In 2025, the total market capitalization of the cryptocurrency market surpassed $4 trillion for the first time, with Bitcoin reaching a historic high of over $126,000. The volume of transactions in stablecoins hit $33 trillion—more than Visa processed in an entire year, according to Binance Research's annual report.

Analysts described the past year as a period of "data fog." The change in U.S. presidency, the tariff shock of the “Day of Liberation” in April, the temporary halt of the U.S. government in November, and volatility in the AI sector shaped investor behavior.

The market capitalization peaked at $4.2 trillion in October, dropping to $2.4 trillion in April. This 76% fluctuation marked a record for the crypto industry. Despite improvements in infrastructure and regulation, the market ended the year at around $3.2 trillion, down 7.9%.

Source: Binance Research.

For 2026, Binance Research forecasts a "restart of risks" driven by a "triumvirate of policies": synchronized monetary easing by central banks, large-scale fiscal stimuli, and a wave of deregulation.

“2025 can be termed the 'first year of industrialization' for digital assets; however, vague regulation still hindered their mass adoption. Previously, market cycles were mainly driven by retail investor sentiment, but the next bull market will likely rely on two factors—sovereign-scale liquidity and corporate use cases. This could become the main narrative for the crypto industry in 2026,” the report states.

Bitcoin: Divergence Between Price and Fundamentals

Bitcoin exhibited a pronounced divergence between market structure and on-chain activity. The cryptocurrency reached a historic high of $126,000 but closed the year below $90,000—marking the first negative annual return since 2022.

Meanwhile, institutional interest grew. Bitcoin ETFs attracted over $21.3 billion in net inflows. The BlackRock iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) accumulated around $25 billion—more than the largest gold ETF (GLD) during the same period.

Source: Binance Research.

Corporate holders accumulated over 1.1 million BTC, equivalent to about 5.5% of the total supply. Strategy increased its reserves by 226,100 BTC, now holding 672,500 BTC—approximately 3.4% of the total Bitcoin supply.

Source: Binance Research.

The network's hash rate surpassed 1 ZH/s (1000 EH/s) for the first time, with mining difficulty increasing by 36% over the year. However, on-chain activity declined: the number of active addresses fell by 16%, and average transaction fees dropped below $1.

The dominance of the leading cryptocurrency remained between 58% and 60%, peaking at 65% in June—the highest in four years. According to Binance Research, this reflects capital concentration in Bitcoin amid weakness in altcoins.

L1: Consolidation Around Leaders

Activity concentrated around L1 blockchains with sustainable usage and institutional accessibility.

Ethereum maintained its leadership in market capitalization ($358.6 billion), total value locked (TVL) in DeFi ($68.8 billion), and number of developers (10,760). The Pectra upgrade in May allowed the maximum balance on validators to increase from 32 to 2048 ETH, while Fusaka expanded throughput for rollups.

Source: Binance Research.

Spot ETFs on Ethereum attracted over $9.7 billion in net inflows.

Source: Binance Research.

By the end of the year, rollups among the largest L2 solutions accounted for over 90% of all transaction activity in the Ethereum ecosystem. However, this figure does not reflect the full picture; considering a broader range of L2s, their contribution would be even higher.

“At the same time, the overall metric conceals an increasing stratification within the segment. Transaction activity and fee revenues are increasingly concentrated among a limited number of projects with strong distribution and stable organic demand. Other L2s, conversely, are losing users after scaling back incentive programs and struggling to retain their audience,” analysts noted.

Source: Binance Research.

Solana delivered one of the best performances, consistently processing over 100 million transactions daily (reaching 238.5 million by year-end) and maintaining over 2.1 million active addresses daily. The supply of stablecoins on the network grew from $5.1 billion to $13.5 billion.

In December, the Solana mainnet deployed the Firedancer update—an independent validator client from Jump Crypto. A key event was the approval of the Solana ETF in the U.S.—the third crypto asset after Bitcoin and Ethereum. The funds attracted over $800 million.

On the BNB Chain, trading volume on DEX increased by 164% over the year, and the native token BNB became one of the best-performing among major crypto assets. The network underwent a series of upgrades, reducing block time to 0.75 seconds. BlackRock launched the tokenized BUIDL fund on the BNB Chain in November, VanEck launched the VBILL fund via Securitize, and Franklin Templeton connected to the Benji Technology platform.

DeFi

Analysts describe 2025 as a turning point for decentralized finance—the sector completed its transition from "wild speculation" to "structural institutionalization." TVL stabilized at $124.4 billion.

Source: Binance Research.

“On December 29, 2025, a significant moment occurred in the sector: the total TVL of RWA officially surpassed the TVL of DEX, reaching $17 billion. This made RWA the fifth-largest segment in DeFi,” the report states.

Tokenized stocks became the main growth driver in the RWA sector in 2025. Over the year, the market capitalization of the segment grew by 2695%, reaching a record ~$1.2 billion by December 31, 2025. In terms of growth rates, tokenized stocks significantly outpaced other categories—commodity assets (+225%) and tokenized funds (+148%).

According to Binance Research, in 2025, the share of on-chain execution reached about 20% of the total spot trading volume, indicating DEX's transition from a niche segment to a sustainable trading execution channel.

Prediction markets saw explosive growth. The trading volume of Polymarket and Kalshi reached $51 billion. Opinion on the BNB Chain reached a volume of about $7 billion in December, capturing a third of the market.

Source: Binance Research.

Stablecoins

Binance analysts call 2025 the greatest year in the history of stablecoins. Capitalization grew by 49%, exceeding $305 billion.

The annual transaction volume was around $33 trillion—more than double Visa's figure (~$16 trillion).

Six new stablecoins surpassed the $1 billion capitalization threshold: BUIDL (BlackRock), PYUSD (PayPal), USD1 (World Liberty Financial), USDtB (Ethena), RLUSD (Ripple), and USDf (Falcon).

Source: Binance Research.

The dominance of USDT fell from 67% to 61%, while USDC's share rose from 22% to 26%.

“This shift reflects a structural rebalancing—from offshore liquidity towards regulatory compliance. Following the passage of the GENIUS Act in the U.S., institutional investors increasingly view USDC as a 'safe haven,' reinforcing its role as a settlement layer for regulated ETFs and tokenized treasury instruments, including BlackRock's BUIDL product,” the report states.

Frontier Tech: Agent Payments and Privacy

The x402 protocol processed over 100 million payments and exceeded $30 million in cumulative volume within three months of launch. Daily transaction volume consistently exceeded 1 million.

Source: Binance Research.

Anonymous cryptocurrencies experienced a resurgence. Zcash surged over 1000% in the fourth quarter.

“The volume of funds in the shielded pool nearly tripled, reaching around 4.8 million ZEC (approximately 30% of the circulating supply), and the share of fully private Z-to-Z transactions grew to 20% of the total transaction volume on the network, compared to single-digit values in previous years,” the report states.

The DePAI trend gained attention following Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's presentation at CES in January 2025. In the second half of the year, the Peaq network showed real-world adoption. A key event was the launch of MachineX—the first decentralized exchange based on Peaq, focused on the machine economy. In the third quarter, the platform generated $29.8 million in revenue.

Additionally, in November, the Peaq network launched the world's first tokenized robotic farm, which distributes payouts from a semi-automated vertical farm in Hong Kong among token holders.

Institutional Adoption

Institutional adoption has extended beyond price exposure. The five largest U.S. banks—Bank of America, JPMorgan, BNY Mellon, Wells Fargo, and Citibank—have launched or are testing Bitcoin-collateralized lending products. In October, JPMorgan began accepting real BTC and ETH as collateral—a landmark recognition of cryptocurrency as a financial asset by a major banking institution.

Tokenized money market funds (MMFs) tripled their assets—over $9 billion has been tokenized in total. JPMorgan announced the launch of the My OnChain Net Yield Fund (MONY) on Ethereum.

The number of public companies holding digital assets on their balance sheets rose from fewer than 10 in 2021 to 190. Total reserves are estimated at $122 billion.

Themes for 2026

Binance Research identifies 12 key market development themes for this year:

  1. Macroeconomics. The convergence of the U.S. midterm elections and fiscal stimuli will create a "politically-managed" market. Expanding deficits may strengthen Bitcoin's narrative as a hedge against fiat devaluation.
  2. Competition for Energy. Data centers are pushing miners out of power grids. Hybrid operators combining AI and mining will gain an advantage.
  3. Regulation. The implementation of the GENIUS Act and potential market structure legislation will determine which crypto businesses can scale.
  4. Institutional Rails. Expanding access to cryptocurrency ETFs through brokerage platforms, pension funds, and banking channels will create more stable capital flows.
  5. Consumer Stablecoins. Neobanks on blockchain rails will facilitate the widespread adoption of "stable coins" due to higher savings rates and lower transaction costs.
  6. Tokenization. The focus will shift from issuance to workflows—using tokenized assets as collateral, for settlements, and liquidity management.
  7. DEX Derivatives. On-chain derivatives will become the main growth driver for DEX market share.
  8. Privacy. The transition from a niche function to a basic requirement for corporate and institutional use.
  9. Prediction Markets. The evolution from trading platforms to data inputs for other systems—terminals, research dashboards, management tools.
  10. Value Redistribution. Value capture will continue to migrate from base layers to applications controlling distribution and order flow.
  11. Asset Quality. Capital will concentrate in assets with proven utility and revenue.
  12. Corporate Treasuries. Strategies for accumulating digital assets will face pressure: companies will need to implement yield-generating mechanisms instead of merely holding assets.

The full version of the document can be found on the Binance website.

Previously, the exchange published its own report for 2025. The total trading volume across all products reached $34 trillion, with registered users exceeding 300 million.