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We’re not even at the midway point, yet 2025 has arguably been the most talked-about year for crypto so far. From Trump coins to Bitcoin breaking its price ceiling, Coinbase joining the S&P 500 and crypto funds’ net assets soaring to new heights, the industry is really starting to come into its own.
One thing’s for sure, the last six months of the year have a lot to live up to. Here’s a rundown of the biggest industry stories in 2025 to this point.
Circle Debuts on NYSE
Circle Internet Group, issuer of the USDC stablecoin, made waves last week after conducting an initial public offering (IPO) on the New York Stock Exchange. Priced at $31 per share, the stock finished at $83.23 – 168% above its IPO price. Moreover, momentum continued into the following day (June 6) when shares jumped another 30%, closing at $107.70. All considered, Circle raised $1.145 billion from selling 39 million shares.
It’s hard to overstate the significance of these figures: USDC is a bonafide top 10 cryptocurrency and the second largest stablecoin after USDT with a market cap of $61 billion. According to Jay Ritter, world-leading expert on IPOs, Circle’s two-day moonshot of almost 250% makes it the best performing IPO of any that raised $500 million or more since 1980!
KuCoin Pledges $2 Billion to Trust Project
Trust is a term that gets bandied about rather a lot in the Web3 world, and all the big players talk a good game about fostering trust and transparency throughout the ecosystem. Leading exchange platform KuCoin, though, is putting its money where its mouth is, having committed $2 billion to Trust Project, an initiative with an industry-wide focus.
Announced by CEO BC Wong during TOKEN2049, the long-term project will fund security enhancements, increase transparency, strengthen regulatory collaboration, and bootstrap educational initiatives to empower users. With $2bn in the war chest, the Trust Project’s effects are likely to be felt far and wide.
The ByBit Hack
One of the most talked-about stories in crypto this year was undoubtedly the Bybit hack, which saw a band of notorious cybercriminals audaciously pull off a $1.5 billion heist – perhaps the biggest robbery in history. The perpetrators, the North Korea-allied Lazarus Group, are believed to have already cashed out at least $300 million of the loot while evading authorities. While ByBit moved to assure customers their funds were safe, the event was a massive black-eye for the company.
The $LIBRA and Melania Scandals
Suffice to say it hasn’t all been positive this year. Away from ten-figure IPOs and initiatives, the industry suffered reputational damage during the $LIBRA meme token scandal.
If you were living in a cave at the time, you may have missed it: Argentine president Javier Milei’s apparent promotion of the project led to a swift pump and crash, with investors shouldering $250m worth of losses. Accusations of a rug pull followed, and though Milei has since been exonerated by the country’s Anti-Corruption Office, the fallout from the scandal hasn’t exactly disappeared. Bubblemaps, a platform whose forensic-grade analytics tool was built to help users avoid outright scams, warned users about investing in the project after noting that its team had removed USDC and SOL from liquidity pools. $LIBRA was later included in their summary of case studies.
$LIBRA hasn’t been the year’s only scandal; there was also $MELANIA, a memecoin tied to the First Lady. A subsequent investigation determined that a small group of traders earned almost $100 million by buying the token in the minutes before it was made public; Bubblemaps sounded the alarm on this one too, drawing attention to the fact that team wallets held 92% of the token supply.
Mavryk Marks Landmark Moment for Real-World Assets
Real-World Assets (RWAs) seek to bring physical infrastructure to the blockchain, and a report produced earlier this year by Security Token Market suggests $30 trillion worth of RWAs (stocks, gold, bonds, real estate) could be tokenized by 2030.
We’re five years away from then, but big things are happening with RWAs right now: it was recently announced that Dubai-based MultiBank Group has signed a $3 billion tokenization agreement with real estate giant MAG and RWA-centric Layer-1 blockchain Mavryk. By bringing MAG’s luxury real estate projects onto a fully regulated RWA marketplace, the partners are transforming the way physical assets are accessed and traded.
Coinbase Buys Major Derivatives Exchange in $2.9Bn Deal
Last month, we learned that leading U.S. exchange Coinbase had acquired derivatives exchange Deribit in a mega deal worth a whopping $2.9 billion, comprised of $700 million in cash and 11 million shares of Coinbase Class A common stock.
Given that the Dubai-based Deribit facilitated over $1 trillion in trading volume last year, the buy-out strengthens the market share of Coinbase while marketing its expansion into the derivatives market. Indeed, it may be the single biggest deal in the history of crypto.
Stanford Grads Bet Big on Crypto: More Universities to Follow?
While $28 million might sound modest compared to some of the other sums quoted in this article, venture fund Blockchain Builders, which is made up of members of the Stanford crypto community, deserves special attention for injecting the capital into Web3 startups. Having already deployed $16 million across 40 ventures, the firm has its finger firmly on the pulse, evidenced by its financing of the likes of Nexus and 0G.
Interestingly, a second fund is now being explored that would expand its scope beyond Stanford and into other top universities like Carnegie Mellon, Princeton, and Yale. The involvement of some of the world’s most renowned universities is hopefully a sign of things to come, not just in the States but further afield.
Well, there you have it. If this doesn’t build anticipation for the rest of 2025, nothing will!
