The year 2025 has proved a remarkable period for the crypto market, taking into account several historical developments. Some of the noteworthy events of this year include Bybit’s hack, the GENIUS Act’s Implementation in the U.S., China’s stringent regulations, and Circle’s launch of its IPO. These headlines have gained worldwide attention throughout the year 2025. In this article, Blockchainreporter.net covers the top 10 events of 2025 in the crypto sector.
Donald Trump and His Wife Unveil Meme Coins
At the start of 2025, in January, before Donald Trump came into power as the U.S. President, he and his wife, Melania Trump launched meme coins. Hence, Donald Trump announced the launch of the $TRUMP and $MELANIA tokens on Truth Social on the 18th and 20th of January, respectively. Subsequently, he also confirmed the $TRUMP token’s surge to $50B.
Additionally, both the tokens attracted massive capital based on the political influence of Trump. However, soon $TRUMP slumped by 90% from the ATH mark of $75.35, hitting $4.93, while $MELANIA’s market cap dipped by 99%.
Bybit Undergoes Severe Crypto Exploit with $1.44B Drained in Assets
On the 21st of February, the famous crypto exchange Bybit underwent an exploit of $1.44B. The hackers utilized diverse sophisticated tactics dealing with multi-signature fraud and front-end tampering. As a result, they targeted the multi-signature Ethereum cold wallet of the platform, siphoning off $ETH as well as staked derivatives.
Within 4 hours of the attack, $ETH saw an almost 4% drop in price. Additionally, the market witnessed the cumulative liquidation of over $450M within 24 hours. While addressing this, Bybit utilized its own funds to completely compensate the users for stolen funds.
Crypto Treasury Narrative Witnesses Wider Traction as Stock-Crypto Correlation Becomes Popular
In 2025’s 1st half, the narrative of crypto treasury experienced sustained traction, emerging as a core driving force behind the market sentiment. Targeting the asset allocation of the enterprises dealing with the crypto assets, the respective narrative surged to a significant extent. This also increases the connection between the crypto market and conventional capital.
As a result, diverse platforms leveraged the opportunity to delve into cutting-edge products like tokenized equities to eliminate the trading hindrances between the conventional stock market and blockchain. In this respect, the top entities like Coinbase aggressively enhanced their compliance initiatives for related products.
Specifically, BitMine Immersion ($BNMR), a popular Ethereum ($ETH) treasury entity, declared that the cumulative holdings thereof in terms of cash and crypto assets had touched nearly $13.2B. This included 4.066 $ETH equaling 3.37% of the total $ETH supply with the optimistic outlook shared by the crypblock platform. Nevertheless, the crypto treasury narrative became sluggish while moving toward the year’s end. For example, FG Nexus, another Ethereum treasury platform, sold almost 10,000 $ETH tokens to increase share repurchases as well as improve the shareholder value.
United States Officially Signs GENIUS Act into Law to Regulate Stablecoin Market
In the middle of 2025, the United States approved the Crypto Asset Innovation and Regulation Act, also known as the GENIUS Act. This policy emerged as the 1st federal-level legislation for the systematic regulation of stablecoins.
The respective Act brought fiat-pegged stablecoins to the country’s regulatory oversight. Additionally, it specified requirements related to issuer qualifications, information disclosure, reserve asset composition (highly liquid or limited assets), information disclosure, as well as audit obligations.
With the GENIUS Act’s implementation, the U.S. endeavored to eliminate the systemic risks dealing with the stablecoin landscape at an institutional scale. This move was a result of the growing traction of stablecoins across the globe. In this respect, by the 12th of December, this sector touched the staggering $310B mark, a 70% year-on-year growth. Particularly, $USDT and $USDC dominated this total valuation.
SEC Dismisses Lawsuits Targeting Changpeng Zhao and Binance
Another key development of 2025 was the release of Changpeng Zhao (CZ), the founder of Binance, from prison on the 28th of September. Specifically, on the 30th of May, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) dismissed the lawsuit it lodged against CZ and Binance. Before that, the SEC had filed this lawsuit back on the 5th of June in 2023. Subsequently, his release came as a joyous moment for the crypto community, raising optimism for further growth and adoption.
Crypto Sector Braces on October 11 as Single-Day Liquidations Surge Past $19B
On the 11th of October, the crypto industry went through another crucial and shocking development. On that day, the crypto market saw “Black Tuesday,” as key crypto assets plunged swiftly. Specifically, Bitcoin ($BTC) dipped from the high mark of $117K to below $105K, denoting over 13% decrease.
Similarly, Ethereum ($ETH) recorded an intraday drop of 20%, with its lowest price touching almost $3,380. Additionally, the other famous crypto assets like $BNB and $XRP also experienced over 30% slumps. Ultimately, this resulted in the liquidations of a total of $19.358B.
Circle Unveils Earliest Stablecoin IPO with Robust Debut Surge
In the same month, Circle, the platform responsible for issuing the prominent stablecoin $USDC, got an official listing on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). Thus, it got the title of the earliest stablecoin IPO with the stock ticker $CRCL.
This remarkable development signifies the integration of the stablecoin market into the conventional financial world. Subsequently, by October’s end, $USDC hit a cumulative market capitalization of approximately $76.3B while $CRCL concluded the month at $82.64 with a 29.12% surge from the opening price of $64.
China Imposes Stringent Crypto Regulations, Covering RWAs, Stablecoins, and Mining Sectors
Following that, on the 29th of November, China declared the imposition of strict regulations on the crypto ecosystem. After the Chinese central bank’s meeting on the November 28, the authorities clarified that the digital currencies like stablecoins are not equal to fiat currencies in legal status. Hence, it was mentioned that the virtual currencies cannot act as currencies within the Chinese market.
Moving on, on the 5th of December, 7 key associations, including the China Securities Association, the China Banking Association, and the China Internet Finance Association, jointly released a risk warning. This re-emphasized that the financing, trading, and issuance of RWA tokens and virtual currencies are banned in China.
United States Permits Investment of Pension Funds into Crypto and Develops Strategic Bitcoin Reserve
On the 2nd of December, Paul S. Atkins, the Chairman of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission announce the anticipated issuance of an “innovation excemption” policy for crypto assets. As per him, the respective policy will permit the use of pension funds for crypto investment. Before that, in August, the U.S.President Donald Trump had signed an official executive order to develop a strategic Bitcoin reserve.
The respective reserve will reportedly include the $BTC that the federal government seizes through civil or criminal asset forfeitures. Additionally, the government will not sell funds in the reserve and use them in the form of a store of value. Overall, the U.S. Department of the Treasury has the responsibility to manage the reserve.
On-Chain Derivatives Market Booms Amid Rise of Prediction Markets and Stock Tokenization in U.S.
Moreover, the year 2025 also witnessed rapid development across on-chain derivatives industry, tokenized U.S. equities, as well as prediction markets. So, in the world of on-chain derivatives, Hyperliquid onboarded 609,700 exclusive consumers during 2025, and the cumulative trading volume hit $2.95T across 198.9B transfers.
Along with that, in the tokenized U.S. equities sector, the Ondo Foundation and Ondo Finance unveiled more than one hundred stocks and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) via Ethereum. As a result, the Ondo Global Markets has surpassed $5.5B in trading volume.
Furthermore, in the prediction markets, ICE, the New York Stock Exchange’s parent company, invested up to $2B, driving the valuation of Polymarket to $8B. Adding to this, Kalshi, the competitor of Polymarket, touched $5B in its funding round that Sequoia Capital and a16z led.
While discussing this, the Ethereum co-founder, Vitalik Buterin, acknowledged the potential of prediction markets. He asserted that these markets can play the role of a “rational tool” catering to diverse emotional issues.
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