory return. Should the source of this value change, you will have to adapt to stay ahead of the herd, responding rather than reacting to the latest market developments and expert analysis.
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