Investment fund a16z has released a new report on the crypto market for 2025. The main conclusion: the industry has finally matured.
The reason is the influx of institutional money, growing interest in stablecoins, the emergence of clear infrastructure, and the first clear regulatory rules.
“The story of this year is the maturing of crypto. Institutions are coming in, infrastructure is strengthening, new products are going mainstream, and regulators are finally starting to speak clearly,” the report’s authors note.
Mass adoption of crypto
According to the a16z report, the monthly audience of Web3 now ranges between 40–70 million active users. Over the past year, about 10 million more have joined this number.
However, compared to the total number of cryptocurrency holders, about 716 million people, this figure remains only a small part. This highlights that despite the growth, the market is still at an early stage of mass adoption.
The stablecoin market is soaring amid new rules
According to a16z, in 2025 the stablecoin market showed rapid growth. Primarily thanks to the emergence of clear rules in the US. The law adopted in the country, GENIUS , became a turning point for the mass adoption of such assets.
Over the year, more than $9 trillion passed through stablecoins — many times more than through PayPal, which had $1.7 trillion over the same period.
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In addition, stablecoins have become some of the main buyers of US government bonds. This is especially noticeable as other countries are actively selling off US debt, which has already surpassed $38 trillion.
Traditional finance enters crypto
Over the year, dozens of major players from the traditional financial sector joined the crypto market — among them Fidelity, JPMorgan, Mastercard and Visa. These are not just big names: with their arrival, blockchain throughput has increased sharply. Now they process up to 3,400 transactions per second — hundreds of times more than five years ago.
New use cases for crypto
In 2025, crypto has established use cases that were previously considered experiments. Perpetual futures, prediction markets, and tokenization of real-world assets — all three areas have become part of everyday use. Crypto is moving further away from the image of a purely speculative tool.
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