Summary: no altseason, but Bitcoin hit an ATH. 2025 in numbers

This is not a weekly digest. Here we sum up the whole year, briefly and to the point. 2025 turned out to be weird: the market seemed to be maturing, but without a classic altseason – instead, with new records and a lot of big moves in funds, DeFi, and stablecoins.

Bitcoin: ATH above $126,000, but the year is almost flat

2025 started for BTC around $92,000, in April it was pushed down to about $75,000, and in October it hit a new all-time high: over $126,000. The irony is that by the end of the year the price again returned closer to $88,000, so in the end we have a drop of about 5–6% for the year.

Bitcoin dominance also lived its own life: throughout the year it moved in the 56–66% range, and finished around 59.5%. So the king held on confidently, but without total control over the entire market.

The market overall: swings from $2.4 to $4.2 trillion

The total capitalization of the crypto market during 2025 jumped within a wide corridor: about $2.4–$4.2 trillion. The peak came in October, after which the cap gradually cooled down and in December stabilized around $3 trillion, plus or minus like at the start of the year.

Big coins: BNB in the green, SOL in the red

Among the top coins, BNB looked best: about +22% for the year. Solana, on the contrary, fell by about 33%. For scale: BTC fell by ~5%, Ethereum – by ~10%, XRP – by ~15%.

And one more cold shower: against the backdrop of crypto, traditional assets in 2025 looked stronger – the S&P 500 added about 17%, and gold grew by about 70% overall. 

There was no altseason, but x’s still happened

There was no global all-alts-to-the-moon move, but some tokens made crazy x’s. The brightest example is MYX with growth of 3358%.

A separate noticeable trend is interest in privacy: Zcash added about 574%, Monero – about 116%. The market seems to hint: the privacy theme has not gone anywhere.

ETFs: institutions came in seriously

Spot Bitcoin ETFs over the year increased cumulative inflows from about $35 billion in January to over $57 billion in December. The peak value was in October: about $62 billion. Assets under management of BTC ETFs grew to about $120 billion versus about $30 billion at the start of the year.

Ethereum ETFs also grew: inflows from about $2.58 billion in January to over $12 billion in December, and the peak was over $14 billion in October. AUM – about $18 billion by the end of the year.

And one more interesting detail: in 2025 demand appeared for exchange-traded products on other assets – ETFs were also launched for alts: DOGE, SOL, XRP, LINK, HBAR and others. This is a direct signal that for the traditional market crypto is no longer only about Bitcoin.

DeFi: TVL went to a peak and almost came back

Total TVL in DeFi started around $116 billion, in October it accelerated to about $166 billion, and by the end of the year it again dropped to about $118 billion. So there were a lot of emotions, but the finish – almost where it started.

Instead, the balance of power changed: Ethereum’s share in DeFi grew to ~68% versus 56% in 2024. Solana also added – to ~8.6%, and TRON sank – to ~4.34%.

Stablecoins and RWA: things were grown-up here

The capitalization of stablecoins in 2025 for the first time in history exceeded $300 billion. Over the year the sector added about $100 billion – that is about +50%.

In parallel, the RWA segment without stablecoins also grew – almost to $19 billion versus about $15 billion a year earlier. At the center are tokenized U.S. Treasury securities and other real assets.

Perp DEX: onchain derivatives became a separate league

Derivatives DEXs in 2025 really gained weight: TVL in the segment exceeded $3.75 billion, and open interest rose to about $14 billion.

Volumes also accelerated: if at the start of the year many venues were doing about $100 million per day, then by the end of the year it was already hundreds of millions and even tens of billions.

Hacks and fraud: minus $2.4 billion – and this is still normal for crypto

In 2025 the industry lost over $2.4 billion due to attacks. The most painful was February – about $1.46 billion against the backdrop of the high-profile Bybit hack.

Prediction markets: hype that suddenly became an industry

Prediction platforms became one of the main trends of the year. In autumn, interest jumped sharply, and by the end of the year weekly trading volume exceeded $3.5 billion, and active users per week were over 280,000.

The leader remained Polymarket, with Kalshi taking a noticeable share. And it is telling that during the year big players like MetaMask, Coinbase and Crypto.com talked about launching betting markets.

Kursoff opinion

2025 looks like a year of institutions and infrastructure: ETFs gained momentum, stablecoins broke through $300 billion, RWA is moving toward the mainstream, and DeFi and derivatives are learning to live without fairy tales about an endless altseason.

If briefly for the future: don’t chase the mythical it’s about to start, look at the numbers, take care of security – because $2.4 billion in losses is no joke. And keep a cool head even when Bitcoin decides to show character again.