Just in the first quarter of 2025, institutional cryptocurrency trading volumes jumped by a staggering 141% year-over-year. This increase took place even as Bitcoin suffered its sharpest price drop since 2022. The stablecoin sector ended up being the most resilient during this slump. Its total market capitalization surged over $230 billion, a stunning 56% rise from last year. All of this growth happened as Bitcoin prices pulled back down under $75,000 in March, essentially undoing the price runup towards those pre-election levels.
January was an incredible month for institutional cryptocurrency trading volumes. They exploded with an extraordinary year over year growth of 163.5% vs last year at this time. On Jan. 25, decentralized marketplace Finery Markets logged a record $1.8 billion in trading volume, underscoring growing trend of activity on the fringes of the crypto market.
The emergence of stablecoins overlapped with tectonic regulatory movements with Europe. Due to the European Union’s newly enacted Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation, USDT was forced to be delisted. This decision created a big opportunity for USDC to become the dominant stablecoin. USDC was a remarkable success story, growing 32x YoY.
Crypto-to-stablecoin transactions were up five times from Q1 2024. Pending stablecoin legislation This move reflects a larger trend towards the use of stablecoins in the support of cryptocurrency transactions.
"The differential between transaction types suggests a clear institutional preference for stablecoins, likely driven by their enhanced utility in bridging traditional finance and the crypto space,"
Those same five altcoins—SOL, LTC, XRP, TRX and ADA—accounted for just 4.7% of trades collectively. This indicates that investors are looking to the few prominent stars of an otherwise much bigger altcoin galaxy.
"The crypto OTC market continued its strong growth trajectory in Q1 2025,"
