Core Insights of the Cryptocurrency Market Report for the First Half of 2025

1. Market Macro Overview: Moderate Growth Amid High Volatility
Overall Performance: After achieving a 96.2% explosive growth in 2024, the growth rate of the encryption market slowed in the first half of 2025, with the total market value rising slightly by 1.99% year-to-date (YTD). The market fell by 18.61% in the first quarter and then rebounded strongly by 25.32% in the second quarter.
Macroeconomic Drivers: Market fluctuations are primarily influenced by tariff policies and geopolitical tensions. The monetary policies of major global economies are diverging, with the U.S. economy slowing down, while China's stimulus policies have driven its GDP to achieve a strong growth of 5.4% in the first quarter.
Surge in liquidity: The total money supply of the four major economies—U.S., China, Europe, and Japan—increased by $5.5 trillion in six months, marking the largest increase in four years.
Bitcoin Performance: Against this backdrop, Bitcoin behaves more like a high-risk asset rather than a "safe haven," yet it still achieved a **+13%** year-to-date return, outperforming most traditional stock indices.
2. Bitcoin: The Core Macro Asset of Institutionalization
Market position: Bitcoin's market capitalization remains stable above $2 trillion, with a market dominance that once reached 65.1%, a four-year high, and it continues to be one of the best-performing assets globally.
Institutional Drive: Spot Bitcoin ETFs have become a key structural driving force, continuously attracting institutional capital inflows. The corporate holdings have also surged, with over 140 companies collectively holding 848,000 Bitcoins.
Ecological Evolution: The native scaling solution of Bitcoin has made progress, the total locked value (TVL) of Bitcoin DeFi (BTCFi) has increased by over 550% year-on-year, and the network's security and hash rate remain strong.
3. Public Chain (L1) Ecology: Differentiated Development
Ethereum (: With strong institutional inflows and successful technical upgrades (such as Pectra), it maintains market dominance.
Solana: Maintains high transaction throughput, growing institutional interest, and enhanced network reliability ahead of the Firedancer upgrade.
BNB Chain: Decentralized exchange (DEX) activities set records, and expands to Meme coins, real world assets (RWA), and AI applications.
Other public chains: Avalanche accelerates enterprise subnet adoption; Sui's DeFi TVL doubles; Tron consolidates its position as a key stablecoin settlement layer; TON deepens its strategic integration with Telegram.
4. DeFi and Ethereum L2: Maturity and Challenges
DeFi Transformation: Growth momentum shifts from internal speculation to institutional adoption and integration of real-world assets (RWA). TVL stabilizes at around $151.5 billion, while monthly active users have increased by 240% year-on-year. The spot trading volume of DEX reached a record share of 29%.
L2 (Ethereum Layer 2 Network): The market shows signs of saturation and intensified competition. Optimistic Rollups (such as Base and Arbitrum) lead in liquidity and fee revenue, while ZK Rollups, despite significant technological advancements, still have gaps in user and capital attraction. L2 faces challenges of fragmentation and a slow decentralization process.
5. Stablecoins: Moving Towards Mainstream Financial Infrastructure
New Market High: The total market capitalization of stablecoins has surpassed $250 billion, reaching an all-time high.
Market Landscape: Tether )USDT( maintains its dominant position (market cap of approximately $155 billion), while Circle's USDC has become the fastest-growing stablecoin, with supply nearly doubling to $61.5 billion, and market share increasing from 20% to over 25%.
Regulatory Push: The passage of the U.S. GENIUS Act and the implementation of the EU MiCA regulations have paved the way for stablecoins to become tools for payment, remittance, and on-chain settlement.
6. Innovation Frontier: AI, DePIN and Consumer Applications
Technology Integration:
Decentralized Finance AI )DeFAI(: Embedding AI agents into DeFi protocols to optimize trading and governance.
Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Network ) DePIN (: Applying blockchain to the management of real-world assets and physical facilities.
Consumer-level applications: Although institutionalization is the main theme, consumer-level applications (such as wallets integrated with fiat functionalities, casual games, and Meme coins) remain crucial in attracting mainstream attention and building user channels.
7. Global Regulatory Landscape
United States: After the new president took office, a more friendly strategic shift towards encryption has emerged.
Europe: Implementing stricter cryptocurrency enforcement measures.
Asia: presents a differentiated pattern, with Hong Kong attracting innovation through open policies, while Singapore adopts strict compliance measures.
Global cooperation: Progress has been made in tax transparency and cross-border regulatory cooperation.