Crypto Assets Market Q1 2025 Review

At the beginning of 2025, the Crypto Assets market experienced a period of stagnation, in stark contrast to the bull market at the end of 2024. In the first quarter, the total market capitalization of Crypto Assets fell by 18.6% to $2.8 trillion, after briefly touching a high of $3.8 trillion on January 18. Market activity also declined, with the average daily trading volume decreasing by 27.3% to $146 billion.

Against the backdrop of a general market decline, Bitcoin's dominance has strengthened, reaching 59.1% by the end of the first quarter, the highest level since early 2021. Despite Bitcoin hitting a historical high of $106,182 in January, it had fallen to $82,514 by the end of the quarter, a decrease of 11.8%.

The following are the key highlights of the Crypto Assets market in the first quarter of 2025:

1. The total market capitalization fell by 18.6%, dropping from a year-to-date high of $3.8 trillion to $2.8 trillion.

2. Bitcoin's dominance rises to 59.1%.

3. The price of Bitcoin fell by 11.8%, underperforming gold and US Treasury bonds.

4. The price of Ethereum plummeted from $3,336 to $1,805, a decrease of 45.3%.

5. The meme coin craze has receded, with the daily number of new tokens on the Pump.fun platform plummeting by 56.3%.

6. The trading volume of centralized exchanges fell by 16.3% month-on-month to $5.4 trillion.

7. Solana continues to lead in DEX trading, accounting for 39.6% of the total trading volume in the first quarter.

8. The total locked value of multi-chain DeFi is ( TVL, which has evaporated by 4.89 billion USD, a decrease of 27.5%.

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Market Overview

The total market capitalization of Crypto Assets continued to decline after reaching a high of $3.8 trillion on January 18, ending the quarter at $2.8 trillion. The average daily trading volume also shrank significantly, dropping from $200.7 billion in the previous quarter to $146 billion.

Bitcoin's dominance rose by 4.6 percentage points to 59.1%, the highest level in nearly four years. Stablecoins also benefited from the market downturn, with Tether ) USDT ('s market share slightly increasing to 5.2%. Ethereum's dominance significantly declined by 3.9 percentage points to 7.9%, marking a new low since the end of 2019.

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Main Asset Performance

Bitcoin started to decline after reaching a historic high of $106,182 on January 22, ending the quarter at $82,514, a drop of 11.8%. In contrast, gold performed strongly, rising by 18%. Risk assets such as Nasdaq and S&P 500 also generally fell.

Ethereum showed the weakest performance, with the price plummeting from $3,336 to $1,805, a quarterly drop of up to 45.3%, erasing the entire gain for the year 2024. Its average daily trading volume also fell from $30 billion in the previous quarter to $24.4 billion.

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Meme coin market cooling down

The craze triggered by Trump-related Meme coins at the beginning of the year rapidly cooled down after the LIBRA coin, promoted by the President of Argentina, experienced a sharp decline. The daily number of new tokens on the Pump.fun platform plummeted from a peak of 72,000 to 31,000, a decrease of over 56%. The "graduation" token ratio also fell from 1.4% in January to 0.7% at the end of the quarter.

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Exchange Performance

Centralized exchange ) CEX ( spot trading volume decreased by 16.3% month-on-month to $5.4 trillion. Although the overall share is still rising, Binance's trading volume in March fell below the $1 trillion mark, dropping to $588.7 billion. HTX is the only top ten exchange that achieved growth, with a trading volume increase of 11.4%.

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In terms of decentralized exchanges ) DEX (, Solana has maintained its leading position since the end of 2024, with a market share of 39.6% in the first quarter. In January, driven by the Meme coin craze, Solana once occupied 52% of the market share, while Ethereum's share fell below 20% for the first time. However, as the excitement waned, Ethereum reclaimed the top spot in March.

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DeFi Ecosystem

The total locked value (TVL) of multi-chain DeFi ) decreased by 27.5% in the first quarter, dropping from $177.4 billion to $128.6 billion, mainly due to the significant devaluation of altcoin values. Ethereum suffered the most, with TVL falling from $112.6 billion to $72.7 billion, and its dominance decreasing from 63.5% to 56.6%.

The emerging public chain Berachain has performed impressively, quickly ranking sixth in TVL after its launch on February 6, with a locked amount of 5.2 billion dollars, of which 2.3 billion dollars comes from the Boyco pre-deposit treasury.