Q1 2025 Crypto Assets Market Review: Total market capitalization declines, Bitcoin dominance rises

At the beginning of 2025, the crypto assets market experienced a turbulent quarter, in stark contrast to the boom at the end of 2024. The total market capitalization of crypto assets in the first quarter fell by 18.6%, ending at $2.8 trillion, a significant drop from the January 18 peak of $3.8 trillion. The market's trading activity also declined, with the average daily trading volume dropping by 27.3% to $146 billion.

In the context of a generally sluggish market, Bitcoin has demonstrated strong resilience, with its market dominance reaching 59.1% at the end of the quarter, the highest level since early 2021. Although Bitcoin set a historical high of $106,182 in January, it had fallen back to $82,514 by the end of the quarter, a decline of 11.8%.

Ethereum performed poorly this quarter, with its price plummeting from $3,336 to $1,805, a decline of 45.3%, wiping out all gains for 2024. Other major crypto assets such as Solana, XRP, and BNB saw relatively smaller declines.

The Meme coin market has experienced a sharp drop after a brief period of prosperity. Politically related Meme coins once triggered a craze, but then suffered heavy losses due to a "runaway" incident involving a token promoted by the president of a certain country. The number of new tokens added daily on the Pump.fun platform plummeted by 56.3% from a peak of 72,000 to 31,000.

Centralized exchanges (CEX) spot trading volume reached $5.4 trillion in the first quarter, a 16.3% decrease compared to the previous quarter. A well-known trading platform still holds a dominant market position, with a market share of 40.7% in March. Notably, HTX is the only one among the top ten exchanges that achieved an increase in trading volume, with a growth rate of 11.4%.

In the field of decentralized exchanges (DEX), Solana has continued its strong performance since the end of 2024, holding a 39.6% market share in the first quarter. In January, driven by the "political Meme coin" craze, Solana once accounted for 52% of on-chain transactions. However, as the popularity of Meme coins waned, Ethereum regained its leading position in March.

The DeFi sector was not spared from the impact of the market downturn. In the first quarter, the total locked value (TVL) of cross-chain DeFi evaporated by $48.9 billion, a decrease of 27.5%. Ethereum was particularly hard hit, with its TVL dominance dropping from 63.5% at the beginning of the quarter to 56.6% by the end. Meanwhile, the emerging public chain Berachain rapidly rose after its launch in February, reaching a TVL of $5.2 billion by the end of the quarter, entering the top six DeFi ecosystems.

Overall, the cryptocurrency market in the first quarter of 2025 shows a clear adjustment trend. Although Bitcoin demonstrates a certain degree of resilience, the overall market still faces numerous challenges. With the continuous emergence of new public chains and projects, the market landscape may continue to change in the future.