CoinGecko Annual Report: 2025 Crypto Market Cap Plummets 23%, Stablecoins Surge Against the Trend

CoinGecko Annual Report shows that the crypto market cap plummeted 23.7%, a 10.4% decrease year-over-year. However, stablecoins surged 48.9% to a new high of 311 billion USD, with market predictions soaring 302.7%, CEX perpetual contracts reaching a record 86.2 trillion USD, and DEX perpetual contracts skyrocketing 346%. DAT company invested 49.7 billion USD to acquire over 5% of Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Gold rose 62.6%, while Bitcoin declined 6.4%.

Q4 Total Market Cap Plummeted 23.7%, Liquidation Events Triggered Crash

(Source: CoinGecko)

In the last quarter of 2025, the crypto market experienced a sharp correction, with total market cap falling 23.7%, ending the year at 3 trillion USD. This marked the first annual decline since 2022, with a 10.4% decrease year-over-year. Although the quarter briefly hit a historic high of 4.4 trillion USD, a historic 19 billion USD liquidation event in October caused prices to drop sharply.

The total crypto market cap declined 23.7% in Q4, losing 946 billion USD, ending the year at 3 trillion USD, a 10.4% decrease. This is the first annual decline recorded in CoinGecko data since 2022. Starting in Q4 2025, the market performed strongly, reaching a historic high of 4.4 trillion USD. However, this peak was not sustained, and prices continued to decline into late November, entering a volatile range until the end of the year.

The trigger for this decline was the historic 19 billion USD liquidation event triggered on October 10th after the US announced a 100% tariff on China. This was one of the largest single-day liquidation events in crypto history, indicating extremely high leverage and significant fragility in the market. As prices started to fall, high-leverage positions were forcibly liquidated, causing a chain reaction that further accelerated the decline.

Meanwhile, daily trading volume in Q4 grew to 161.8 billion USD, setting a yearly high, up 4.4% quarter-over-quarter. This growth was mainly driven by the liquidation event and subsequent high volatility. Despite falling prices, market volatility pushed daily trading volume to annual highs. However, as the market entered a consolidation phase, trading volume gradually declined. This “price down, volume up” phenomenon shows that market participants traded frequently amid volatility but lacked clear directional confidence.

Stablecoin Market Cap Hits 311 Billion USD, PYUSD Emerges as a New Player

(Source: CoinGecko)

In Q4 2025, the total stablecoin market cap increased by 6.3 billion USD, reaching a record 311 billion USD at the end of the quarter. The full-year stablecoin market grew 48.9%, adding 102.1 billion USD. This is one of the most notable highlights in the CoinGecko report, showing that even as the overall crypto market declined, demand for stablecoins as infrastructure continued to grow strongly.

The biggest change in Q4 was the depegging of Ethereum ecosystem stablecoin Ethena’s USDe, which plummeted 57.3% (a decrease of 8.4 billion USD) after a rapid deleveraging in mid-October. Due to the Binance de-pegging event, USDe’s supply fell from a peak near 15 billion USD to 6.3 billion USD, severely damaging investor confidence in high-yield cyclical strategies.

At the same time, PayPal’s stablecoin PYUSD surged, with market cap increasing 48.4% (adding 1.2 billion USD) to reach 3.6 billion USD, successfully ranking as the fifth-largest stablecoin, replacing World Liberty Financial’s USD1. Its growth was driven by YouTube’s new creator earnings payout feature and Spark Savings Vault offering approximately 4.25% yield. PYUSD’s rise demonstrates the power of traditional tech giants entering the stablecoin market, with YouTube’s integration bringing a large user base.

Asset Decoupling Evident: Gold Up 62.6%, Bitcoin Down 6.4%

This year, the crypto market showed signs of decoupling from traditional assets, with gold rising 62.6%, and the US stock market performing strongly, while Bitcoin declined 6.4%. In 2025, gold was the best-performing asset, with a total increase of 62.6%. In the fourth quarter alone, gold grew 11.4%, mainly driven by central banks’ continued gold purchases and tariff-related uncertainties. Following closely were the US stock indices, with Nasdaq up 20.5% and S&P 500 up 16.6%, supported by ongoing AI narratives.

In contrast, commodities and equities performed strongly, while Bitcoin underperformed, declining 6.4% for the year. Assets that performed worse than Bitcoin include the US dollar index (down 10.0%, affected by rate cuts and political changes) and crude oil (down 21.5%, due to global oversupply and record-high production by non-OPEC countries).

2025 Asset Performance Rankings

Gold: +62.6% (driven by safe-haven demand and central bank purchases)

Nasdaq: +20.5% (AI narrative dominance)

S&P 500: +16.6% (strong US equities)

Bitcoin: -6.4% (institutional inflows unable to offset liquidation impacts)

US Dollar Index: -10.0% (rate cuts and political factors)

Crude Oil: -21.5% (oversupply)

Institutional Adoption Deepens: DAT Company Invests 49.7 Billion USD

However, institutional adoption further deepened, with DAT company deploying at least 49.7 billion USD in 2025 to acquire over 5% of the total supply of Bitcoin and Ethereum. The third quarter was the peak of investment, accounting for half of the annual total, mainly due to a surge of emerging altcoins and DAT company’s acquisitions. However, investment slowed significantly in Q4, with only 5.8 billion USD invested.

As of January 1, 2026, DAT company held a total of 134 billion USD in crypto assets, a 137.2% increase from 56.5 billion USD on January 1, 2025. DAT currently holds over 1 million Bitcoin and 6 million Ethereum, accounting for more than 5% of their total supply. This institutional-level long-term holding provides underlying support for the market.

Market transaction volume is predicted to surge 302.7%, reaching 63.5 billion USD. CoinGecko reports that the annual trading volume of centralized exchange perpetual contracts hit a record 86.2 trillion USD, up 47.4% year-over-year. Decentralized exchange perpetual contracts surged 346% to 6.7 trillion USD. These figures indicate that even with falling prices, market infrastructure and utility continue to expand.