For the crypto sector, the year of 2025 witnessed what many thought was impossible – Bitcoin scaling the $126,000 peak. While that was one historic triumph, the moments that gave a deeper definition to 2025 in terms of crypto were seismic shifts happening beneath the surface on an everyday basis.
In this story, we revisit the pivotal market moments that brought more structure and stability to the $3 trillion industry this year and also made it to the headlines.
U.S.’ ‘Trump’ card
Billionaire Donald Trump returned to the White House as the 47th President of the U.S. in January this year. During his electoral campaign, he had appealed to the crypto and AI industries – promising that if he won the elections, he would transform the U.S. into crypto and AI.
From setting up the Crypto Task Force within the SEC to accelerate work on crypto regulations to hosting the crypto community at the White House – Trump established that his pro-crypto promises were neither frail nor futile. This support from the President of the world’s largest economy naturally boosted the crypto industry’s confidence internationally.
Bitcoin’s streaks of all-time highs
When BTC was first coined in 2009 by Satoshi Nakamoto, it was priced at about one-tenth of a cent. This year, however, the oldest and most expensive cryptocurrency touched an all-time high of $126,080 – which it touched in October this year. Up until here also, however, Bitcoin consistently kept breaking its own records and hitting new ATHs. Its incredible upward course cleared the way for a majority of altcoins also – that tailed BTC on the profit side of the price charts.
For the last two months, the asset has been trading lowly. As of December 30, BTC was trading at $87,899, data by CoinMarketCap showed. Crypto billionaires like Michael Saylor and Binance founder Changpeng Zhao (CZ) have however called BTC’s volatility its “best element” because that is what opens access to acquire the token for more investors at more efficient prices.
Crypto reserves & Wall Street residency
This year, Bitcoin has managed to positively grab the attention of international governments, banks, and corporations as a significant store of value. After U.S. President Donald Trump said he plans to create a BTC and altcoin stockpile from assets accumulated during criminal investigations, other regions like Indonesia, Philippines, and Luxembourg also showed an inclination towards exploring the idea.
Several corporations like South Africa’s Altvest, India’s Jetking, and South Korea’s Bitplanet emerged among those that also adopted internal BTC treasury strategies by allocating chunks of their revenues into acquiring the token.
Similarly, the attitude of Wall Street Banks towards crypto turned sweeter this year. As a flurry of crypto firms went public on mainstream markets like the NYSE – lenders like the Bank of America and Morgan Stanley among others started expanding crypto-focussed services after being skeptic about the sector for years.
Regulatory revolution
A number of nations either finalized key crypto laws or accelerated steps to do so this year. The U.S., during its Crypto Week in July, approved the landmark GENIUS Act that clarified the dos and don’ts for the issuers of stablecoins and the boundaries around the usage of these tokens. The next one on the table is the Crypto Market Structure Bill – which will give more definition to the sector.
Other countries like Hong Kong, Japan, Turkey, and the U.K. also announced similar regulatory changes around crypto.
Dominos of developments
The prediction market space witnessed an influx of crypto firms stepping into the arena. Crypto.com, Trust Wallet, YZi Labs, Phantom Wallet.
On the other hand, Web3 elements like metaverse and the NFTs failed to garner any major attention.
For the next year, the industry plans to lay focus on exploring the areas of crypto loans, tokenization, and prediction markets among others — key community members mentioned during major crypto events like Binance Blockchain Week, Bitcoin MENA, and Solana Breakpoint held in the first half of December 2025.