🔮 Our predictions for ReFi in 2025 🔮

To get you primed for 2025, Kent Babin (co-founder) and Trinity Morphy (writer) put together their list of predictions for ReFi in the new year. By all accounts, it will be an important year for the space - a make-or-break one depending on whom you ask.

Regardless of how it shakes out, we'll be here to cover it.

And as a quick reminder, no newsletter next week. We'll be back the following week with some fresh announcements and content for 2025.

Wishing everyone a prosperous new year ahead! 🎉

Kent Babin

🔮 Solar energy funding will dominate the headlines

Perhaps the area of ReFi that saw the biggest success in 2024 was the funding of solar energy. Whether ReFi Hub, Glow, Helios, M3tering, penomo, Arkreen, or The SolarWise, this year offered us a glimpse into a future where renewable energy projects are funded at scale. I expect to see a lot more of this in 2025.

🔮 ReFi will undergo an identity crisis

ReFi has suffered under the weight of the wider expectation that blockchain would fix the voluntary carbon market. For all the headlines it made in 2021/22, ReFi all but dropped off the radar when carbon projects failed to meet expectations. The bear case is that ReFi will never truly recover from this, never recapture the narrative that made it the next big thing in crypto. The impending identity crisis will force those in the space to choose between staying the course or rebranding as something else (GreenFi, ImpactFi, et al).

🔮 BioFi will have its day in the sun

Related to the above, there was a push towards the latter part of this year by some of the big ReFi stewards towards BioFi (bioregional finance). ReFi has very much been focused (and, we can say, successful) on localised impact. Scopes are typically small, as is the potential for building large, regenerative economies. BioFi, on the contrary, is much larger in scope and regenerative economic potential. These two things alone may make BioFi more attractive to large donor organisations and investors. I expect BioFi will be given the chance to shine in 2025. Let's hope it takes full advantage.

Trinity Morphy

🔮 Mass onboarding of local community partners

We are likely to see a shift toward grassroots implementation of ReFi projects. Local partners like community organizations, cooperatives, and indigenous groups will be essential for executing regenerative projects on the ground. This localisation could help ensure projects are culturally appropriate and truly benefit the communities they serve.

🔮 Balance of ecological and social impact

Recognizing that environmental regeneration and social well-being are connected is an important step for ReFi. Projects will focus more on restoring natural ecosystems while also improving local livelihoods and economies. For example, initiatives like community-managed forests can support carbon storage and provide sustainable income.

🔮 Funding challenges persist

ReFi brings innovative ways to fund regenerative projects, but securing steady funding is still expected to be a challenge. This is due to ReFi being new, traditional investors not understanding the models, the long-term focus of these projects clashing with investor desire for quick returns, and the difficulty in measuring and valuing regenerative outcomes.

🔮 Increased collaboration between ReFi projects

ReFi is a growing ecosystem where projects see they can achieve more by working together than by competing. Such partnerships could include shared technological infrastructure like regen bounties on Atlantis, cross-project token systems or rewards, standardised frameworks for measuring impact, and joint funding pools or risk-sharing mechanisms.