INTRODUCTION Contributed by: Jeffrey Harvey, Randall Parks, Andrew Geyer and Cecilia Oh, Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP
Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP 200 Park Avenue
New York NY 10166 USA
Tel: +1 212 309 1000 Fax: +1 212 309 1100 Email: info@hunton.com Web: www.hunton.com
Cryptocurrency Despite the challenges of 2024, the cryptocurrency market has survived and, in many cases, thrived. Valu - ations have increased since the most recent crash in 2024, with Bitcoin nearly doubling its value from its 2024 low; 2025 may be looked back upon as the year that the fittest of the cryptocurrencies survived. Giv - en this renewed strength of the crypto market, there could be a resurgence of blockchain and cryptocur - rency software application developers, advisers and managed service providers. Non-fungible tokens Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are essentially digital cer - tificates of asset ownership and are primarily repre - sented by digital images that were bought and sold as if they were more tangible assets. At the height of the NFT craze, a single NFT sold for more than USD20 million at Sotheby’s. In 2024, the NFT market was operating essentially on life support, with very few analysts expecting a resurgence. However, mira - cles do happen and, due to a shift in the usage of NFTs from art to utility, there has been somewhat of a surprising resurgence. NFTs are now more prevalent in the form of digital diplomas, event tickets, loyalty credentials and supply chain tokens. The total market is expected to grow to USD34 billion in 2025 accord - ing to some estimates. Metaverse The metaverse promised to become a new digital world hosted somewhere in the ether, which ana - lysts predicted would ultimately comprise a market worth several billions of dollars. Service providers immediately formed metaverse working groups and
The rate of change in the technology and outsourc - ing industry continues to increase after a period of relative stability. New and disruptive technologies have come and gone (or gone somewhat dormant) within the past 12 months, while others have demon - strated more staying power. The global outsourcing industry continues to remain strong in light of these new and somewhat disruptive technologies, and out - sourcing providers have incorporated many of these technologies into their service offerings. This ability to constantly evolve along with the broader technology market demonstrates the flexibility and resilience of the outsourcing industry as a whole. New Technologies Artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) seems to have finally taken hold in the IT services industry. ChatGPT, GitHub, Bard and other generative AI solutions are end user- friendly and widely available, which seems to have led to greater adoption of AI technologies in the broader market. Moving from a mere buzzword tossed around by service providers who had not yet integrated the technology into their solutions to potentially a driver of new solutions geared towards increased efficiency, it seems as if AI in the IT services space is here to stay. Time will tell whether these AI-integrated solutions are “real”, in terms of tangible benefits to custom - ers, but the pitches seem to have substance behind them (something that was lacking 12 months ago) and certain of the individual and somewhat isolated use cases have been fairly remarkable.
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