a16z Annual Heavyweight Report: 2025 Crypto Assets Development Status, Challenges, and Future

This year, the whole world started to go on-chain.

When we released the first cryptocurrency status report, the industry was still in its “teenage years.” At that time, the total market value of the cryptocurrency market was about half of what it is today, with blockchain being slower, more expensive, and less reliable.

Over the past three years, cryptocurrency builders have faced severe market downturns and political uncertainty - yet they continue to make significant infrastructure improvements and other technological breakthroughs. These efforts have brought us to today, a moment when cryptocurrency is becoming an important part of the modern economy.

The story of cryptocurrency in 2025 is a story about the maturity of the industry. In short, cryptocurrency has grown up:

• Traditional financial giants, such as Visa, BlackRock(, Fidelity), and JPMorgan Chase(—along with tech-native challengers like PayPal, Stripe, and Robinhood—are offering or launching cryptocurrency products.
• The blockchain currently processes over 3,400 transactions per second, growing more than 100 times over the past five years.
• Stablecoins support a trading volume of $46 trillion every year, adjusted to $9 trillion, comparable to Visa and PayPal.
• Over $175 billion invested in Bitcoin and Ethereum exchange-traded products.

Our latest cryptocurrency status report delves into the transformation of the industry, from institutional adoption and the rise of stablecoins to the integration of cryptocurrency and AI. Furthermore, we are introducing for the first time a new way to explore data and track industry evolution – through key metrics: the cryptocurrency status dashboard.

Now let's take a look at the research findings…

Key Points

• The cryptocurrency market is large, global, and continuously growing.
• Financial institutions fully embrace cryptocurrency
• Stablecoins enter the mainstream
• Cryptocurrency is more powerful in the US than ever before.
• The whole world is going on-chain
• Blockchain infrastructure ) is almost ready for its golden age (.
• Cryptocurrency and AI are merging

) The market size is huge, global, and continuously growing

In 2025, the total market value of cryptocurrencies exceeded the $40 trillion mark for the first time, marking significant progress for the entire industry. The number of cryptocurrency mobile wallet users also reached a record high, with a year-on-year increase of 20%.

The regulatory environment is shifting from hostile to more supportive, coupled with the accelerating adoption of these technologies—from stablecoins to the tokenization of traditional financial assets, and to other emerging use cases—will define the next cycle.

According to the analysis of our updated methodology, it is estimated that there are currently about 40 million to 70 million active cryptocurrency users, an increase of about 10 million compared to last year.

This is just a small portion of the 716 million people estimated to own cryptocurrency, which is a year-on-year increase of 16%. This is also just a small part of the approximately 181 million monthly active addresses on the chain, which is a year-on-year decrease of 18%.

Passive cryptocurrency holders ( refer to individuals who own cryptocurrencies but do not engage in on-chain transactions, while active users ) are those who regularly conduct on-chain transactions. The gap between these two groups ( provides opportunities for cryptocurrency builders to reach more potential users who already own cryptocurrencies.

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So where are these cryptocurrency users? What are they doing?

Cryptocurrency is global, but it seems to be used differently around the world. The use of mobile wallets as an on-chain activity indicator is growing fastest in emerging markets such as Argentina, Colombia, India, and Nigeria. ( Especially in Argentina, the use of cryptocurrency mobile wallets has increased 16 times over the past three years amid a worsening currency crisis. )

At the same time, based on our analysis of the geographical sources of network traffic related to tokens, the indicators of interest in tokens tend to favor developed countries. The activities in these countries—particularly Australia and South Korea—may be more focused on trading and speculation, rather than the user behavior seen in developing countries.

Bitcoin still accounts for more than half of the total market value of cryptocurrencies, with its price hitting a record high, surpassing $126,000, as it becomes increasingly popular among investors as a store of value. Meanwhile, Ethereum and Solana have recovered most of their declines since the slump in 2022.

As the blockchain continues to expand, the fee market matures, and new applications emerge, certain metrics have become more important; one of which is “real economic value” - measuring how much people actually paid in fees to use the blockchain. Hyperliquid and Solana currently account for 53% of revenue-generating economic activity, which is significantly different from the dominance of Bitcoin and Ethereum in previous years.

In terms of builders, cryptocurrencies remain multichain, with Bitcoin, Ethereum ( and its Layer 2 ) and Solana attracting the most developers. Ethereum and its Layer 2 are the preferred destination for new developers in 2025. Meanwhile, Solana is one of the fastest-growing ecosystems, with builder interest increasing by 78% over the past two years. The chart below reflects the number of ecosystems founders have told us they are building or interested in building—based on analysis by a16z's crypto investment team. (You can take a closer look at these and other trends in our cryptocurrency current state dashboard.)

( Financial institutions fully embrace cryptocurrency

2025 will be the year of institutional adoption. Just five days after last year's cryptocurrency status report indicated that stablecoins had found product-market fit, Stripe announced its intention to acquire the stablecoin infrastructure platform Bridge. The race has begun: traditional financial companies are also preparing to publicly enter the stablecoin space.

Months later, Circle's multi-billion dollar IPO marked the arrival of stablecoin issuers as mainstream financial institutions. In July, the bipartisan GENIUS Act was signed into law, providing builders and institutions with the clarity they need to move forward. In the following months, mentions of stablecoins in SEC filings increased by 64%, as major financial institutions continued to release a series of announcements.

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Institutions are rapidly increasing. Traditional institutions—including Citigroup, Fidelity, JPMorgan Chase, Mastercard, Morgan Stanley, and Visa—are now offering or planning to offer cryptocurrency products directly to consumers, allowing them to buy, sell, and hold digital assets, as well as stocks, exchange-traded products, and other traditional instruments. Meanwhile, platforms like PayPal and Shopify are doubling down on the payments space, building infrastructure for everyday transactions between merchants and customers.

In addition to direct products, major fintech companies—including Circle, Robinhood, and Stripe—are actively developing or have announced plans to develop new blockchains focused on payments, real-world assets, and stablecoins. These initiatives could bring more payment traffic onto the chain, encourage business adoption, and ultimately create a larger, faster, and more globalized financial system.

These companies have extensive distribution networks. If development continues, cryptocurrencies may become deeply integrated into the financial services we use in our daily lives.

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Exchange-traded products are another key driver of institutional investment, with current on-chain cryptocurrency holdings exceeding $175 billion, a 169% increase from $65 billion a year ago.

BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust ) IBIT ( is considered the largest traded Bitcoin exchange-traded product issuance of all time, with subsequent Ethereum exchange-traded products also seeing significant inflows in recent months. ) Note: Although commonly referred to as exchange-traded funds or ETFs, these are actually registered as ETPs or exchange-traded products, using the SEC's S-1 form, indicating that the underlying portfolio does not contain securities. ###

These products make cryptocurrency more accessible, freeing up a significant amount of institutional capital that has historically been on the fringes of the industry.

The “Digital Asset Treasury” listed on exchanges (DAT) company — an entity that holds cryptocurrencies on its balance sheet, similar to how corporate treasuries hold cash — now collectively holds about 4% of the circulating supply of Bitcoin and Ethereum. These DATs and exchange-traded products now hold approximately 10% of the total supply of Bitcoin and Ethereum tokens.

( Stablecoins Enter the Mainstream

In 2025, nothing will signify the maturity of cryptocurrency more than the rise of stablecoins. In the past few years, stablecoins were primarily used for settling speculative cryptocurrency trades; however, in recent years, they have become the fastest, cheapest, and most global way to send dollars—reaching almost anywhere in the world in less than a second and costing less than a cent.

This year, they have become the pillars of the on-chain economy.

The total trading volume of stablecoins reached $46 trillion in the past year, an increase of 106% year-on-year. Although this is not a completely equivalent comparison, as this figure mainly represents financial flows ) rather than retail payments on card networks (, it is nearly three times that of Visa and approaches the level of the ACH network of the entire U.S. banking system.

On this adjustment basis—this is a better organic activity measure that attempts to filter out bot and other artificially inflated activities—stablecoins completed $9 trillion in transactions over the past 12 months, an increase of 87% year-on-year. This is more than five times the throughput of PayPal and over half of Visa's.

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Adoption is accelerating. The monthly adjusted stablecoin trading volume has surged to a historic high, approaching $1.25 trillion in September 2025.

It is worth noting that this activity is basically unrelated to the broader cryptocurrency trading volume—indicating the non-speculative use of stablecoins, and more importantly, their product market fit.

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The total supply of stablecoins has also reached a record high, now exceeding $300 billion.

The largest stablecoins in the market dominate: Tether and USDC account for 87% of the total supply. In September 2025, $772 billion worth of stablecoin transactions were settled on the Ethereum and Tron blockchains, adjusted for ), accounting for 64% of all transaction volume. While these two issuers and chains hold a large share of stablecoin activity, growth among new chains and issuers is also accelerating.

Stablecoins are now a macroeconomic force globally: over 1% of US dollars currently exist in the form of tokenized stablecoins on public blockchains, making stablecoins the 17th largest holder of US Treasury bonds, up from 20th place last year. Overall, stablecoins hold over $150 billion in US Treasury bonds—more than many sovereign countries.

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At the same time, U.S. Treasury bonds are surging, even as global demand for that debt is weakening. For the first time in 30 years, foreign central banks hold more gold reserves than U.S. Treasury bonds.

But stablecoins are going against the trend: over 99% of stablecoins are denominated in US dollars, and are expected to grow tenfold to over $3 trillion by 2030, providing a potential strong and sustainable source of demand for US debt in the coming years.

Even if foreign central banks reduce their holdings of U.S. Treasuries, stablecoins are reinforcing the dominance of the dollar.

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) Cryptocurrency is stronger in the United States than ever before

The United States has reversed its previous hostile stance on cryptocurrencies, revitalizing the confidence of builders.

The GENIUS Act passed this year and the CLARITY Act approved by the House of Representatives mark a bipartisan consensus that cryptocurrencies not only will continue to exist but are also poised to thrive in the United States. These acts collectively establish a framework for stablecoins, market structure, and digital asset regulation, striking a balance between innovation and investor protection. This legislation is supplemented by Executive Order 14178, which overturned earlier anti-crypto directives and created an interagency working group to modernize federal digital asset policy.

The regulatory environment is paving the way for builders to realize the potential of tokens as new digital primitives, similar to the role websites played for earlier generations of the internet. As regulatory clarity increases, more network tokens will be able to complete their economic cycles by generating income attributable to token holders—creating a new economic engine for the internet that is self-sustaining and grants more users rights within the system.

( The whole world is going on chain

The on-chain economy—once a niche playground for early adopters—has evolved into a multi-faceted market with tens of millions of monthly participants. Nearly one-fifth of the spot trading volume now occurs on decentralized exchanges.

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With trading volume growing nearly 8 times over the past year, perpetual contracts have seen explosive growth among cryptocurrency speculators. Decentralized perpetual contract exchanges like Hyperliquid have processed trillions of dollars in trades, generating over $1 billion in annualized revenue this year—figures that can compete with some centralized exchanges.

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Real-world assets ) RWA ###——such as traditional assets like U.S. Treasuries, money market funds, private credit, and real estate, are represented on-chain ( “tokenization” )——connecting cryptocurrencies and traditional finance. The total market size of tokenized RWA is $30 billion, which has grown nearly 4 times in the past two years.

One of the most ambitious frontiers of blockchain in 2025, besides finance, is DePIN, or Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks.

DeFi has reimagined finance, and DePIN is reimagining physical infrastructure, including telecommunications and transportation networks, energy grids, and more. The opportunities are immense: the World Economic Forum predicts that by 2028, the DePIN category will grow to $3.5 trillion.

The Helium network is the most famous example. This grassroots wireless network now provides 5G cellular coverage to 1.4 million daily active users through over 111,000 hotspots operated by users.

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Prediction markets are entering the mainstream during the 2024 U.S. presidential election cycle, with the monthly trading volume of the most popular platforms, Polymarket and Kalshi, totaling billions of dollars. Despite facing skepticism about their ability to maintain engagement in non-election years, the trading volume on these platforms has increased nearly fivefold since early 2025, approaching previous highs.

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In the absence of regulatory clarity, Meme coins have thrived. Over 13 million Meme coins were launched last year. This trend seems to be cooling off in recent months—September's issuance was down 56% compared to January—as sound policies and bipartisan legislation have paved the way for more productive blockchain use cases.

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The trading volume in the NFT market has yet to reach the peak levels of 2022, but the number of monthly active buyers has been increasing. These trends seem to indicate a shift in consumer behavior from speculation to collecting, a change facilitated by the emergence of cheaper on-chain blockspace on networks like Solana and Base. For more information on the intersection of cryptocurrency and the creator economy, please refer to our Voices Onchain project.

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) Blockchain infrastructure ( is almost ) ready for its golden age

All these activities would not be possible without significant advancements in blockchain infrastructure.

In just five years, the total transaction throughput of major blockchain networks has increased by more than 100 times. At that time, blockchains processed less than 25 transactions per second. Now they handle 3,400 transactions per second, comparable to the completed transactions of Nasdaq or the global throughput of Stripe on Black Friday – and the cost is just a small fraction of historical costs.

In the blockchain ecosystem, Solana has become one of the most prominent platforms. Its high-performance, low-cost architecture now supports everything from DePIN projects to NFT markets, with its native applications generating $3 billion in revenue over the past year. Planned upgrades are expected to double network capacity by the end of the year.

Ethereum continues to execute its expansion roadmap, with most economic activities migrating to Layer 2(L2), such as Arbitrum, Base, and Optimism. The average transaction cost on L2 has decreased from about $24 in 2021 to less than one cent today, making Ethereum-related block space cheap and abundant.

Cross-chain bridges are enabling interoperability in blockchain. Protocols like LayerZero and Circle's cross-chain transfer protocols allow users to move assets within multi-chain systems. Hyperliquid's standard cross-chain bridge has also achieved a trading volume of $74 billion to date this year.

Privacy is coming back to the forefront and may become a prerequisite for wider adoption. Indicators of growing interest: a surge in Google searches related to crypto privacy in 2025; Zcash's shielded pool supply growing to nearly 4 million ZEC; Railgun's transaction volume exceeding $200 million per month.

More momentum: The Ethereum Foundation has established a new privacy team; Paxos has partnered with Aleo to launch a compliant private stablecoin ###USAD(; The U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control has lifted sanctions on the decentralized privacy protocol Tornado Cash. We expect this trend to gain greater momentum in the coming years as cryptocurrency continues to go mainstream.

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Similarly, zero-knowledge )ZK( proofs and succinct proof systems are rapidly evolving from decades-old academic research into critical infrastructure. Zero-knowledge systems are now integrated into Rollups, compliance tools, and even mainstream web services—Google's new ZK identity system is an example.

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At the same time, blockchain is accelerating the post-quantum roadmap. About $750 billion worth of Bitcoin is stored in addresses vulnerable to future quantum attacks. The U.S. government plans to transition federal systems to post-quantum cryptographic algorithms by 2035.

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) AI and cryptocurrency are merging

Apart from other developments, the launch of ChatGPT in 2022 brought AI to the forefront of public attention – presenting clear opportunities for cryptocurrency. From tracking sources and IP licensing to providing payment rails for agents, cryptocurrency may be the solution to some of AI's most pressing challenges.

Decentralized identity systems like World have verified over 17 million people, providing “proof of humanity” and helping to distinguish between humans and robots.

Protocols like x402 are becoming potential financial pillars for autonomous AI agents, helping them conduct microtransactions, access APIs, and settle payments without intermediaries—Gartner estimates that this economic scale could reach $30 trillion by 2030.

At the same time, the computing layer of AI is being consolidated around a few tech giants, raising concerns about centralization and censorship. Just two companies, OpenAI and Anthropic, control 88% of the revenue of “AI-native” companies. Amazon, Microsoft, and Google control 63% of the cloud infrastructure market, while Nvidia occupies 94% of the data center GPU market. These imbalances have driven double-digit quarterly net income growth for the “Big Seven” companies over the past few years, while the overall profit growth of the remaining companies in the S&P 493 has failed to keep up with inflation.

Blockchain provides a check against the obvious centralized forces of AI systems.

In the AI boom, some builders have shifted from cryptocurrency to other fields. Our analysis shows that since the launch of ChatGPT, approximately 1,000 jobs have transitioned from cryptocurrency to AI. However, this number has been offset by an equal number of builders from other fields ( such as traditional finance and technology ) joining cryptocurrency.

( Future Outlook

Where does this put us? With greater regulatory clarity on the horizon, a path for tokens to generate real income through fees is being opened. The adoption of cryptocurrencies by traditional finance and fintech will continue to accelerate; stablecoins will upgrade traditional systems and democratize financial access globally; new consumer products will bring the next wave of cryptocurrency users on-chain.

We have the infrastructure and distribution channels, and hope to soon have the regulatory clarity needed to bring this technology into the mainstream. It is time to upgrade the financial system, rebuild the global payment rails, and create the internet that the world deserves.

Seventeen years have passed, and cryptocurrencies are moving out of adolescence and into adulthood.

Source: ChainCatcher