đź“– Market Recap 2025
After a strong up only run throughout 2024, markets turned choppy in 2025. Bitcoin’s price action has been highly volatile following its break to new all-time highs, while the altcoin market has faced a particularly difficult period, with many tokens declining by more than 50%.
Despite this turbulence, 2025 has also marked a meaningful shift for the crypto industry moving away from pure speculation and increasingly toward real-world utility and adoption.
The global crypto market pushed past A$6.16 trillion in total value. That growth did not come from hype alone. It came from people actually using crypto to move money, earn yield, and access financial tools that did not exist a few years ago.
Adoption tells the same story. More than 716 million people worldwide now own crypto, a sharp jump year over year. That is close to one in ten people on the planet holding digital assets. Crypto is no longer niche. It is global.
Stablecoins were one of the quiet winners of the year. On-chain dollar tokens processed trillions of dollars in transaction volume, increasingly rivaling traditional payment networks for speed and cost. For many users, crypto is no longer just an investment. It is infrastructure.
DeFi continued to mature. Lending, staking, and on-chain yield products attracted steady capital as users looked for alternatives to traditional savings and banking tools. Networks scaled, apps improved, and using DeFi became easier and cheaper.
You can feel the difference in 2025. Crypto is not trying to prove it belongs. It already does, and you are part of it.
BTC
Bitcoin set the tone in 2025. BTC traded well above prior cycle levels hitting A190,261 and held strong despite volatility, reinforcing its role as digital scarcity. With a fixed supply and increasing long-term holders, Bitcoin continues to attract capital as both a macro hedge and a conviction asset.
Although BTC is currently 30% from all time highs set in October, BTC has led the charge again in 2025 seeing $6 Billion dollars in volume from ETF trading alone.
ETH
ETH strengthened across the year as on-chain activity surged. Lower fees, faster settlement, and consistent upgrades pushed more developers and more users onto the network. DeFi, NFTs, and tokenised assets still run on Ethereum first.ETH has underperformed BTC through 2025, keeping the ETH/BTC pair in a long-term downtrend that reflects Bitcoin’s relative strength this cycle. If ETH decisively breaks above this trend line, it could signal capital rotation into Ethereum and broader altcoins, potentially marking the start of an alt season. 2026 is going to be a fun watch.
PAXG
PAX Gold (PAXG) up 64.47% YTD has been one of the stronger performers in 2025 as investors leaned toward stability. Each PAXG token is backed 1:1 by physical gold held in professional vaults, giving holders on-chain access to real gold.
This year, demand for tokenised gold increased during periods of market volatility, helping PAXG outperform many risk assets. Interest also grew alongside traditional gold ETFs as investors sought inflation protection and safer exposure within crypto.
Support from Paxos’ regulated infrastructure and rising institutional interest in tokenised commodities further strengthened confidence in PAXG’s long-term role as digital gold.
As this chart highlights, PAXG has broken out and outperformed BTC in 2025, driven by rising gold prices and growing interest in tokenised real-world assets.
BCH
If we think of BTC as digital gold (storage). Think of BCH as digital cash. It increased block size so more transactions can fit into each block. That makes transactions faster and cheaper on chain, which is why BCH is often used for everyday payments and transfers.Bitcoin Cash (BCH) up 28.54% YTD is accepted by a wide range of merchants and businesses around the world as a payment option, especially through crypto payment gateways. You can spend BCH at many online and physical merchants listed on directories of over 3,400 companies that accept it globally.
BNB
BNB’s ecosystem up 25.11% YTD lit up this year as meme coins drove huge trading volume on the BNB Chain. A wave of viral tokens including themed coins like “4,” and several community-driven projects pushed user engagement and fees to multi-chain highs, with some tokens posting triple-digit gains and hundreds of millions in daily volume. CZ’s comments on a “BNB meme season” helped fuel the narrative and brought renewed attention to the chain’s retail trading base.
Like most memes, 4 flew high fast and came back down just as quickly. The token is now about 90% off its peak.
Sonic (S)
Its HODL day on the 18/12/25 and this is the coin you did not want to HODL this year.
Sonic (S) started 2025 with a big rebrand from Fantom, sparking early momentum and a price spike as traders got excited about its high-speed Layer-1 ambitions and new developer fee rewards.
As hype faded and a security breach affected cross chain bridges Sonic’s price has slid sharply and is now down around 88.8% from its peak.
Cointree Year in Review
This year marked a big step forward for Cointree, with a strong focus on security, product improvements, and deeper engagement with the Australian crypto community.
We rolled out major platform upgrades, including improved deposit functionality, a significant SMSF product upgrade, and enhanced security with two-factor authentication (2FA) to better protect your account.
A standout milestone was Cointree becoming the first exchange in Australia to list a licensed Australian dollar stablecoin, Forte AUD (AUDF). This gives customers direct access to a fully AUD-backed, on-chain stablecoin.
Beyond the platform, Cointree strengthened its industry presence. Our continued partnership with Melbourne Storm saw players trade crypto for charity, hosted and participated in multiple investor webinars, and sponsored key events including AusCryptoCon, the SMSF Association Conference, and DA List. Our team also featured at DECA Conference, with our CEO Jess Rendon taking the stage.
BGL Reg Tech saw us take to the skies to sponsor events all around Australia to promote our SMSF product and whilst being named a Blockies finalist capped off another strong year.
Finally, we celebrated a major milestone, Cointree’s 12th birthday! A reminder of how far we’ve come together.
Thank you for being part of the journey.
