State of Crypto 2025: The year crypto went mainstream
From all-time highs and the rise of stablecoins to the convergence of crypto and AI
2025 is the year the world came onchain.
When we launched our first State of Crypto report three years ago, the total crypto market was worth about half what it is today. Blockchains were much slower, more expensive, and less reliable. The industry was still in its adolescence.
Since then, crypto builders weathered a major market drawdown and political uncertainty — but the advances they made are now paying off. Today, crypto is becoming a meaningful part of the modern economy:
Stablecoins power $46 trillion in annual transactions ($9 trillion, adjusted), rivaling Visa and PayPal
Blockchains now process 3,400 transactions/second in aggregate
In DeFi, 20% of spot crypto trading now happens on decentralized exchanges
Crypto exchange-traded products now hold $175 billion in onchain assets
Check out the report and key takeaways
FOLLOW THE DATA
Explore the metrics that matter: Introducing the new ‘State of Crypto’ dashboard
The State of Crypto dashboard is designed to be an evergreen resource for tracking the progress of the crypto ecosystem, with metrics like stablecoin volume, mobile wallet users, ETF flows, and proprietary data on builder activity across blockchains and categories. The crypto market moves fast, and key metrics shift just as quickly, so the dashboard captures how the landscape continues to evolve.
DEEP DIVE DISCUSSION
‘Unmistakable signs of mainstreaming:’ on this year’s most — and least — surprising trends
This year’s report features new insights, from job market shifts into and out of the industry to trends in global crypto adoption.
The latest episode of web3 with a16z goes into the data and themes with the authors of the report: Head of Data and Fund Strategy Daren Matsuoka, CTO Eddy Lazzarin, and editor Robert Hackett.
They discuss stablecoins’ big year, the inevitability of blockchain privacy, and the state of Bitcoin’s store-of-value narrative. They also dig into the regulatory vibe shift, crypto’s mainstreaming, and the use cases bringing more people into the space: prediction markets, perpetual futures, and tokenized real-world assets.
Key moments:
02:39 Overview of the 2025 State of Crypto report
05:04 The evolution and mainstreaming of crypto
08:27 Crypto’s market cycles and all-time highs
12:08 The price-innovation cycle
15:40 Memecoins, stablecoins, and entrepreneurship
17:25 AI and attracting tech talent
21:18 Crypto adoption and user metrics
26:58 Airdrops, farming, and changing metas
31:24 Bitcoin’s resurgence as a store of value
42:09 Institutional adoption and market dynamics
50:08 The evolution of stablecoins
54:20 The growing role of stablecoins in the global economy
01:00:54 The importance of privacy in crypto
01:08:46 Tokenization of real-world assets
01:20:46 Perpetual futures and prediction markets
01:29:41 Outlook for the future
🎧 Further listening: Hear more about the state of crypto from Eddy and Daren on Bankless
📊 Further reading: Check out past reports from 2022, 2023, and 2024
— a16z crypto editorial team
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The $46 trillion in stablecoin transactions really puts things in prespective. We're beyond the expermient phase now and into genuine infrastructure competition with traditional payments. What really jumps out is the difference between crypto's adjusted volume versus reported volume. That 5:1 ratio shows how much more mature the metrics are becoming when we strip out the noise. The stat about 20% of spot trading happening on DEXs is wild considering where that was just three years ago. I think the privacy discussion you raised in the podcast is going to become central as more institutional capital comes onchain. Right now everyone is excited about transparency and compliance, but the second real enterprise data hits public blockchains the demand for confidential compute is going to exploade. Overall this is probably the most balanced State of Crypto report yet because it acknowledges real progress without getting euphoric about it.
Very insightful! What are you perspectives about Gold backed stablecoins?