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Andreessen Horowitz’s (a16z) 2025 Crypto Status Report highlights the industry’s transition to maturity. According to the report, the swift adoption by institutional investors globally, clearer regulations, and advanced infrastructure solutions have cemented cryptocurrencies’ place in the financial system. The company emphasized this turning point with the phrase, “the story of 2025 is the maturation of the cryptocurrency market.”
Institutional Adoption and Stablecoin Surge
a16z’s data reveals that the monthly active users in the Web3 domain range between 40 to 70 million. Although there’s a 10 million increase over the past year, this number still represents only a fraction of global cryptocurrency holders. It is estimated that around 716 million people worldwide own cryptocurrency. The report states that this user base is becoming increasingly professional, with a diversification in Web3 experiences.
According to the report, the stablecoin ecosystem made a historic leap in 2025. Thanks to the enactment of the GENIUS Act in the USA, legal uncertainties were eliminated, increasing trust in assets similar to a digital dollar. Over the past 12 months, the total stablecoin trading volume reached 9 trillion dollars. For comparison, PayPal’s annual transaction volume stands at 1.7 trillion dollars. The report highlights that the stablecoin market has become a stable demand source for US treasuries.
TradFi and Emergence of New Use Cases
a16z reports that the shift of traditional financial giants towards the cryptocurrency market has also accelerated. Institutions like Fidelity, JPMorgan, Mastercard, and Visa have entered the sector over the past 12 months. With this development, the transaction capacity of Blockchain reached 3,400 transactions per second, a 100-fold increase over the past five years. Increased institutional involvement significantly bolstered market liquidity and confidence.
According to the report, 2025 also became a year where new cryptocurrency use cases took center stage. Perpetual futures, prediction markets, and the tokenization of real-world assets became mainstream. a16z noted that these developments have transformed the cryptocurrency market from just a financial experiment platform into a component of the global infrastructure. Particularly, tokenization and on-chain derivatives emerged as some of the most noteworthy trends of 2025.
