Stop focusing on Bitcoin. 2025 was crypto’s golden year

We, as crypto enthusiasts, can look back on2025 with some fondness. Sure, Bitcoin didn’t reach $150k or $250k as some argued it would, and altcoins certainly disappointed.

But there are other reasons to look back on2025 as crypto’s golden year.

For one thing, whatever else one thinks ofDonald Trump, his occupation of the White House in January 2025 marked a huge shift form the hostile, incoherent and scrappy policies that preceded him.

The new president wasted no time. On his third day in office, he signed an executive order titled "StrengtheningAmerican Leadership in Digital Financial Technology." It established aPresident's Working Group on Digital Assets, banned a US CBDC (Central BankDigital Currency), and signalled a seismic shift. America would, he assured us, become the "crypto capital of the world." Bitcoin, trading around$95,000 post-election hype, surged past $100,000 within weeks. Traders called it the "Trump Pump."

Trump followed this with pro-crypto appointees like Paul Atkins at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and a vow to end regulation by enforcement.

Trump rescinded Biden-era restrictions, paving the way for clearer rules on stable coins and token classification.

Spring brought more milestones. In March,Bitcoin hit $111,000 amid massive ETF inflows. MicroStrategy, rebranded asStrategy, announced another massive BTC purchase, pumping up its total holdings to 670,000 coins. With the drop in Bitcoin prices over the last month, chairmanMichael Saylor found himself under renewed criticism for his all-in bet on bitcoin. Saylor never blinked, announcing yet another large BTC purchase.

Corporations followed: over 250 public companies added Bitcoin to treasuries, viewing it as digital gold at a time when fiscal responsibility seems to have deserted leaders everywhere. Bitcoin’s correlation with M2 supply growth – despite recent divergence – remains largely undeniable.

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Bitcoin and M2 money supply growth

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[Black line - Bitcoin; Blue line – M2Global Money supply]

By summer, the GENIUS Act - Trump's flagship legislation - passed Congress with bipartisan support. It created the first federal stablecoin framework, repealed burdensome accounting rules likeSAB 121, and clarified when tokens were securities versus commodities.

Stablecoin issuance exploded; Circle andTether dominated, with market caps soaring. Ethereum benefited too, as Layer-2solutions like Base and Optimism scaled, drawing DeFi users back.

Tokenisation boomed, as real-world assets such as bonds and property hit the blockchain, with BlackRock leading the way. The total crypto market cap crossed $4 trillion for the first time in July. Autumn highs were euphoric. Bitcoin peaked at $126,000 in October, driven by a proposed Strategic Bitcoin Reserve using seized assets in the US.

Altcoins also rallied: Solana flipped Ethereum in transaction volume briefly, while meme coins and AI tokens thrived under lighter SEC scrutiny.

By the end of the year, things were starting to cool. Geopolitical tensions and rate uncertainties triggered acorrection. Bitcoin dipped below $90,000 in December, liquidating over leveraged positions. Ethereum followed, testing $3,000. Yet, the fundamentals held:institutional adoption seemed unbreakable, and regulatory clarity continues to attract capital.

Another crucial development during the year was the entry of banks into the crypto space. Absa partnered with Ripple,Mastercard with FNB to launch fast and cheap cross-border payments service Globba (using stablecoin rails), and all the banks signed up as crypto asset service providers. There’s plenty more to come from this space in 2026.

There’s no doubt that crypto matured in2025, moving from fringe and speculative to mainstream and indispensable. With market cap hovering near $3.5 trillion and Bitcoin around $90,000, the stage was set for greater heights. The golden year wasn't flawless, but it proved crypto's resilience. The bull run, many whispered, was just beginning.

Maybe we are past the manic speculative phase where every blip in the Bitcoin chart generated hundreds of articles.“Biggest crash in two years,” “Institutions fall out of love with Bitcoin,” to be followed a few weeks later with headlines signposting the opposite view.

So, let’s look away from Bitcoin for the moment. Let’s look at the small business in Kenya or Vanderbijlpark securing an inventory loan against tokenised invoices on a global liquidity pool. Look at the complete absence of news when a billion dollars moves across continents in seconds.

These are the milestones that made 2025 an awesome year for crypto. 2026 will be more of the same.