In This Article
- Macroeconomic conditions created a challenging backdrop
- Bitcoin has strengthened its status as a macro asset
- Corporations are accumulating bitcoin
- Bitcoin ecosystem development
- Ethereum ran into difficulties
- L1 blockchains and DeFi are demonstrating maturity
- Stablecoins have reached a market capitalization of $250 billion
- The regulatory landscape has changed dramatically
- A look at the second half of the year
- The crypto market showed modest growth of 1.99% in the first half of the year.
- Bitcoin has strengthened its status as a macro asset: it has grown by 13% since the beginning of the year and overtook Google and Meta in terms of capitalization.
- Spot Bitcoin ETFs became a key driver, with total net inflows of $13.7 billion. The leader is BlackRock.
- The regulatory environment has changed significantly: the US passed the GENIUS Act, the EU implemented MiCA, and Asia adopted mixed approaches.
- The DeFi sector is stable in terms of TVL, but has recorded an increase in user activity.
The analytical division of crypto exchange Binance published a 145-page report on the state of the digital asset market for the first six months of 2025. In the document, experts detailed macroeconomic factors, the development of individual ecosystems, and the main industry trends.
After an explosive rise of 96.2% in 2024, the cryptocurrency market showed modest growth of 1.99% in the first half of 2025. The moderate performance was due to a correction in the first quarter (-18.61%) and a recovery in the second quarter (+25.32%).
Macroeconomic conditions created a challenging backdrop
The global economy was characterized by a "great divergence" in the first half of the year. Key players chose different monetary policy paths, which created a volatile environment for crypto assets.
The US showed a gradual slowdown in the first quarter and an unexpected easing in inflation. China beat expectations with GDP growth of 5.4% year-on-year in the first quarter, reflecting the positive impact of stimulus measures.
The brief but intense U.S.-China trade war raised tariff rates to 145% in April before they were reduced. On April 2, the U.S. announced comprehensive reciprocal tariffs of up to 34% on Chinese goods. In the week of April 4-11, the two sides brought the rates to record levels through swift retaliatory measures.
The Eurozone accelerated GDP growth for the third consecutive quarter, driven by consumption and investment. Japan recovered from a previous contraction but faced weak domestic demand.
Global liquidity initially tightened but then eased. The Fed halted balance sheet reduction, providing support for risk assets. The combined money supply of the U.S., China, the EU, and Japan increased by $5.5 trillion, the largest six-month increase in four years.
Bitcoin has strengthened its status as a macro asset
The first cryptocurrency has demonstrated resilience amid global volatility. With a return of +13% year-to-date, bitcoin has outperformed most traditional assets.
Binance analysts view the bitcoin price cycle as 8-12 months ahead of the global production cycle, suggesting further opportunities in the second half of 2025.
Bitcoin's market capitalization held above $2 trillion for most of the half year. That makes it the sixth largest asset in the world – just behind Amazon and ahead of Google, Meta, and silver.
The first cryptocurrency's dominance rose to 65.1% in June, a high point in more than four years.
"Capital is flowing into bitcoin faster than the rest of the crypto market, reflecting accumulation by long-term investors and growing integration with traditional finance," the report said.
Bitcoin ETFs have become a key structural driver. Cumulative net inflows have exceeded $13.7 billion since the beginning of the year. BlackRock's IBIT dominates, absorbing the majority of new investments, while Grayscale's GBTC continues to lose assets due to high fees.
Corporations are accumulating bitcoin
More than 140 public companies store 848,100 BTC against 325,400 a year ago. Strategy maintains its leadership with a share of over 70.4% of total reserves. Since the beginning of the year, more than 50 new companies have disclosed allocations to bitcoin, adding 245,300 BTC.
Historical highs have revived corporate interest in bitcoin. In an environment of inflationary pressure and geopolitical tensions, bitcoin is seen as insurance and a tool to enhance capital efficiency.
Regulatory clarity is also improving. U.S. policymakers are signaling a softer stance, making bitcoin reserves more attractive from a reporting perspective.
Bitcoin ecosystem development
Scaling solutions for the first cryptocurrency have made remarkable progress. TVL in DeFi on Bitcoin (BTCFi) has grown more than 550% year-over-year to $6.5 billion.
Ordinals and BRC-20 tokens experienced a decline in speculative activity. Daily transactions have fallen to between 300,000 and 375,000, an 18-month low. That's less than half of the more than 700,000 daily transactions at the peak of Ordinals-mania last summer.
Ethereum ran into difficulties
The second most capitalized cryptocurrency has seen mixed results. The price of ETH has fallen 26% since the beginning of the year, lagging behind other digital assets and the broad market. The ETH/BTC ratio has fallen to a multi-year low at around 0.023.
At the same time, Ethereum's institutional profile has changed markedly. Spot ETH ETFs recorded a 19-day series of inflows between May and June – a record, with more than $1.3 billion added over the period. For the year, net inflows exceeded $1.5 billion – the bulk of which came from BlackRock.
The ecosystem of L2 solutions for Ethereum has shown signs of market saturation and diverging growth trajectories. Optimistic Rollups maintained leadership in liquidity and user share. Base and Arbitrum stood out with steady fee revenue generation. ZK rollups have made real technical progress in reducing proof costs but still lag behind on TVL and user retention.
Fragmentation and mixed progress in readiness for Stage 2 keep the long-term outlook for Ethereum's rollup-centric roadmap uncertain.
L1 blockchains and DeFi are demonstrating maturity
Despite price pressure, Ethereum has maintained its dominance. The protocol has attracted institutional investment, successfully upgraded Pectra, and leads in developer activity.
Solana maintained high transaction throughput and improved network reliability prior to the launch of Firedancer. Institutional interest in the protocol has increased.
BNB Chain recorded record activity on decentralized exchanges. The ecosystem expanded into the meme-coin, tokenized real-world assets (RWA), and AI applications segments. The protocol held updates to Pascal and Maxwell.
Avalanche accelerated adoption of enterprise subnets, and Sui more than doubled the TVL in DeFi. TRON strengthened its position as one of the main networks for stablecoins, and TON deepened its integration with messenger Telegram.
The TVL of the DeFi sector remained stable at $151.5 billion, down just 5.8% year-to-date. At the same time, user engagement has grown dramatically. The number of monthly active addresses in decentralized protocols exceeded 340 million – an increase of 240% year-on-year.
According to analysts, the rapid growth of users in a cooling altcoin market indicates that DeFi is moving beyond a speculative bubble. The market showed specialization among the top three blockchains:
Ethereum solidified its role as the network for institutional capital with $89.4 billion TVL (58.44% of the market);
Solana has become a leader for retail activity due to its high speed and low fees;
BNB Chain attracted users through PancakeSwap, capturing a significant share of trading volume on DEX.
Restaking has become an important segment of the ecosystem. The EigenLayer protocol, with a TVL of over $11 billion at the end, created a Security-as-a-Service marketplace, significantly increasing Ethereum's capital efficiency.
Stablecoins have reached a market capitalization of $250 billion
Total stablecoin capitalization has surpassed the previous peak of $174 billion before the crash of Terra in 2022. The approximately 22% growth in the first half of the year to over $250 billion reflects renewed crypto market confidence and accelerating mass adoption.
Tether (USDT) has maintained its dominance with a capitalization of $153–156 billion. The growth is driven by first-mover advantage and deep integration into trading platforms. USDT remains the quote currency on many exchanges, especially in Asia.
USDC supply has grown from approximately $42 billion in late 2024 to $61–62 billion in June. This lifted USDC's market share from around 20% to about 25.5%, making it the fastest growing among large stablecoins in the first half of the year.
Circle, a USDC issuer, became the first stablecoin company with a listing in the U.S. via IPO on June 5 on the NYSE. Shares soared from $31 to $200 on the first day of trading – one of the best fintech IPOs in years.
The regulatory landscape has changed dramatically
On July 19, U.S. President Donald Trump signed the GENIUS Act, establishing a federal framework for regulating stablecoins. The document requires full provision of stablecoins with liquid assets and an annual audit of issuers with a market capitalization of more than $50 billion.
"We will maintain the dollar's status as the world's dominant reserve currency – and we will use stablecoins to do so," Binance Research analysts quoted U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent as saying.
The EU has fully implemented MiCA regulation. Asia showed diverging approaches, with Hong Kong actively positioning itself as an innovation hub with the launch of stackcoin issuer licenses, while Singapore moved towards strict regulation.
A look at the second half of the year
Binance Research highlighted ten key themes:
Fed reversal and fiscal expansion. Amid declining inflation and a slowing labor market, it is unlikely that the Fed will return to tight policy.
U.S. Policy Shift. Shift from enforcement to legislation to increase institutional adoption. Key progress is expected on stablecoins, DeFi, bitcoin reserves, and CBDC.
Accelerating integration of cryptocurrencies into TradFi. The growth of IPOs of cryptocurrency companies and their strategic acquisitions by representatives of the traditional financial sector, as well as diversification of corporate treasuries with crypto-assets.
Stablecoins in payment services. Big players are expanding integrations, and retail giants will issue their own dollar-stablecoins.
RWAs move to secondary markets. Evolution from static issuance to active secondary trading of institutional products.
BTCFi is moving towards using bitcoin as collateral at scale. The next phase of the sector's evolution will show whether digital gold will become collateral via conservative lending and stablecoin issuance.
Rollup development. The sector shows progress in "true" decentralization and Ethereum's chosen development model.
Integration of AI in cryptocurrencies: Since January 2025, AI-related activity on the blockchain has grown 131%. About 4.42 million daily users interact with AI dApps.
Prediction markets as a global layer of information about upcoming events. Platforms are positioned as "News 2.0," with the potential to become an infrastructure layer for real-time event information.
Rotation into altcoins has yet to unfold. Bitcoin dominance remains high; structural factors may be holding back momentum (oversupply of new tokens and lack of a compelling new catalyst).
Binance Research is available for free download and contains a detailed analysis of all mentioned trends with charts and additional data.
