In the first quarter of 2025, the cryptocurrency market experienced a significant decline in key indicators, which sharply contrasts with the high growth rates seen at the end of 2024. According to a report by CoinGecko experts, the total capitalization of the cryptocurrency sector decreased by 18.6% or $633.5 billion, totaling $2.8 trillion. This followed a peak of $3.8 trillion on January 18, 2025, just before the inauguration of U.S. President Donald Trump, after which the market began to steadily decline.
This is reported by Business • Media
The average daily trading volume fell by 27.3% compared to the last quarter of 2024, indicating a decrease in market participant activity. Against this backdrop, Bitcoin’s market share has increased, reaching over 59%. This is confirmed by CoinGecko data, illustrating the growing dominance of the oldest cryptocurrency.
Changes in Market and Asset Structure
According to the research, the share of stablecoins has increased: USDT rose to 5.2%, while USDC reached 2.18%. At the same time, Ethereum’s share decreased to 7.9%, marking a new low since 2019. On the other hand, XRP and BNB maintained their positions among the top assets.
By the end of the quarter, Bitcoin showed a decline of 11.8%, losing ground to U.S. Treasury bonds and gold. The latter asset demonstrated the best growth at 18%. Ethereum, in turn, suffered a significant drop of 45.3%, returning to levels seen at the end of 2023, making it the largest “anti-leader” among underperforming assets during this period.
Trading Dynamics and Asset Popularity
The decrease in interest in meme coins is confirmed by data from the platform pump.fun: the number of new tokens fell by 56.3%, and the share that crossed the liquidity threshold decreased almost by half—from 1.4% to 0.7%. This indicates a weakening of popularity and activity in this area.
The spot trading volume on the 10 largest centralized exchanges decreased by 16.3%, with Binance leading the market at 40.7% of this share. The only exchange that increased its metrics was HTX, with an 11.4% gain, while Bybit suffered the largest losses at 52.4%, due to a hack of nearly $1.5 billion.
In the DeFi sector, Solana leads with a 39.6% share; however, in March, it fell behind Ethereum—23.35% compared to 30.09%. The total value locked (TVL) in this sector decreased by 27.5%, with Ethereum down by 35.4%, and Solana and Base at approximately 23.5% and 15.3%, respectively. This reflects the overall trend of declining activity and capitalization in the decentralized finance sector.