Variant Researcher: Infographic on 2025 crypto market hot trends

Author: Alana Levin

Compiled by: Deep Tide TechFlow

Note: The images in the text have been translated for sections with more text. For more details, please refer to the full report.

Excited to release my “2025 Cryptocurrency Trends Report”!

The report depicts the growth of the crypto industry as three intertwined S-curve stories: asset creation, asset accumulation, and asset utilization.

From this perspective, the report predicts the future direction of the industry based on five key thematic areas: macroeconomics, stablecoins, centralized exchanges, on-chain activities, and frontier markets.

Our position on each curve helps to identify remaining startup opportunities and foreseeable favorable development trends.

From a macro perspective, the scale of major crypto assets continues to expand. Although the number of tokens in the market has reached a new high, the value concentration of the top ten crypto assets remains remarkably stable.

Asset accumulation is a self-reinforcing cycle: the more people hold a certain asset, the faster its value grows, and the more likely it is to become a beneficiary of the “Lindy Effect” (the Lindy Effect refers to the idea that the longer something has existed, the greater its chances of surviving in the future).

This trend is particularly evident among the top five cryptocurrencies—there have been almost no new assets entering this tier in recent years.

However, there is one asset class that is not included in the above chart, and that is stablecoins.

New stablecoins are emerging at a record pace.

The first $100 billion supply took more than 80 months, the second $100 billion took more than 40 months. Now, we expect the third $100 billion supply to be achieved in less than 12 months.

Create → Accumulate + Utilize

Stablecoins are being widely used in various products and scenarios, including payments, lending protocols, exchanges, and even as a wealth storage tool.

The utilization rate of stablecoins remains a huge opportunity for startups.

We have begun to see some early signs of productization, such as yield products, lending, consumer payments, and receiving/accepting payments, but this is just the beginning!

In the future, the productization direction of stablecoins will also include credit systems, privacy transactions, fund coordination, and more areas such as “buy now, pay later” (BNPL).

The next section will focus on centralized exchanges (CEXs):

Centralized exchanges have greatly benefited from the favorable trend of “accumulation.” As more and more people wish to buy, sell, and hold cryptocurrency assets, they often choose centralized exchanges, which has also brought them trillions of dollars in trading volume.

Exchanges are complex businesses. Companies like @Coinbase have built robust business lines around users' secondary needs, such as custody services, staking services, and yield products.

Many new ways of utilizing crypto assets will be built directly on the chain, but may achieve strong distribution capabilities through centralized exchanges such as @Coinbase, @RobinhoodApp, and @krakenfx.

So, why will the future of asset utilization be built on the chain?

On-chain activities are a breeding ground for innovation. Every stage of the asset lifecycle can be experimented with on-chain, whereas these steps are often constrained by restrictions and permissions in traditional finance.

Moreover, new users can now start their on-chain exploration more easily than ever before - this means that anyone, regardless of location or age, can begin to create, accumulate, and utilize crypto assets.

About creation: The number of new tokens created is one of the fastest-growing charts in the cryptocurrency space.

As a result, the total trading volume has surged, and the development of decentralized exchanges (DEX) continues. The market share of DEX in the first six months of 2025 has exceeded the total from 2021 to 2023.

Another area where early signs of asset utilization can be observed is on-chain lending. Assets in lending protocols (such as @Morpho) have grown more than 5 times over the past few years and continue to grow!

@Morpho is also a great example that showcases the emerging trend of “building on-chain, distributing globally, and utilizing.”

It is worth noting that the S-curve of asset creation still has room for development. So, where can we find such opportunities? Of course, it's on-chain!

An important new category of tokens is those created by institutions. Tokenized Treasuries are one of the first representatives among numerous emerging instances.

Similarly, we are beginning to see experimental explorations of on-chain equity. Many designs are currently being tested, which may lead to a diverse spectrum of tokenized equity products in the future.

Ultimately, the term “RWA” (Real World Assets) will expand to encompass a broader range of product types and token constructions than currently exist. These new assets will not only have intrinsic value but will also catalyze a new wave of asset accumulation and utilization demand.

The final part of the report focuses on frontier markets, predicting that the market will become a typical case, demonstrating how products can be transformed into platforms through cryptographic technology.

The ability of cryptographic technology to transform products into platforms is not new. We have already witnessed this in perpetual contracts (such as @HyperliquidX) and lending protocols (such as @Morpho).

Therefore, if you are thinking about where to explore in the future, why not start exploring on-chain!