Crypto Industry in Q2 2025: The first quarter of 2025 witnessed one of the largest quarterly declines in crypto market history, with an 18% drop in total market capitalization. Sharp declines in Bitcoin, Ethereum, and trading volumes resulted in millions in investor losses.
However, a new CoinGape Report offers a snapshot of a recovering crypto industry in Q2 2025. According to the report, the crypto market rebounded, surging 19% by the end of June. Although the early weeks of the quarter were marked by a steep decline—market cap falling to $2.76 trillion—the industry regained momentum, reaching $3.29 trillion by quarter’s end.
This recovery was fueled by several key developments during Q2 2025, including:
1. The cooling of tensions surrounding the Trump Tariffs turmoil
2. Bitcoin reaching a new all-time high of $112,000
3. Ethereum successfully completing its Pectra Upgrade
4. Significant regulatory advances, such as the passage of the STABLE Act and the GENIUS Act in the U.S. Senate
5. The conclusion of the Token2049 Conference in Dubai, the largest global gathering of crypto leaders.
Bitcoin Surpasses Gold And S&P With 30% Gain
In Q2 2025, the CoinGape report shares that Bitcoin reached its All Time High at $111,814 on May 22, 2025 – the Bitcoin Pizza Day.
Though the largest crypto begin the Quarter with $76,000 in the first week of April, it closed the Quarter at $107,500. This led to an overall gain of 30% in the whole Quarter.
This gain surpassed the S&P 500’s gain of 25% and Gold’s gain of 11% for Q2. Both S&P 500 and Gold followed the same trajectory as Bitcoin, declining in the early Q2 but reclaiming good levels by the end of June.
Further, the Report highlights that the Bitcoin Spot ETFs recorded their second-highest monthly inflow in May 2025. ETFs netted $9.4 billion in Q2 – more than tenfold Q1’s $900 million – led by BlackRock’s IBIT, Fidelity’s FBTC, and Bitwise’s BITB.
In terms of memecoins, the quarter’s best performer was LaunchCoin, which exploded 40,000 percent following its May rebrand, while Solana memecoin $Aura soared 24,000 percent in June.
Also Read: Michael Saylor’s New Bitcoin Strategy
Ethereum Closes Q2 With 33% Gain Amid Pectra Upgrade
Ethereum dipped below $1,480 in April amid hack fears following Bybit’s $1.5 billion ETH breach. However, Ethereum rebounded post-Pectra upgrade, surging 43 percent to trade above $2,800 on June 11.
Spot ETH ETFs attracted $1.44 billion in Q2, with BlackRock’s ETHA (+459,381 ETH), Fidelity’s FETH (+90,000 ETH), and Grayscale’s ETHE all posting strong inflows.
Solana’s Price Surges in Q2 Amid Instituional Interest
The report highlights that Solana’s price rose 22 percent to $180 mid-May, while total value locked (TVL) jumped 30 percent. This ened up in adding over $2 billion in on-chain assets.
Institutional interest for SOL also picked up as Janover invested $31 million in SOL and partnered with Kraken to operate validators. This comes as the multiple Solana ETF proposals are under discussion for Q3/Q4 launches.
BNB Chain Surpasses Ethereum and Solana in DeFi DEX Trading Activity
DeFi TVL surpassed $119 billion by May 29, its highest level since January. Ethereum remained the clear leader in TVL throughout Q2 2025. As of June, Ethereum’s DeFi TVL was roughly $62.4 billion, while BNB Chain’s was about $5.5 billion—placing BNB Chain only third behind Solana ($8.6 billion).
The Coingape report highlights that though not by cumulative DeFi TVL, BNB or the Binance Smart Chain (BSC) did have the highest on‑chain DEX trading activity (volume) in Q2 2025. BNB Chain led network‐level activity with a 600 percent spike in on-chain trades, while Hyperliquid dominated perpetuals with 65 % share.
Further, Solana overtook Ethereum in cumulative engagement metrics, and Bitcoin DeFi protocols saw 20 percent TVL growth, reaching $6.9 billion.
Category breakdowns showed lending protocols driving growth – Maple Finance’s TVL soared 195 percent to $1.44 billion – while DEXs like PancakeSwap outperformed Uniswap and Raydium amid memecoin mania.
Stablecoins’ Market Supply Surpassed $250 Billion
Total supply surpassed $250 billion on June 8. Tether’s USDT grew by $12 billion to $150 billion supply, while Trump-backed USD1 leaped from $100 million to $2.1 billion within 24 hours of its April 14 launch.
Yield-bearing coins (sUSDS, USDe) saw relative share dip to 4.5 percent as SyrupUSDC spiked 340 percent.
The report attributes this to the increased regulatory clarity in the period – e.g. the GENIUS Act spurring institutional talks including JP Morgan’s JPMD trademark filing.
Binance Maintains Dominance in CEX Spot and Derivatives Trading
Similar to Q1 2025, the report highlights that the led Exchange Binance continued its Dominance I the CEX Spot Trading with 30% market share. Bybit secures second place with a major difference in market share at just 6%. Coinbase, OKX, Crypto.com follow respectively then.
In terms of perpetuals too, the ranking remains same viz., – Binance, OKX, Bybit .
For Decentralized Exchanges (DEXs), the report ranks PancakeSwap as the No.1 DEX in terms of Spot trading volume for Q2 2025. While for perpetuals, Hyperliquid maintains the lead.
In the crypto wallet segment, MetaMask continued to dominate in-wallet swaps with 65 percent market share. While OKX Wallet and Bitget continuing to struggle for dominance in Asia.
L1 & L2 Network Updates Hype Up the Crypto Market
For the crypto market quarter ending June 30, 2025, Ethereum’s average DeFi TVL was roughly $62.4 billion, well ahead of any other chain. However, by pure on‑chain transaction counts (or TPS), Tron actually processed more daily transactions in April 2025 than Ethereum, Solana and BNB Chain combined.
On the decentralized‑exchange front, BNB Chain led all L1s in Q2 2025, logging over $7.8 billion in aggregated DEX volume – far outpacing both Ethereum and Solana over the same period.
By App Revenue & Developer Activity, Solana posted the highest application‑revenue in Q2 – over $1 billion in app fees.
The L1 landscape was also marked by significant updates. EOS rebranded to Vaulta on April 15; Ethereum’s Pectra upgrade and Solana’s Agave client released boosted capacity; Cardano and Kaspa rolled out key updates; and Bitcoin Core announced OP_RETURN expansion for future October 2025.
Among Layer 2s, the report reveals that Coinbase’s Ethereum L2 network Base led with 41.8 percent of rollup TVL and saw DEX volume double post-Pectra.
Sectoral Trends
The report shares key highlights of the major sectors of the crypto market, namely,
RWA: BUIDL’s TVL hit $2.9 billion (56 % growth), and new tokenized equity offerings gained traction.
AI Agents: Valuations project toward $47 billion by 2030, buoyed by Grayscale’s new AI funds.
Gaming/NFT: Play-to-Earn market grew 30 percent to $8.8 billion, even as art-NFT volumes fell.
Lending: Total TVL in lending rose 37 percent; Leading TradeFi giants such as Cantor Fitzgerald entered the crypto lending race. Cantor launched a $2 billion Bitcoin-backed program via Maple.
Security Losses and Regulatory Developments in Q2
Despite Q1’s record breaches, Q2 of crypto market saw $373 million in losses. The report shares that out of these, 67 percent of the breaches were tied to Solidity exploits with Coinbase disclosing a breach affecting 69,461 users.
Regulatory developments included the UK’s crypto leverage ban, U.S. stablecoin acts (STABLE/GENIUS), and the SEC’s withdrawal of expanded DeFi custody rules.
Funding Activity Down by 42% Despite M&A Surge
An interesting fact revealed by the Coingape report for the Q2 2025 is that the fundraising activity slumped 42 percent to $3.37 billion (excluding Circle’s $1.1 billion IPO). However, the M&A activity picked up highlighted most notably by the Coinbase’s $2.9 billion Deribit acquisition. The report shared that VCs shifted toward finance accounting for 39 % of raises followed by AI at 25 %.
Partnerships also flourished in Q2, from OKX & Standard Chartered’s collateral program to Chainlink’s cross-chain RWA settlement deal with JPMorgan and Ondo.
What’s Next For The Crypto Market in Q3 2025
The Q2 2025 in overall concluded as a positive quarter for the crypto market and the industry. The report predicts that the institutional momentum and regulatory clarity should continue to propel cross-border tradfi–crypto integration into the second half of 2025.
This comes as Q3 is set to be marked by key events such as the Bitcoin 2025 conference in Washington D.C., and anticipated CME Solana futures.
Source: https://coingape.com/brandtalk/research/crypto-market-reverses-q1-decline-with-19-gain-bitcoin-outpaces-gold-coingape-q2-2025-report/