Written by: Glassnode
Translated by: AididiaoJP, Foresight News
Amidst the current market pullback and macroeconomic pressures, we have partnered with Fasanara Digital to release a report analyzing the evolution of core ecosystem infrastructure, including spot liquidity, ETF flows, stablecoins, tokenized assets, and decentralized perpetual contracts, in the fourth quarter.
Digital assets are at one of the most structurally important phases of this cycle. Driven by deep spot liquidity, historic capital inflows, and demand for regulated ETFs, Bitcoin has moved beyond its three-year expansion phase. Market focus is shifting: fund flows are becoming more concentrated, trading venues are maturing, and derivatives infrastructure is showing greater resilience in the face of shocks.
Based on Glassnode's data insights and Fasanara's trading perspective, this report outlines the evolution of market structure in 2025. We focus on analyzing the liquidity restructuring in the spot, ETF, and futures markets, the scale changes in the leverage cycle, and how stablecoins, tokenization, and off-chain settlement are reshaping capital flows. These trends collectively outline a market architecture that is significantly different from previous cycles and continues to evolve. Here is a summary of the key takeaways:
Key Takeaways:
Bitcoin has attracted over $732 billion in new funds, exceeding the total of all previous cycles combined, pushing its realized market capitalization to approximately $1.1 trillion, during which time its price has increased by over 690%.
Bitcoin's long-term volatility has nearly halved, decreasing from 84% to 43%, reflecting continued increases in market depth and institutional participation.
Over the past 90 days, Bitcoin's total settlement value was approximately $6.9 trillion, on par with or even higher than the quarterly transaction volume of traditional payment networks such as Visa and Mastercard. While on-chain activity has shifted somewhat as trading activity moves towards ETFs and brokers, Bitcoin and stablecoins still dominate on-chain settlements.
ETF daily trading volume has grown from a base of less than $1 billion to over $5 billion, peaking at over $9 billion per day (e.g., after the deleveraging event on October 10th).
The tokenized real-world assets (RWA) market grew from $7 billion to $24 billion in one year. Its low correlation with traditional crypto assets contributes to improved stability and capital efficiency in DeFi.
The decentralized perpetual contract market experienced explosive growth and continues to show momentum: the market share of DEX perpetual contracts increased from approximately 10% to 16-20%, with monthly trading volume exceeding $1 trillion.
Venture capital activity remains closely linked to the altcoin cycle, primarily concentrated in mature and high-profile areas such as exchanges, core infrastructure, and scaling solutions.
This cycle is led by Bitcoin, driven by spot trading and supported by institutional funds.
Bitcoin's market share is approaching 60%, indicating a return of funds to highly liquid mainstream assets, while altcoins are correspondingly correcting. Since November 2022, Bitcoin's share has risen from 38.7% to 58.3%, while Ethereum's share has fallen to 12.1%, continuing its trend of underperforming Bitcoin since its merger in 2022. Bitcoin attracted $732 billion in new funds from its cyclical low to its trough, exceeding the total of all previous cycles combined. Ethereum and other altcoins also performed strongly, with gains exceeding 350% at their peak, but they did not outperform Bitcoin as they had in previous cycles.
Liquidity deepened and long-term volatility decreased, but leverage effects persisted.
The Bitcoin market structure has significantly strengthened, with daily spot trading volume increasing from $4-13 billion in the previous cycle to the current $8-22 billion. Long-term volatility continued to decline, with 1-year realized volatility falling from 84.4% to 43.0%. Meanwhile, futures open interest reached a record high of $67.9 billion, with the CME accounting for approximately 30%, demonstrating significant institutional participation.
On-chain activity is migrating off-chain, but Bitcoin and stablecoins remain the mainstays of on-chain settlement.
Following the approval of US spot ETFs, the number of daily active Bitcoin entities on-chain decreased from approximately 240,000 to 170,000. This primarily reflects a shift in activity towards brokers and ETF platforms, rather than a decline in network usage. Despite this migration, Bitcoin still settled approximately $6.9 trillion in value over the past 90 days, comparable to the quarterly processing volume of major payment networks like Visa and Mastercard. After adjusting for Glassnode entities, the actual economic settlement volume still reached approximately $0.87 trillion per quarter, equivalent to $7.8 billion per day.
Meanwhile, stablecoins continue to provide liquidity support for the entire digital asset ecosystem. The total supply of the top five stablecoins has reached an all-time high of $263 billion. USDT and USDC combined have an average daily transaction volume of approximately $225 billion, with USDC exhibiting a significantly higher velocity of circulation, reflecting its greater use for institutional and DeFi-related fund flows.
Tokenized assets are expanding market financial infrastructure.
Over the past year, the size of tokenized real-world assets (RWAs) has surged from $7 billion to $24 billion. Ethereum remains the primary settlement layer for these assets, currently holding approximately $11.5 billion. BlackRock's BUIDL, the largest single product, has grown to $2.3 billion, more than quadrupling in size this year.
With continued inflows of funds, tokenized funds have become one of the fastest-growing asset classes, opening up new distribution channels for asset management firms. This reflects the expanding scope of asset tokenization and the increasing institutional acceptance of tokenization as a distribution and liquidity channel.
