Four key themes, playing the four seasons of Crypto in 2025

Author: Wenser; Editor: Hao Fangzhou

Produced by: Odaily Planet Daily

2025 is about to pass. Standing at the end of the “Year of Mainstreaming Cryptocurrency,” it’s time to use some keywords to summarize each of the four quarters of this year, providing a glimpse into how the current world has been gradually infiltrated and transformed by cryptocurrencies.

The crypto world of 2025 has experienced numerous twists, rapid rises, and falls: from Trump’s inauguration as U.S. President in early January, to the trade war triggered by tariffs in April; from Strategy leading DAT treasury companies to a temporary profit surge of hundreds of billions of dollars, to ETH, SOL listed companies and even altcoin treasury companies flourishing and then falling silent; from stock tokenization platforms being seen as the “best combination of DeFi and TradFi,” to Nasdaq’s self-revolution joining the stock tokenization craze; from Hyperliquid and Aster’s on-chain Perp DEX to valuation giants like Polymarket and Kalshi, each valued at over ten billion; from the GENIUS stablecoin regulation bill to the stablecoin craze fueled by PayFi; from crypto IPOs to the normalization of crypto ETFs… Amid countless disputes, struggles, and negotiations among capital, attention, and regulators, amidst wealth creation projects, memes, hacking incidents, in the frenzy of FOMO, new highs, and buying competition, during times of extreme fear, massive crashes, and black swan events, the growth rings of this vigorous young tree of the crypto industry have been added again.

Behind the never-sleeping money is the rise and fall of Meme coins players, the underfunded crypto grinders, Wall Street’s large-scale absorption, and the American regulatory hand waving to let things go. Such a year is somewhat complex—it is neither a full bull market nor a cold bear market; compared to previous years with clear hot and cold phases and sector rotations, in 2025, the crypto industry under the influence of Trump and many authoritarian governments resembles a monkey jumping around. Some fall from the altar, others rise with the trend. As for success or failure, perhaps the forthcoming “2025 Crypto Investment Memoir”() will reveal more answers.

And in this article, Odaily Planet Daily will review 2025’s crypto scene using four quarterly keywords.

Crypto Spring: Trump Effect Continues, Wealth Creation via TRUMP, Clarification of Crypto Regulation Framework

In January, Trump officially took office as President of the United States.

Continuing the excitement after Trump’s victory in last year’s election, the crypto market, after a brief consolidation, once again approached the $100,000 mark for BTC.

Just three days before Trump’s inauguration, the token TRUMP, bearing the label “Trump Official Meme Coin,” unleashed the first wave of wealth creation frenzy of the year on many crypto participants.

I still vividly remember that morning when my colleague first shared the TRUMP token contract, its total market cap (FDV) was only about $4 billion. Amid doubts like “Did Trump get hacked?” “Can a US President issue a coin?” “Is Trump trying to make a final grab before leaving office?” the total market cap of TRUMP soared, rapidly surpassing $10 billion, $30 billion, and finally reaching over $80 billion.

In this astonishing wealth creation wave, many Chinese meme coin players made huge profits, some earning millions or even over $20 million. For the list of TRUMP traders, see “Who Made Over a Million Dollars with TRUMP? Winning KOLs and Disappointed ETH Maxis”().

This also marked the “second spring” when the crypto market, after Trump’s election as US President in November 2024, was reignited by his personal influence.

Soon after, the market paid its “tribute” to Trump’s presidency—on January 20, BTC again broke new highs(), reaching $109,800.

At that time, everyone regarded Trump as the “undoubted First Crypto President.” Perhaps many did not realize then that “Water can carry a boat, but it can also overturn it”: Trump’s impact on the crypto market was not only macro policy and regulatory environment benefits but also a series of controversies, harvests, and oscillations caused by his family’s crypto projects.

Another key point of the “Trump Effect” was whether his presidency could directly improve the US crypto regulatory environment—

One aspect was whether he could bring clearer boundaries and more friendly rules through legislation and executive orders. Trump gradually implemented some of his promises, including replacing the SEC Chairman with Paul Atkins, appointing David Sacks as the White House AI and Cryptocurrency Director, and pushing for the passage of the GENIUS stablecoin regulation bill.

The other was the “BTC national strategic reserve” that many crypto-friendly politicians and the market paid close attention to. In early March, Trump signed an executive order to promote the use of confiscated BTC assets to establish a strategic Bitcoin reserve for the US. He specifically emphasized: “It will not increase taxpayers’ burden.” For more details, see “Trump Establishes BTC Strategic Reserve as Promised, but Is the Funding Purely from Confiscation?”().

Nevertheless, the outcome of the bet on “Trump establishing a BTC national reserve within his first 100 days” on Polymarket was ultimately “No” (Odaily Planet Daily notes: the reason is that, according to the rules of this betting event, assets confiscated by the US government do not count as BTC reserves), which frustrated many. Some even shouted “scam site” in the comments.

Polymarket betting rules info

At that time, the “big whale inside info” had already shown signs of emergence. The “50x leverage insider” on Hyperliquid profited millions of dollars from news like “Trump establishing a cryptocurrency reserve.” Details can be found in “Review of Hyperliquid Contract ‘Insider’ Operations: Precise Long and Short Openings”().

During this period, Trump also faced several controversies, including the “Melania Token Incident” involving Trump’s wife() and the “Libra” event triggered by Argentine President Milei’s political celebrity coin(), both considered “black masterpieces” of Trump’s coin issuing group. Additionally, the first quarter of the crypto market also witnessed a series of “historic events,” including:

Hyperliquid’s “annual largest airdrop”() which drew envy from on-chain players;

Bybit’s sudden attack by North Korea’s Lazarus Group, stealing assets worth $1.5 billion();

Ethereum Foundation’s controversial upgrade, with original executive director Aya promoted to chair().

The industry didn’t expect that Trump’s “big fish” would soon make the market witness an “American version of ‘Success and Failure in Xiao He’” scenario.

Crypto Summer: DAT Treasury Companies, ETH Breaks New Highs, Stablecoins Take Center Stage

At the start of the second quarter, the market was hit hard—early April, Trump launched a global “tariff trade war,” causing widespread panic in the economy, with both traditional and crypto markets suffering heavy losses.

On April 7, “Black Monday”(), U.S. stock market capitalization evaporated by over $6 trillion in just one week, including the “Big Seven” tech giants like Apple and Google losing over $1.5 trillion in market cap. After nearly a month of turbulence, the crypto market finally crashed—BTC once fell below $80,000, reaching a low of $77,000; ETH dipped to $1,540, its lowest since October 2023; total crypto market cap dropped to $2.6 trillion, a single day decline of over 9%. For details, see “Deep Dive into the ‘Main Culprit’ Behind Tariff Wars: Did He Cause $6 Trillion Evaporation in One Night?”().

It was from that moment on that, after months of market downturn and foundation reforms, ETH finally showed some signs of bottoming out and rebounding. For details, see “New Leadership at Ethereum Foundation: What Does the Future Hold?”().

Meanwhile, leveraging the momentum of Circle’s US stock IPO(), stablecoins and PayFi gradually entered the mainstream of the crypto market, seen by many as the key to “mass adoption” of crypto. For more, see “10 Years of Stablecoins: The Path to Becoming America’s Official ‘Point-to-Point Electronic Cash’”(), and “The Beginning of the Stablecoin Golden Age: USDT to the Left, USDC to the Right”().

In late May, with Ethereum co-founder, ConsenSys and MetaMask founder Joseph Lubin’s call, the US-listed company Sharplink() transformed from a sports marketing firm into the “first ETH treasury listed company.” Since then, the DAT craze swept the entire crypto market. ETH’s price finally broke free from its prolonged slump, surpassing the previous high of $4,800 and soaring close to $5,000.

Subsequently, “Wall Street’s oracle” Tom Lee, together with US-listed company Bitmine, joined the “DAT treasury wave,” making ETH treasury companies another “spectacle” in the crypto world after Strategy-led BTC treasury companies.

A glance at ETH Treasury Companies

As of the writing, according to strategicethreserve.com, the total number of ETH treasury companies has increased to nearly 70. Among them:

Bitmine (BMNR) holds the largest ETH position with 3.86 million ETH;

Sharplink (SBET) holds over 860,000 ETH;

ETH Machine (ETHM) holds over 490,000 ETH.

It’s worth noting that the ETH holdings of these three DAT companies far exceed the Ethereum Foundation’s holdings (less than 230,000 ETH).

With ETH treasury companies in the spotlight, SOL DAT companies, BNB DAT companies, and a series of altcoin DAT companies have also emerged like bamboo shoots after rain, with their prices fluctuating wildly like roller coasters.

Having gone through the initial FOMO-driven frenzy of transformation and now entering a period of market calm, ETH DAT companies like Bitmine face billions of dollars in paper unrealized losses. Meanwhile, many BTC reserve companies and other DAT treasury companies, lacking real business support, have seen their market value and crypto assets inverted, with dozens of DAT companies’ mNAV (cryptos/market cap) falling below 1.

In the height of the crypto summer, DAT companies are filled with joy, yet many do not realize Zweig’s words: “All gifts in fate are secretly marked with a price,” and that price is a stagnant stock price.

Of course, just as death often breeds new life, the rapid surge of DAT companies is also pushing the stock tokenization trend into the crypto market—a trend that has become unstoppable. Even Nasdaq could not ignore it, and had to join this “capital feast” through self-revolution.

Crypto Autumn: Stock Tokenization, On-Chain Perp DEX, and Stablecoin Public Chain “Twin Heroes” Battle

After the milestone achievement of Circle (CRCL)’s strong landing on US stock markets and a “10x surge” in stock price at the end of June, the enthusiasm for stablecoins and crypto concept stocks in both traditional and crypto markets soared.

Supported by relevant positive news, the Hong Kong stock stablecoin sector and brokerage sector rose sharply, with many internet giants like JD and Ant Group announcing their imminent entry into the stablecoin race, attracting much attention. For details, see “Hong Kong Stock Meme Season Arrives: Can Crypto Concept Stocks Support the Bull Market?”().

Taking advantage of this momentum, the RWA (Real-World Asset) track finally reached a critical turning point—stock tokenization is now in full swing.

In early July, exchanges Kraken and Bybit announced the launch of stock tokenization trading via the xStocks platform, supporting dozens of tokenized US stocks including AAPL, TSLA, NVDA, etc. As a result, xStocks, with its “on-chain US stock tokenization trading platform” concept, became the sole focus of the market. Meanwhile, MyStonks (now renamed MSX.com) also attracted a large number of users and investors.

If the listing of BTC spot ETFs in early 2024 and ETH spot ETFs in July of the same year gave crypto traders the honor of being “distinguished US stock traders,” then the emergence of stock tokenization platforms this year truly broke the “last mile” of US stock trading on-chain. It also allowed even a “crypto trader” like me to diversify assets through on-chain tokenization platforms for the first time.

Odaily Planet Daily previously detailed the mechanisms behind xStocks and tokenized US stock trading in “10 Questions about xStocks: What Are We Trading When Trading US Stock Tokens?”(). Looking back now, its underlying principles and asset management models remain largely unchanged. The difference is that, after many US stock tokenization platforms, traditional giants are also awakening.

Summary of “10 Questions about xStocks”

First, the crypto asset management giant Galaxy proactively issued stock tokens(); second, Nasdaq, with a quarterly trading volume of around 10 trillion USD, proactively applied for “tokenized stock trading” with the SEC(). In the broad arena of asset issuance and trading, traditional giants are highly perceptive.

Meanwhile, the feast of native crypto markets belongs to two major sectors:

One is the “on-chain Perp DEX war” after Hyperliquid—Aster from the BNB Chain ecosystem contributed another wealth-creating miracle with a violent “pump,” with many claiming they “sold millions of dollars worth of tokens”;

The other involves two major stablecoin wealth creation phenomena: one, Plasma, which claims to be a stablecoin public chain supported by Tether’s CEO, launched a “wealth management and savings activity,” offering generous airdrops, with some deposits of just $1 receiving over $9,000 worth of XPL tokens—an ROI of over 900 times; the other is Trump’s family crypto project WLFI, which officially launched, leveraging the previous momentum of its stablecoin USD1, with some investors earning up to 6 times returns at the public offering price of $0.05 or $0.15.

Looking now at the prices of XPL and WLFI, it’s hard not to feel regret. According to Coingecko, XPL is currently around $0.17, down nearly 90% from its high of $1.67; WLFI is about $0.15, down nearly 50% from its peak of $0.33.

At that moment, many lamented the opportunities, unaware that what awaited the crypto industry would be an “epic liquidation” far surpassing any historical crash.

Crypto Winter: After the October 11 Crash, TACO Trading Verified Again, Prediction Markets Welcome Billion-Dollar Giants

After BTC hit a new high of $126,000 in early October, people hoped the market would continue the “Uptober” trend of previous years. But an “epic purge” on October 11 shattered those hopes.

The trigger was again linked to Trump—on the evening of October 10, he announced a 100% tariff increase, causing the panic index to soar. The three major US stock indexes all declined to various degrees: NASDAQ fell nearly 3.5%, S&P 500 dropped 2.7%, Dow Jones declined 1.9%.

The crypto market suffered system issues on exchanges, coupled with a fragile market sentiment—BTC bottomed at $101,516, with a 24-hour drop of 16%; ETH bottomed at $3,400, down 22%; SOL’s 24-hour decline was 31.83%. For a moment, altcoins flowed blood.

The losses caused by this epic liquidation far exceeded previous crashes like 3.12, 5.19, and 9.4, with actual forced liquidations in the crypto market estimated at at least $30 to $40 billion.

Of course, risk also contains opportunity. As Odaily Planet Daily mentioned in articles like “Who Made Billions in the Big Crash? What Opportunities Are Right in Front of Us?” and “The Whales’ Dagger Battle Behind the Largest Ever Crypto Liquidation Day,” whether through high-leverage shorting or bottom-fishing, many managed to make a fortune amid the chaos.

Risk also means opportunity

When the “TACO” trading style (Trump Always Chicken Out) was once again validated, the crypto market finally began a slow self-repair. Unlike before, many traders had already lost most of their assets during that “Black Friday,” and failed to recover, leaving dejected.

In such a dire environment, prediction market platforms like Polymarket and Kalshi gradually became some of the few hotspots and trading stages in the crypto market. Their valuations skyrocketed within a few months. After completing a new Series E funding round led by Paradigm, with $1 billion, Kalshi’s valuation soared to $11 billion; Polymarket, after raising $2 billion in a previous round led by Nasdaq parent ICE Group, is now seeking a new funding round valued at $12-15 billion.

In the cycle, the crypto market returned to Polymarket—a prediction market platform that successfully predicted Trump’s victory in the “2024 US Presidential Election”—and after four seasons, the mainstreaming and mass adoption of cryptocurrencies continue.

Where is the future heading? US regulation and traditional finance still largely determine the direction of the tide and the length of the spring and winter. For us, crypto gold-diggers, only by staying close to the flow and judging the timing can we perhaps find our own treasure.