The ultimate game of cryptocurrency may be its quiet rebellion against the nation-state as humanity’s default organizational unit. In a world increasingly defined by digital trust, decentralized coordination, and programmable value, new forms of economic and social structures are emerging — and crypto startups are at the forefront.
This guide, curated by Alliance DAO, explores high-potential startup ideas across financial, non-financial, and infrastructural domains. Whether you're a builder, investor, or visionary, these themes represent fertile ground for innovation in 2025 and beyond.
Real-World Financial Applications
Crypto Payments: Beyond Speculation
Stablecoins are not just a bridge between fiat and crypto — they are already one of the most impactful real-world use cases in blockchain history.
According to Brevan Howard Digital, **stablecoins settled over $11 trillion on-chain in 2022**, surpassing PayPal’s $1.4 trillion and reaching 14% of ACH volume. This scale proves that crypto has long moved beyond speculative trading.
Yet many still believe crypto lacks “killer apps.” The truth? The killer app is here — it's just not evenly distributed.
👉 Discover how next-gen payment platforms are reshaping global finance.
Instead of competing with Venmo or Revolut, the next wave of crypto payment startups should focus on underserved markets: regions with high inflation, capital controls, or limited banking access. Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, and Southeast Asia are prime examples where stablecoin adoption is accelerating like a hockey stick.
Last-Mile Onramps: P2P Networks for Emerging Economies
For crypto payments to work in the real world, users need seamless entry and exit points between local currencies and digital assets.
This is where peer-to-peer (P2P) onramp solutions come in — inspired by Binance P2P or LocalBitcoins. These platforms enable localized liquidity through networks of trusted agents who facilitate cash-to-crypto and crypto-to-cash exchanges.
Imagine a street vendor in Lagos receiving USDC for goods sold, then converting it to Nigerian naira via a neighborhood agent. No bank account needed. No delays. Just instant, borderless value transfer.
Building regulated yet decentralized P2P rails could unlock financial inclusion for millions — especially in economies where traditional banking infrastructure lags behind demand.
Crypto-First Neobanks in Developing Markets
While neobanks surged in popularity a few years ago, most ignored developing economies — despite having some of the strongest demand for yield-bearing stablecoins and dollar-denominated assets.
Now, with rising yields on on-chain real-world assets (RWA) — such as U.S. Treasury bonds — there’s an opportunity to build crypto-native banks that offer more than just storage. Think:
- Dollar-pegged accounts with 4–5% APY
- Automated yield strategies using RWA protocols
- Cross-border payroll and remittance tools
These services would appeal to freelancers, SMEs, and expats seeking stability in volatile economies.
Moreover, integrating chain-native credit scoring could allow lenders to extend microloans based on on-chain behavior — unlocking DeFi access without requiring upfront collateral.
Real-World Assets (RWA): Bridging Traditional Finance and Web3
The total value of on-chain wealth now exceeds $1.5 trillion — and much of it is seeking diversification beyond volatile crypto assets.
Since the 2023 banking crisis, even native crypto organizations like MakerDAO have prioritized RWA exposure. Meanwhile, retail investors in emerging markets want access to high-quality assets — not just stablecoins that still lose purchasing power over time.
Types of RWA Opportunities
- Financial assets: U.S. Treasuries, corporate bonds, equities
- Hard assets: Real estate, commodities (gold, oil)
- Collectibles: Luxury watches, rare sneakers, Pokémon cards
These assets can be tokenized or represented via oracles — opening up global liquidity pools previously reserved for institutional investors.
RWA-Based Lending
One powerful model is using off-chain assets as collateral for on-chain loans.
For example:
- A homeowner uses their property deed as collateral to borrow USDC.
- A startup pledges future revenue streams to secure working capital.
- A collector deposits a Rolex via a custodian and receives a loan against it on Arcade.xyz.
While full tokenization (e.g., fractionalizing real estate into NFTs) is one path, partial representations via oracles or trusted custodians — like MakerDAO’s approach — may be more scalable in the short term.
This hybrid model allows compliance with existing regulations while unlocking new capital efficiency.
👉 Explore how RWA is transforming investment accessibility worldwide.
Crypto-Native Financial Applications
Continuous Prediction Markets
Traditional prediction markets are limited by binary outcomes: “Will Biden win?” Yes or no.
But people don’t think in binaries — they think in probabilities and narratives.
Enter meme-based prediction tokens like $BIDEN or $TRUMP. These function as continuous markets where price reflects real-time sentiment — no expiration date, no settlement cap. They’re speculative, yes — but also powerful indicators of crowd wisdom.
Future platforms could expand this concept to stocks, events, or even AI-generated forecasts — all tradable as perpetual ERC-20 tokens.
Undercollateralized Lending
As on-chain reputations mature — through ENS names, verified credentials (Coinbase Wallet Certificates), and consistent cash flows — undercollateralized lending becomes feasible.
Imagine:
- A developer borrows 10 ETH against their future earnings from a dApp.
- A DAO secures funding based on its historical revenue and governance health.
Protocols like Goldfinch and Maple Finance already experiment with this model. With better risk modeling and identity layers, it could become mainstream.
Privacy-Preserving DeFi
Privacy isn’t dead — it’s evolving.
Whales use centralized exchanges to obscure large trades. Cross-chain bridges like Thorchain act as de facto privacy tools because tracking跨-chain flows is harder than on-chain ones.
New technologies offer compliant privacy:
- Zero-Knowledge Proofs (ZKP): Prove you’re not from a sanctioned country without revealing identity.
- MPC & FHE: Enable private computation without exposing data.
- Trusted Execution Environments (TEE): Secure hardware enclaves for sensitive operations.
Startups combining privacy with regulatory compliance will unlock institutional-grade DeFi usage.
Rari Capital Reboot: Lending-as-a-Service
Many projects forked Aave or Compound to launch vertical-specific lending platforms — but maintenance costs were high.
Rari Capital aimed to solve this with "lending pool factories" — modular, customizable lending markets with shared security and lower dev overhead.
After its pause due to a hack, there’s room for a secure reboot: a composable lending infrastructure layer for niche markets (e.g., gaming assets, RWAs).
DAO M&A Banking
DAO mergers are inevitable. Fei Protocol merged with Rari Capital in 2021 — more will follow.
But merging treasuries, governance systems, and legal entities is complex. A new breed of DAO investment banks could offer:
- Standardized merger smart contracts
- Legal wrappers for cross-jurisdictional unions
- Valuation frameworks for token-based acquisitions
This niche could become critical as DAOs mature into real economic actors.
NFT Derivatives
NFTs suffer from low liquidity — making derivatives essential for risk management.
Options, perps, and futures allow holders to hedge or speculate without selling.
Due to manipulation risks in illiquid markets, physically settled derivatives (where actual NFTs change hands) may be safer than cash-settled versions.
Platforms enabling NFT options with automated exercise logic could become foundational infrastructure.
Prime Brokerage Layer
In traditional finance, prime brokers manage cross-protocol risk exposure. In DeFi? Each protocol operates in silos.
A unified risk accounting layer could track user positions across lending, derivatives, and DEXs — enabling better collateral efficiency and margining.
Think: one dashboard showing your net exposure across Aave, dYdX, and Uniswap — with dynamic liquidation thresholds.
Non-Financial & Semi-Financial Applications
Fully On-Chain Games
Games where all logic and state live on-chain unlock unprecedented composability.
Examples:
- Smart contracts playing games autonomously (like MEV bots in DeFi)
- User-created mods that can’t be censored by central platforms
Just as Unreal Engine powered Epic Games, the first successful on-chain game engine may emerge from a hit chain-native game studio.
On-Chain Social Networks
The winning Web3 social platform won’t look like Twitter — it might start as a game or niche community tool.
Key features:
- User-owned data
- Resistance to censorship
- Permissionless innovation
Projects like Farcaster are early contenders — but the final winner may come from an unexpected direction.
Anonymous Social Networks with ZK Identity
Users can prove attributes (e.g., “I work at Company X” or “My net worth > $1M”) via ZKPs without revealing identity.
Think: a decentralized Ratemyprofessor meets LinkedIn gossip — private, verifiable, and viral.
Infrastructure Innovations
DePIN: Token-Incentivized Physical Networks
DePIN (Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks) use tokens to coordinate real-world infrastructure:
- Community-owned telecom networks
- Distributed solar battery grids
- Crowdsourced AI training datasets
By aligning incentives, DePIN turns passive users into active contributors — creating public goods through market mechanisms.
Fighting AI Deepfakes with Digital Signatures
As AI-generated audio/video becomes indistinguishable from reality, cryptographic provenance is key.
Solution: creators sign content with private keys. Anyone can verify authenticity via public addresses linked to social profiles.
A protocol that auto-verifies signed posts across X/Twitter or Instagram would restore trust in digital media.
ZKP Hardware Accelerators
ZK proofs are computationally expensive. Specialized hardware (like AI-focused GPUs) can speed them up dramatically.
Companies building ZKP ASICs or GPUs could become foundational players — just as NVIDIA did for AI.
Specialized ZK Compute Networks
General-purpose zkRollups (zkSync, Starknet) are powerful — but specialized ones are faster.
Examples:
- A DEX zkRollup optimized only for order matching
- An AI inference network using ZKPs to prove correct model execution off-chain
These vertical-specific rollups maximize efficiency for targeted use cases.
Bitcoin L2 & MEV Opportunities
With ~$1T in BTC value sitting idle, demand for expressive smart contracts is growing.
New Bitcoin L2s aim to add functionality while relying on Bitcoin for data availability (DA). If successful:
- Miners could capture MEV from L2 transactions
- Flashbots-like firms could emerge to bundle and optimize transaction ordering
This could birth the first Bitcoin-native unicorn infra company.
Solana Infrastructure Gaps
Solana offers speed and scalability — but dev tools lag behind Ethereum.
Opportunities include:
- Advanced debugging suites
- Better block explorers
- Chain-specific wallet SDKs
- High-performance indexers
Builders who create 10x better tooling can capture massive mindshare in the Solana ecosystem.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Q: What makes stablecoins a viable payment solution in developing countries?
A: Stablecoins offer protection against inflation, fast cross-border transfers, and access to global markets — crucial in economies with unstable local currencies.
Q: How can RWAs be integrated into DeFi without full tokenization?
A: Through oracle networks or custodial models where asset ownership is verified off-chain but represented on-chain (e.g., MakerDAO’s approach).
Q: Why are undercollateralized loans possible now when they weren’t before?
A: Improved on-chain identity systems (ENS, Clique), verifiable income streams, and reputation scoring make credit risk assessment feasible without over-collateralization.
Q: Can fully on-chain games really compete with AAA titles?
A: Not yet — but they offer unique advantages: true ownership, moddability, and composability. Early successes will likely emerge in simpler genres like strategy or puzzles.
Q: Is there a market for anonymous social networks?
A: Yes — especially in regions with censorship or among professionals sharing sensitive insights. ZKPs enable trust without sacrificing privacy.
Q: How do ZKP hardware accelerators impact everyday users?
A: Faster ZK proofs mean cheaper and quicker transactions on zkRollups — improving scalability and UX across Ethereum and other chains.
👉 Start building the future of finance today — explore tools and resources for crypto innovators.