Binance Research reviews cryptocurrency market in 2025 and themes for 2026

The report said total crypto market capitalization briefly topped $4 trillion in 2025 and Bitcoin reached a new all-time high, but the broader market finished the year down about 7.9% after a volatile range that took total value from roughly $2.4 trillion to about $4.2 trillion.

On Bitcoin, the report described stronger financial demand alongside softer base-layer activity. It said U.S. spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds accumulated more than $21 billion of net inflows in 2025 and corporate holdings exceeded 1.1 million BTC, or about 5.5% of supply. Network security metrics rose, with hash rate surpassing 1 zettahash per second and mining difficulty up about 36% year on year, while active addresses fell about 16% year on year and transaction counts stayed below prior cycle peaks.

Across major networks, the report said performance diverged as activity did not consistently translate into fees and value capture. It noted Ethereum remained the largest hub for developers and decentralized finance liquidity, while Solana grew stablecoin supply and was cited as having secured U.S. spot ETF approval. The report also pointed to BNB Chain as the best-performing major asset in 2025, linking it to retail transaction volume, trading activity and stablecoin settlement flows.

In decentralized finance, the report put total value locked at about $124.4 billion and said protocol revenue rose to about $16.2 billion. It said real-world asset value locked reached roughly $17 billion and exceeded decentralized exchanges, while stablecoin market capitalization climbed to more than $305 billion. The report also claimed average daily stablecoin transaction volume rose to about $3.54 trillion in 2025 and that six newer stablecoins, including BUIDL and PYUSD, surpassed $1 billion in market value.

For 2026, the note highlighted themes including regulated access via exchange-traded products, tokenized collateral and cash equivalents, stablecoin rails in payments, on-chain execution in trading, prediction markets, and AI-agent payment flows, alongside regulatory implementation such as OECD Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework reporting starting on Jan. 1, 2026.