2025 Crypto Four Tracks Inventory: Stablecoins, DAT, RWA and Perpetual Futures

In 2025, cryptocurrency retail sentiment is extremely pessimistic, with high FDV projects squeezing out funds, airdrops evolving into pump-and-dump shipments, and Memecoin ruining the industry’s reputation. However, from a larger perspective, the market value of stablecoins has exceeded $3000 billion this year, reaching a record high, DAT companies have soared to more than 190, RWAs have moved from concept to scale, and Hyperliquid in the field of perpetual futures has seized CEX market share.

Stablecoins from Gray Areas to Mainstream Financial Infrastructure

! Stablecoin Market Cap and Data

(Source: RWA XYZ)

The signing of the GENIUS Act in the United States in July 2025 marked the establishment of a federal-level regulatory framework for the first payment stablecoin, marking an important milestone in the beginning of the legalization of stablecoins at the U.S. level. This means that the stable monetary system has begun to be integrated into the mainstream financial system of major U.S. countries from the previous “gray assets”.

As of October this year, the market capitalization of stablecoins has reached $3000 billion, a record high. Although some stablecoins are now criticized for being widely used in some black industries, it does not prevent more and more traditional financial institutions from considering this type of asset as an important potential asset and infrastructure. A growing number of major banks in the United States have also expressed interest in launching their own stablecoins.

The deep significance of this shift lies in the fact that stablecoins are becoming a bridge between traditional finance and the crypto world. Businesses make cross-border payments through stablecoins, with costs dropping from 3% to 7% to less than 0.1% for traditional banks. Institutions settle on-chain in real-time through stablecoins without waiting for T+2’s liquidation cycle. With the announcement of 13 ministries and commissions in mainland China announcing that “stablecoins = virtual currencies”, the global regulatory landscape has become clearer, which has accelerated the expansion of stablecoins in the compliance market.

Judging from the development momentum of stablecoins this year, stablecoins have become one of the few segments in the crypto field that truly have sustainable growth.

The Cyclical Revelry and Structural Dilemmas of the DAT Pattern

! Micro Strategy Bitcoin Holdings

If someone were to choose the hottest and most eye-catching concept this year, DAT (Crypto Asset Library) should theoretically be on the list. DAT refers to those listed companies that use specific cryptocurrencies (such as BTC, ETH) as corporate reserves and use them as the company’s development strategy and balance sheet.

According to public data, less than 10 companies used BTC as a reserve asset in 2021, compared to more than 190 DAT companies so far. The most representative is MicroStrategy (MSTR), which holds 662,600 Bitcoins as of December 2025, currently valued at approximately $595 billion. In addition to companies that use BTC as a DAT, more and more companies are now starting to operate altcoins such as ETH as DAT, such as BitMine, which has been accelerating its increase in ETH this year, and they have accumulated more than 386 ETH.

Through DAT, investors in traditional financial markets can indirectly gain exposure to crypto assets by buying DAT companies’ stocks or bonds without directly holding cryptocurrencies, which is still a good investment shortcut for investors who are inconvenient to hold cryptocurrencies directly for some special reasons.

However, with several rounds of speculation about the surge and fall of DAT stocks, coupled with the recent sharp fluctuations in the crypto market, the mNAV of many DAT companies is currently close to 1, and some have even fallen below 1. MicroStrategy’s net worth premium has collapsed from 250% in 2024 to 115% today, compared to about 117% for BitMine. Therefore, theoretically, this round of phased cycle hype of DAT seems to have ended, and there are certain risks at present, and it depends on how big this bubble can continue to blow.

RWA from concept hype to industrial scale

The concept of Real World Assets (RWA) has been mentioned many times in 2023, and although many people are still not optimistic about the RWA narrative, RWA should be one of the biggest structural trends in this cycle. As the crypto industry gradually integrates into the global financial system, RWA has moved from “pure concept” and “pure hype” to a new stage of “industrialization” and “scale” since this year.

Including BlackRock, Franklin, etc., are already trying to expand asset-related products and businesses. Since the beginning of this year, more and more institutions are trying to put stocks, bills, corporate bonds and other assets on the chain, especially the scale of US Treasury bonds, which have continued to hit record highs this year. In short, RWA seems to have moved from conceptualization to scale since the beginning of this year, and more traditional financial giants have begun to regard “asset chain” as one of the new capabilities of future asset management.

The story of RWA seems to be just beginning, and we may need more time to validate this vast imagination. The key lies in the perfection of regulatory frameworks and the maturity of technological infrastructure, once these two prerequisites are met, tens of trillions of dollars in traditional assets have the potential to be tokenized and circulated on-chain.

Perpetual futures detonate the decentralized derivatives revolution

! Hyperliquid Total Locked

(Source: DefiLlama)

The explosion of Perpetual Futures (Perps) in the fourth quarter of this year indicates both opportunities and risks in the market. Normally, the end of a bull market is often driven by Perps, and the current popularity of the Perps concept seems to indicate both opportunities and risks in the fourth quarter of this year.

In particular, the excellent performance of Hyperliquid, a star product in the Perps field this year, has further contributed to the continuous explosion and out-of-the-circle in the field, and challenged the market dominance of CEXs. The addition of some of Hyperliquid’s main competitors, such as Aster and Lighter, has also made the bull market atmosphere extremely lively and intense, which can be seen directly from the volume data in October and November this year.

However, with a very brutal leverage cleaning in the crypto market in October and the continued downturn in market sentiment recently, the popularity of Perps has now decreased a lot, but this does not affect the fact that perpetual futures have become one of the hottest narratives and themes in 2025.

Other segments to watch in 2025

AI x Crypto Hype Continues: The year of AI Agents, automated bot trading and strategy optimization have become hot topics

SOL Meme Culture Explodes: Meme coins move from mere hype to community governance experiments

Prediction market concept out of the circle:P Olymarket’s performance in the US election proves the viability of decentralized prediction markets

The first year of altcoin ETFs: Altcoin ETFs such as XRP and SOL are listed, but their ability to attract gold is far less than expected

Airdrop Game Evolution: The points war broke out in full swing, but it also intensified the confrontation between the project team and users

In fact, this industry has been evolving and reshuffling, and it has never stopped developing, and it will not end in the future, but some existing ways of playing and rules of the game in the market have changed.