Crypto news

CoinGlass data shows that forced liquidations in crypto derivatives reached about $150 billion in 2025, a small part of an $85.7 trillion annual turnover. The figure mainly reflects routine margin maintenance as leveraged long positions hit thresholds. The shock began on Oct. 10 when Trump-issued tariffs triggered a global risk-off, driving spot prices down. This pushed many leveraged longs into liquidation, and auto-deleveraging (ADL) swept across the top four venues, amplifying the fall in Bitcoin and thin-liquidity altcoins. The episode exposed the fragility of a derivatives-dominated market where a handful of venues, high leverage, and backstops can turn normal risk-containing mechanisms into a crash-engine.

Ripple Labs settled its 2025 SEC lawsuit, cementing a 2023 ruling that treats XRP as a security. The ruling lifted XRP to a July all-time high of $3.65, the highest price since 2018, before falling to around $1.90 by mid-December. Ripple launched its dollar-backed stablecoin RLUSD, reaching a $1.3 billion market cap and expanding into Singapore payments and Mastercard-linked settlements. The company acquired Hidden Road, GTreasury, Rail, and Palisade for over $2.5 billion, boosting its valuation to $40 billion after a $500 million investment. XRP ETFs debuted in 2025, with Rex Shares and Osprey’s Act 40 ETF drawing $38 million on launch and later spot ETFs generating nearly $1 billion in net inflows.

Uniswap Labs and Foundation passed a proposal to activate protocol fees and burn millions of UNI, turning the token from a governance tool into a value‑accruing asset. Over 125 million votes supported it, with only 742 opposed. The change will redirect a portion of the $2 billion daily trading volume into on‑chain burns, and a retroactive 100 million UNI—worth about $590 m—will be burned. UNI has risen 2.5 % to $5.92 after the vote.

Blockchain privacy surged this year, with Zcash topping gains and the Ethereum Foundation launching multiple encryption projects, signalling a shift toward ‘pragmatic privacy’ that balances anonymity and compliance. New chains: Aztec Ignition L2 raised $61 M; Nillion’s blind‑computer on Near and Arbitrum; Namad launched a composable privacy Layer‑1; Miden spun from Polygon after a $25 M raise; Umbra raised $155 M; Horizen moved to Layer‑3 on Base. Corporate moves: Coinbase used Iron Fish primitives for Base; Circle tested a privacy‑preserving USDCx; enterprise networks like Canton and Nightfall emphasize confidentiality. Ethereum formed a Privacy Cluster, released the Kohaku wallet framework, and added 0xbow’s Privacy Pools and Railgun to Kahaku. Zcash’s Zebra 3.1 upgrade raised its shielded supply to nearly 25 %, marking steady growth in privacy adoption.

Dogecoin’s 2025 saw a political surge when Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) linked the meme coin to U.S. politics, briefly lifting prices before legal challenges and policy missteps led to a sharp dump, dropping the token about 65% over the year. Meanwhile corporate interest grew, with ETFs, treasury firms, and the Dogecoin Foundation’s House of Doge pushing the coin into corporate deals, soccer branding, and a leveraged ETF. Those moves failed to spark a new all‑time high, leaving the community focused on 2026 utility rather than speculation.

2025 saw memecoins explode from niche jokes to headline‑making trades: TRUMP and MELANIA tokens launched by the U.S. president, Argentina’s LIBRA, AI‑driven FARTCOIN, platform token PUMP, celebrity YZY, Dogecoin’s first ETF, and the BNB Chain meme token 4. Each token exposed flaws: political endorsements triggered conflict‑of‑interest debates, LIBRA’s crash exposed state‑level scams, FARTCOIN showed AI hype could revive mania, PUMP turned launchpad infrastructure into a “casino,” YZY and MOTHER revealed celebrity pump‑and‑dump tactics, while PIPPIN’s rally was traced to a handful of wallets.

President Trump enacted a crypto‑friendly agenda in 2025, pardoning Ross Ulbricht, creating a U.S. Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, signing the GENIUS Act to regulate stablecoins, repealing an IRS rule that would have forced DeFi operators to share user data, and approving faster ETF listings. He also oversaw a settlement with Ripple that left the 2023 judgment on XRP intact. Bitcoin surged to new all‑time highs, spurring big‑wallet activity from dormant whales and the continued buildup by Strategy, which now holds over 3 % of the supply. The market saw a historic $20 B deleveraging that hit Binance, prompting a $283 M payout, and a $1.4 B ETH theft from Bybit’s cold wallet, the largest exchange hack to date. The year also featured memecoin turbulence, with Dave Portnoy launching JAILSTOOL amid backlash, and Ripple co‑founder Chris Larsen moving $140 M in XRP. Regulatory shifts and market volatility defined 2025’s crypto landscape.

Uniswap's governance approved the UNIfication proposal, shifting the protocol to a deflationary model by redirecting trading fees to a burn pool. The plan will immediately burn 100 million UNI tokens after a 48‑hour timelock. The move consolidates Uniswap Foundation duties to Labs, drops interface fees, and creates a UNI‑funded annual growth budget, amid regulatory changes under the SEC.

Bitcoin’s 2025 was marked by a sharp boom‑to‑bust cycle that masked a flat yearly chart. The US government formalised a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, and states followed, signalling Bitcoin as a sovereign asset. Wall‑street banks, the SEC and OCC cleared the path for institutional trading, with 60 % of the top 25 US banks now offering Bitcoin custody and brokerage. BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust attracted over $25 billion in inflows, while ETFs gained in‑kind redemptions and options. The rally’s excess led to a steep correction to below $90 k, eroding miner profitability and forcing the top ten miners to pivot toward AI and HPC contracts, turning mining into hybrid compute centers. The year proved that structural adoption does not guarantee price growth.

US ETF markets hit a “triple crown” in 2025, topping inflows ($1.4 trillion), launches (1,100+), and volume ($57.9 trillion)—the first time all three peaked together since 2021—driven by three years of double‑digit S&P 500 gains. Crypto‑ETF rotation is stark: Bitcoin ETFs lost $629 million and Ethereum $512 million in December, while XRP spot ETFs added $470 million in a 28‑day inflow streak, and Solana drew $132 million amid a 53 % decline, highlighting regulatory clarity. With many altcoin ETF applications pending, 2026 could bring a surge of new products as institutional investors shift beyond Bitcoin and Ethereum toward assets with clear regulation and real‑world use, a trend that may shape the next chapter of the ETF boom.