The most important crypto moments of the year

Key takeaways

• Bitcoin’s emergence past $100,000 successful 2025 marked a displacement from speculative trading to semipermanent organization adoption. Banks and governments began viewing BTC arsenic a strategical reserve asset.

• The GENIUS Act established a unified US model for outgo stablecoins, mandating 1:1 reserve backing, stricter issuer qualifications and stronger user protections.

• Real-world plus tokenization surpassed $30 cardinal onchain, driven by tokenized US Treasurys and backstage credit. Firms specified arsenic BlackRock, JPMorgan and Apollo integrated RWAs into DeFi markets.

• Onchain perpetual futures recorded implicit $1 trillion successful monthly trading volume, with platforms similar Hyperliquid achieving velocity and extent comparable to centralized exchanges.

Bitcoin (BTC) crossing the $100,000 threshold this twelvemonth carried much symbolic value than speculative excitement. What was erstwhile seen arsenic a speculative plus became a structured portion of the planetary fiscal system. 2025 has turned retired to beryllium a twelvemonth focused little connected hype and much connected meaningful advancement successful infrastructure, regulation, organization concern and technology.

This nonfiction highlights the astir important cryptocurrency events of the year.

Bitcoin enters an organization phase

Spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) brought Bitcoin into the portfolios of plus managers, pension funds and firm treasuries, pushing it beyond retail markets. Daily ETF inflows became a cardinal indicator of marketplace confidence. Unlike erstwhile cycles driven by high-leverage trading, 2025 saw dependable involvement from nonrecreational investors.

Banks began conducting Bitcoin transactions connected their ain equilibrium sheets. Intesa Sanpaolo, Italy’s largest bank, made its archetypal proprietary Bitcoin commercialized successful January 2025, purchasing 1 cardinal euros worthy of BTC arsenic an experiment. Several countries are besides exploring the thought of strategic Bitcoin reserves, referring to semipermanent nationalist holdings of the asset.

On March 6, 2025, US President Donald Trump signed an enforcement bid establishing a strategical Bitcoin reserve, a imperishable plus money supported by forfeited BTC. The Czech National Bank has besides announced that it is considering adding Bitcoin to its strategical reserves.

Did you know? Bitcoin mining firms spouse with vigor producers to stabilize electrical grids and monetize surplus power.

Passing of the GENIUS Act

In 2025, stablecoins matured from trading instruments into regulated outgo and colony assets. The GENIUS Act, signed into instrumentality connected July 18, 2025, established the archetypal broad US national model for outgo stablecoins.

The instrumentality clarifies that qualifying outgo stablecoins are not securities, creates a unified national licensing and oversight authorities for issuers and requires afloat 1:1 reserve backing with high-quality, highly liquid assets specified arsenic currency and short-term US Treasurys. It besides mandates regular nationalist disclosures of reserve creation to guarantee transparency and user protection.

Only approved and qualified entities, specified arsenic subsidiaries of insured depository institutions, tin present contented stablecoins. These issuers indispensable conscionable strict standards for capital, liquidity and hazard management. The enactment besides includes provisions to support stablecoin holders successful the lawsuit of issuer insolvency.

While the GENIUS Act drew inspiration from earlier proposals, it strengthened safeguards for fiscal stability. It addressed concerns astir a fragmented monetary strategy by establishing a clearer and much coordinated regulatory model for integer dollar payments.

The emergence of real-world plus tokenization

In 2025, real-world plus (RWA) tokenization transitioned from experimental pilots to organization mainstream, with onchain worth surpassing $30 billion, representing a 300%-400% summation implicit 3 years. US Treasurys and backstage recognition are driving organization adoption.

Launched successful March 2024, the BlackRock USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund (BUIDL) brings US Treasurys onchain done tokenization. BUIDL present holds much than $2 cardinal successful total worth locked (TVL) crossed aggregate blockchains and distributes regular interest, backed 1:1 by real-world assets.

The benefits of RWA tokenization see fractional ownership, 24/7 liquidity and cross-chain interoperability done protocols specified arsenic Chainlink CCIP. Institutions similar JPMorgan and Apollo are integrating RWAs into decentralized concern (DeFi), further blurring the boundaries betwixt accepted concern and blockchain.

Did you know? Tokenized US Treasurys became 1 of the fastest-growing categories successful DeFi, offering low-risk, onchain yields.

Onchain perpetual futures and the Hyperliquid milestone

In October 2025, DeFi perpetual futures surpassed $1 trillion successful monthly trading volume, putting platforms similar Hyperliquid connected par with centralized crypto exchanges. The regular trading measurement for decentralized perpetual contracts averaged astir $45.7 cardinal that month, portion onchain unfastened involvement roseate to $16 billion. This summation reflects sustained marketplace positioning alternatively than short-lived speculative activity.

Hyperliquid’s HIP-3 upgrade successful October enabled permissionless marketplace instauration done the staking of 500,000 HYPE tokens. The update decentralized listings and encouraged innovation successful caller plus classes specified arsenic equities and RWAs. The platform’s sub-second execution and heavy liquidity person further narrowed the spread betwixt centralized and decentralized exchanges.

Ethereum strengthens its halfway role

This year, Ethereum reinforced its foundational relation successful the blockchain ecosystem done strategical upgrades and increasing organization adoption. The Pectra upgrade, activated successful May, doubled blob capacity, reduced layer-2 fees and improved transaction throughput. It besides raised the validator staking headdress from 32 ETH to 2,048 ETH, enhancing validator efficiency.

In July 2025, spot Ether ETFs attracted $12.1 cardinal successful inflows, led by BlackRock’s iShares Ethereum Trust (ETHA), highlighting beardown organization demand. Regulatory clarity from US Securities and Exchange Commission rulings positioned Ethereum arsenic compliant infrastructure for DeFi and RWAs, reinforcing its relation arsenic Web3’s resilient colony layer. The upcoming Fusaka upgrade successful December is expected to present further PeerDAS optimizations, strengthening Ethereum’s semipermanent position.

Did you know? Corporations are progressively utilizing backstage oregon hybrid Ethereum chains for supply-chain tracking and colony workflows.

Solana’s transformation

Solana’s communicative took a sharply affirmative crook successful 2025. Once criticized for web outages and instability, the web made large strides successful reliability and performance. The instauration of Firedancer, a caller validator client, enhanced redundancy and processing capacity, reflecting Solana’s absorption connected large-scale, dependable operations.

Institutional and derivatives markets besides embraced Solana successful 2025. Leading regulated platforms introduced Solana-based futures and options, enabling hedging and arbitrage opportunities that were antecedently constricted to Bitcoin and Ether (ETH). This improvement reinforced Solana’s increasing value successful high-volume applications specified arsenic onchain trading, gaming and user services.

Industry addresses information challenges

The manufacture faced different reminder successful 2025 that information remains a large challenge. With much than $2.17 cardinal stolen from cryptocurrency services arsenic of Nov. 11, 2025, this twelvemonth has already proven much devastating than the entirety of 2024 successful presumption of full losses. A ample information of the stolen funds came from North Korea’s $1.5-billion hack of Bybit.

As cryptocurrency becomes much integrated into planetary finance, information failures present airs systemic risks alternatively than isolated incidents. The increasing sophistication of attackers has mirrored the industry’s ain technological progress. In 2025, AI-driven attacks and analyzable proviso concatenation vulnerabilities led to wide efforts crossed the manufacture to fortify cybersecurity practices.