Four stories shaping the crypto market in 2025: From political effects to financial revolution

The year 2025 is coming to an end, marking a year full of volatility for the cryptocurrency world. If we had to summarize this journey with four keywords, we would see a very different picture from initial expectations. It’s not simply a “bull market” or “bear market,” but a complex oscillation between policies, technological trends, and global investor psychology.

Spring: When Trump Becomes a Crypto Icon

January marks a historic milestone—Donald Trump officially takes office as U.S. President. This signal immediately spreads to the crypto market, not just through policies. Trump himself also joins the game by issuing the TRUMP token, a “meme coin” bearing his own name.

TRUMP’s market cap started modestly at $4 billion but quickly skyrocketed to $10, $30, and eventually surpassed $80 billion within less than a month. Many investors, especially experienced meme coin traders, made enormous profits from this surge—some earning over $20 million USD from a small initial investment.

Just three days before Trump’s inauguration, BTC approached the $100,000 mark. Then, on January 20, after another month, BTC broke a new all-time high, reaching $109,800. At that time, people regarded Trump as the “Unmatched Crypto President.”

However, not all news was good. Alongside benefits from crypto-friendly policies—such as replacing the SEC Chair and appointing crypto-supporting figures to key positions—Trump also brought trouble. Crypto projects related to his family, like the MELANIA token for his wife or LIBRA from supporter groups, sparked controversy.

On Polymarket, a special event occurred: the prediction “Trump will build a strategic Bitcoin reserve in the first 100 days” was ultimately judged as “No.” Why? The event rules specified that seized assets do not count as “BTC reserves.” This decision disappointed many, but also created opportunities for “whales” with insider information to make huge profits through derivatives trading on Hyperliquid.

Q1 also saw many “historic” events. Hyperliquid launched the largest airdrop of the year, creating a buzz in the on-chain community. Worryingly, an attack by the Lazarus Group hacker team caused a major exchange to lose over $1.5 billion in assets. The Ethereum Foundation also faced criticism and leadership changes.

Summer: The Rise of Treasury Companies and the Stablecoin Fever

In early April, Trump announced the start of a “trade war” with tariff hikes. The result was a “Black Monday”—U.S. stock market capitalization lost over $6 trillion in a week. Tech giants like Apple and Google also saw their values drop by more than $1.5 trillion.

The crypto market was not immune to this turbulence. BTC fell below $80,000, reaching a low of $77,000. ETH hit $1,540—its lowest since October 2023. Total crypto market cap dropped to $2.6 trillion, down more than 9% in a single day.

But after the crash, opportunities arose. From mid-May, a new trend began: treasury companies like DAT (Digital Asset Treasury). Sharplink, a traditional company going public, became the “first listed ETH treasury company.” Later, Tom Lee and Bitmine also joined this game.

As of writing, over 70 ETH treasury companies have been listed. The top three are:

• Bitmine (BMNR) with 3.86 million ETH
• Sharplink (SBET) with 860,000 ETH
• ETH Machine (ETHM) with 490,000 ETH

These three companies hold far more ETH than the Ethereum Foundation’s holdings (less than 230,000 ETH). Treasury companies for SOL, BNB, and other altcoins also rapidly emerged, with stock prices fluctuating like roller coasters.

Meanwhile, stablecoins became the main characters of the market. The IPO of Circle in the US was seen as a milestone, paving the way for official recognition of stablecoins as “peer-to-peer digital currency” by the US government. JD.com, Ant Group, and many other internet giants also publicly expressed interest in participating in the stablecoin race.

However, after the initial FOMO phase, these treasury companies faced harsh realities. Many recorded losses of billions of USD, and their market caps even fell below the value of the crypto assets they held.

Autumn: The Asset Tokenization Revolution

Q3 was the season of “stock tokenization”—a trend once considered a mere aspiration within the crypto world. A platform for tokenized US stocks began to be introduced via crypto exchanges, allowing investors to trade stocks like AAPL, TSLA, NVDA directly on the blockchain.

This was seen as the “final kilometer” in the journey to connect DeFi and TradFi. Traditional financial giants, including Nasdaq, started to wake up and propose their own stock tokenization trading solutions with the SEC.

At the same time, the market also witnessed the final “dragons” of money-making waves:

First, the on-chain Perp DEX battle continued to heat up. A platform from the BNB Chain ecosystem executed a massive “price pump,” creating new “rich men” for the industry but also causing many to “sell short” and lose millions of USD.

Second, a few stablecoin projects exploded. A blockchain stablecoin supported by the CEO of a leading stablecoin company organized a savings program with enormous airdrop yields. Some people deposited 1 USD and received an airdrop worth over 9,000 USD—an over 900-fold return. Another project, a crypto project supporting Trump with the stablecoin USD1, saw maximum gains of 6 times for buyers at the public price of 0.05 USD, 0.15 USD.

But as Zweig said: “All gifts of fate are already priced in.” The “gifts”’ prices are the subsequent crashes. These tokens’ prices fell 90%, 50% from their peaks, causing late participants to lament.

Winter: The Horrific Liquidations and Recovery

Early October, BTC hit a peak of $126,000. Everyone expected “Uptober” to continue rising, but October 11 marked a “legendary liquidation day.”

The cause: Trump announced a 100% tax increase. Fear index skyrocketed. All three major US stock indices plunged—Nasdaq down nearly 3.5%, S&P 500 down 2.7%, Dow Jones down 1.9%.

The crypto market experienced systemic issues, with fragile sentiment. BTC dropped to $101,516 (down 16% in 24h), ETH to $3,400 (down 22%), SOL down 31.83%. Altcoins suffered even heavier crashes.

Estimated liquidation volume ranged from $30 billion to $40 billion—larger than previous collapses like 3/12, 5/19, 9/4.

But as always, risk comes with opportunity. Many traders exploited the chaos to make hundreds of millions, whether by bottom-fishing or high-leverage derivatives trading.

When Trump withdrew again (in a “TACO” style—Trump Always Chicken Out), the market began a slow recovery. Many traders lost most of their assets, some collapsed and left the market.

In this dark environment, market prediction platforms started to shine. Polymarket and Kalshi became the only hot spots in the market.

Kalshi’s valuation rose to $11 billion after a funding round led by Paradigm with $1 billion. Polymarket, after a $2 billion funding round led by a major financial group, is seeking a new funding round with a valuation of $12 to $15 billion.

Polymarket, the platform that successfully predicted Trump’s U.S. presidential victory, again became the focus of market attention.

Conclusion: Mainstream Trend Continues

The four seasons of 2025 reveal a complex picture of the evolution of the crypto industry. It’s not just about specialization, but about crypto’s integration into the traditional financial system.

U.S. policies and traditional financial giants still largely determine the direction. Participants can only follow the flow, carefully observe the situation, and hope to find their own “treasure chest” in this game.