The "1995 Moment" of the encryption world: History is repeating itself, but the script is different.

The current transformation that cryptocurrency is undergoing is unlike the internet of the 1990s; instead, it is driven by financial institutions and AI, more likely to give birth to open protocols rather than monopolistic platforms, marking an acceleration in the normalization of technology. This article is sourced from an article by Mars Finance, organized and written by Foresight News. (Background: El Salvador hints at launching a 'Bitcoin Bank', Presidential Advisor: BTC is unstoppable) (Background: Trump will allow 401(k) retirement funds to invest in Bitcoin! Vice President Vance: Soon, 100 million Americans will own BTC) We are at a moment of division in the crypto world. On one hand, there is an unprecedented wave of institutional interest: giants like BlackRock and Fidelity embracing Bitcoin in ways never seen before, with their spot ETF products absorbing billions of dollars in traditional capital like a pump; sovereign wealth funds and national pensions are also quietly incorporating crypto assets into their massive investment portfolios. This trend makes the narrative of 'cryptocurrency becoming mainstream' sound incredibly real. But on the other hand, for the average person, the crypto world seems more distant than ever. Aside from the dramatic price fluctuations and the stories of a few speculators, it has almost no presence in daily life. The once-boisterous NFT market has fallen silent, and the Web3 games that were once highly anticipated have failed to 'break the circle'. This vast temperature difference creates a core contradiction: one side is a feast for financial elites, while the other is the mainstream world watching from a distance. How should we understand this disconnect? It is in this context that executives from Visa, including its CEO Alfred F. Kelly Jr., have made a profound assessment on multiple occasions: cryptocurrency is at a stage similar to the 'early 1990s e-commerce'; although it has not yet been fully understood by the public, its underlying technology and ecosystem are rapidly maturing, about to welcome a 'super inflection point' on the adoption curve. Research from institutions like Wells Fargo supports this analogy. Reports indicate that the user adoption curve for cryptocurrency is astonishingly similar to that of the early 1990s internet. Even though the internet was born in 1983, by 1995, less than 1% of the global population was using it. The ratio of today’s cryptocurrency users is strikingly similar. History shows that disruptive technologies require a long, slow, and often confusing ramp-up period before they can explode. However, this seemingly perfect analogy may obscure a deeper truth. History does not simply repeat itself. Today’s crypto world is being rewritten by two variables that were unimaginable back then—the entry of financial institutions and the rise of artificial intelligence (AI). This is not merely a repetition of history; it is an accelerated and distinctly different evolution. Giants from the old world, pioneers of the new continent The e-commerce revolution of the 1990s was a classic 'disruptor' game. Back then, Amazon, eBay, and PayPal rose from the fringes of the mainstream business world as 'new nobles', challenging traditional giants like Walmart and Citibank with entirely new rules. It was an era belonging to garage entrepreneurs and venture capitalists, with the main storyline of 'disruption' and 'replacement'. Today, however, the story of cryptocurrency presents a completely different narrative. The most notable pioneers are no longer just the hoodie-wearing cypherpunks; they are also the financial 'establishment' in suits from Wall Street and Silicon Valley. They are not looking to destroy the old world but are trying to 'transport' the entire old world onto the new technological foundation. This 'inside-out' transformation will be vividly manifested in 2025. BlackRock CEO Larry Fink's prophecy of 'asset tokenization' is accelerating towards realization. Following the success of Bitcoin spot ETFs in 2024, BlackRock partnered with Securitize to launch its first tokenized fund on Ethereum—BUIDL, turning shares of traditional money market funds into tokens that can circulate on the blockchain 24/7. Meanwhile, the number of companies (known as DATCOs) that treat crypto assets as strategic reserves is surging, and the total amount of crypto assets held on their balance sheets has historically exceeded $100 billion. More critical variables come from the changing attitude of the U.S. government. The previously ambiguous and occasionally hostile regulatory environment underwent a decisive shift in 2025. The U.S. government not only became an important holder of Bitcoin (seizing nearly 200,000 Bitcoins through law enforcement) but, more importantly, began establishing clear 'rules of the game' for the industry. The GENIUS Act signed in July is the first comprehensive federal regulatory framework for stablecoins in the U.S., providing a compliance path for this market, which has a market capitalization exceeding $250 billion. Following that, an executive order allowing $9 trillion in U.S. retirement funds to invest in cryptocurrency and other alternative assets opened a huge influx of incremental capital into the market. This top-down recognition fundamentally changed the risk-reward calculus for institutional entry, making the foundation of this transformation exceptionally solid. AI: A 'new species' seeking native economic soil If the entry of financial giants paved a highway from the crypto world to the real world, then the explosion of artificial intelligence has brought the first true 'natives' to this new continent. The internet of 1995 addressed the connection issues between 'people' and 'information', and 'people' and 'goods'. The essence of e-commerce is the digitization and online transformation of human social commercial activities. The next era we are entering will be about how 'AI' collaborates economically with 'AI'. As a new productive force, AI is creating digital content, code, designs, and even scientific discoveries at an unprecedented speed. The value created by AI urgently needs a corresponding, native economic system. Cryptographic technology was born for this purpose. Imagine a scenario: an AI design program autonomously creates a unique piece of artwork. It can mint this artwork into an NFT (non-fungible token) via a smart contract, thus obtaining unique and verifiable ownership. Subsequently, another AI marketing program can discover this NFT and autonomously decide to pay a small cryptocurrency fee to promote it on social media. If an AI purchasing agent from a clothing brand takes a liking to this design, it can interact directly with the smart contract holding the NFT, automatically paying the licensing fee and obtaining permission to produce 1,000 T-shirts. The entire process requires no human intervention; the creation, equity confirmation, circulation, and distribution of value are completed instantly on-chain. This is not science fiction. Vitalik, the founder of Ethereum, has pointed out that the combination of AI and crypto can solve each other's core issues: AI needs trustworthy rules and asset ownership, while the crypto world needs a 'user' that can act autonomously. This symbiotic relationship is giving rise to entirely new application scenarios. For example, decentralized computing networks (like Akash Network) allow AI developers to rent global idle GPU computing power with cryptocurrency; while on-chain AI models attempt to use token economics...