The year in data: 5 charts that show how crypto changed in 2025

Following a positive 2024 for the crypto industry, 2025 failed to live up to four-year cycle expectations — despite bitcoin reaching new all-time highs — subsequently notching up a negative year as many alts struggled to get anywhere near their prior peaks.

From continued inflows into U.S. spot crypto exchange-traded funds to a record adoption of stablecoins, prediction markets hitting the mainstream, a post-Hyperliquid perp DEX resurgence, and a DAT boom and bust, here are five charts to show how the industry changed in 2025.

US spot crypto ETFs march on

Spot Bitcoin ETFs from Ark Invest/21Shares, Bitwise, BlackRock, Fidelity, Franklin Templeton, Grayscale, Invesco, Valkyrie (now CoinShares), VanEck, and WisdomTree generated around $21.8 billion worth of net inflows in 2025, according to data compiled by The Block, far short of their $35.4 billion tally in 2024. Nevertheless, they remain one of the most successful ETF product classes, competing against some of the largest and most established ETF products in the world, including the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (VOO) and the Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ) Nasdaq-100 Index.

BlackRock's IBIT again led the way individually, attracting $24.9 billion worth of net inflows in 2025 alone, offset by net outflows from other funds, with assets under management of around $66 billion and over 70% market share among the ETFs by trading volume.

Meanwhile, spot Ethereum ETFs also witnessed slower demand in 2025 than many anticipated, but still generated around $9.8 billion in net inflows overall — outpacing last year's net inflow total of approximately $2.7 billion on both a relative and nominal basis following their July 2024 launch.

In September, the SEC approved new exchange listing standards for crypto ETFs on an accelerated basis, clearing a fast track that dramatically shortened the wait time for other investment products tied to digital assets to get to market, with spot ETFs from various issuers for Solana, Litecoin, XRP, Dogecoin, HBAR, and Chainlink following shortly after. The XRP-based products are so far leading the way among the new cohort, attracting $1.2 billion in net inflows since their Nov. 13 launch.

Stablecoin supply reaches new adoption heights

Stablecoin adoption surged in 2025 as major payments firms, GENIUS Act regulatory clarity, and new blockchain infrastructure pushed the asset class into more mainstream financial flows, with the circulating supply of U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoins across issuers and blockchains reaching new heights of nearly $300 billion.

Stripe introduced stablecoin accounts in more than 100 countries with support for holding balances, instant conversions, cross-border payouts, and card spending. It also introduced Tempo, a stablecoin-native Layer 1 built in collaboration with Paradigm, with Visa appearing among early partners exploring settlement on the network.

A broader wave of stablecoin-first blockchains — including Tempo, as well as Stable, and Plasma — defined the year's infrastructure shift, offering fast settlement, predictable stablecoin-denominated fees, and integrated liquidity features aimed at real-world payments, remittances, and enterprise settlement.

Tether maintained its market dominance, with USDT supply surpassing $187 billion to account for more than 64% of the market, as well as unveiling a new U.S.-compliant USAT variant. Circle’s USDC gained on USDT in 2025 but remains second with over $76 billion or 26% of the supply, and Ethena's USDe is third with around $6.3 billion or 2.2% of the market.

In terms of blockchain support, Ethereum leads stablecoin supply, followed by Tron, with Solana, BNB Chain, and Hyperliquid a distant second, third, and fourth, respectively.

Prediction markets hit the mainstream

Coming into 2025, there were concerns that platforms like Polymarket would fail to live up to the surge in hype and activity surrounding the November 2024 U.S. presidential election. Nonetheless, prediction markets hit the mainstream in 2025, going on to break new monthly active user and volume records, with Kalshi challenging Polymarket for sector dominance.

Kalshi started with a centralized, regulation-first approach, securing key CFTC licenses and ultimately winning a court battle to list certain political contracts. However, it is now expanding beyond the U.S. by accelerating its crypto and blockchain integrations, including partnerships with Solana and Base, to tap global non-U.S. markets and broaden distribution.

Polymarket, by contrast, began as a decentralized platform built on Polygon, an EVM-compatible sidechain to Ethereum, and swiftly grew into the largest global prediction venue. Kalshi has surpassed it in monthly trading volume since March, according to The Block's data dashboard, hitting $6.3 billion compared to $2.2 billion this month. Polymarket could not serve U.S. customers until recently, but following regulatory clarity, it relaunched in the country through its newly acquired clearing entity, QCEX, and also plans a future POLY token launch.

Both companies have raised substantial capital this year, with Kalshi recently raising $1 billion at an $11 billion valuation from backers including Paradigm, Sequoia Capital, and Andreessen Horowitz, and Polymarket securing a $2 billion investment from ICE, while it is reportedly in talks to raise new funding at up to a $15 billion valuation.

The pair also secured a slew of new integrations across sports, media, and finance in 2025, underscoring their growing presence as prediction markets continue to gain traction.

Polymarket partnered with Google Finance and Yahoo Finance to display its probability data alongside market and economic coverage, and also announced collaborations with PrizePicks, DraftKings, and the National Hockey League. Google Finance and the NHL also partnered with Kalshi, as did CNN and CNBC, with its Robinhood integration now accounting for more than 50% of Kalshi's market volume.

Perp DEX resurgence

After the 2021 perp-DEX boom cooled and platforms like dYdX and GMX slipped from the spotlight, cycle-darling Hyperliquid reignited trader interest in 2025, pushing onchain derivatives to record volumes and spurring a fresh cohort of competitors.

Hyperliquid strengthened its lead in onchain derivatives for most of 2025, launching its native USDH stablecoin and activating HIP-3 to enable permissionless perp market creation. The upgrades expanded its settlement layer, deepened liquidity, and moved the protocol closer to full decentralization as volumes remained near the top of the sector.

Aster, backed by YZi Labs and focused initially on BNB Chain, then burst onto the scene over the summer after its APX Finance rebrand, with an endorsement from Changpeng "CZ" Zhao helping drive its ASTER token from a $560 million FDV to more than $15 billion at peak. However, its momentum later cooled after DefiLlama flagged possible wash-trading patterns and delisted its perp data.

Ethereum-based Lighter emerged as another major new Hyperliquid rival in 2025, raising $68 million at a $1.5 billion valuation amid the perp DEX boom. It went on to roll out spot trading earlier this month, starting with ETH, ahead its LIT token launch on Tuesday.

Perpetual protocol monthly trading volume topped $1 trillion for the first time in October, driven by the increasing competition between platforms. Hyperliquid still commanded the largest share of that record $1.2 trillion volume with $308.5 billion in activity compared to Lighter's $272.5 billion and Aster's $259.9 billion. However, Lighter subsequently attracted greater volume than both rivals in November and remains in the lead in December amid the airdrop, according to The Block's data dashboard.

DAT boom and bust

Bitcoin treasury company Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) continued its aggressive accumulation of the foremost cryptocurrency throughout the year, topping 3% of Bitcoin's total 21 million supply with a balance sheet that now exceeds 672,000 BTC.

Interestingly, it was a pause in Strategy's weekly Bitcoin acquisition scheduled programming in July that caught the greatest attention of its 2025 escapades, but timestamped peak hype for the DAT company craze that fizzled almost as quickly as it took off.

While the number of Bitcoin treasury companies increased to around 200, the value of many of the cohort's shares is down substantially from those summer highs, and their market cap-to-net asset value ratios have sharply contracted. Strategy's common stock, though weathering the storm better than the more than 90% drawdowns for some stocks, has fallen 66% since, with its mNAV dropping below 1 — meaning the company is worth less than the value of the Bitcoin it holds.

Leading Ethereum and Solana treasury companies suffered a similar fate, with shares in Tom Lee's BitMine dropping 79.5% from peak and Forward Industries falling 83% after accumulating more than 4.1 million ETH and 6.9 million SOL, respectively, during the year.

Overall, the stacked market caps of the leading DATs with holdings of various cryptocurrencies plunged 46% from a peak of $176 billion to a low of $94 billion in 2025, per The Block's data dashboard, though this was offset by outsized performance from AI-diversifying Bitcoin miners.