Crypto Market Review (Q3 2025)
San Francisco • Oct 17, 2025
For the past 15 years, crypto has been largely synonymous with bitcoin.
The past three months added a new chapter to the book.
Q3 2025 will go down as the quarter that crypto got a second story, with “stablecoins and tokenization” taking its place alongside “digital gold” as a key narrative for crypto.
On July 17, Congress passed the GENIUS Act, providing a comprehensive regulatory framework for stablecoins. This gave a green light to traditional financial institutions to embrace stablecoins and sparked a massive bull market in stablecoin-linked assets.
Over the quarter, Ethereum rose 65%, followed by assets like Chainlink (+58%) and Solana (+32%). Bitcoin rose just 6%.
But it was more than just returns. As the pages of this report show, metric after metric linked to stablecoins and tokenization reached new heights:
Stablecoin AUM soared to all-time highs exceeding $275 billion.
Stablecoins settled more value than Visa (and it wasn't close).
Ethereum Layer 2s posted record activity, rising 18% over the previous quarter.
Tokenized assets—a close cousin to stablecoins—hit a new high-water mark.
None of this means we’re bearish on bitcoin, of course; far from it. We expect bitcoin’s price to exceed $1 million within a decade.
But we’re bullish on these new use cases for crypto. And as this report shows, they’re gaining traction—fast.
Download the Full Report
Access this report for key data points that shaped crypto markets in recent months.
Bitwise Asset Management is a global crypto asset manager with more than $15 billion in client assets and a suite of over 30 investment products spanning ETFs, separately managed accounts, private funds, hedge fund strategies, and staking. The firm has an eight-year track record and today serves more than 4,000 private wealth teams, RIAs, family offices and institutional investors as well as 15 banks and broker-dealers. The Bitwise team of over 125 technology and investment professionals is backed by leading institutional investors and has offices in San Francisco, New York, and London.
