According to CMC Q2 2025

Chapter 1: Market Overview

Global Crypto Market Cap $3.26 trillion (+22.1% in Q2 2025)

24hr trade volume $98.21bn (+8.8% in Q2 2025)

😐 Q2 2025: A Reset in Sentiment—From Fear to Greed to Neutral

This shift reflects growing caution. Early optimism carried over from Q1 of strong BTC & ETH ETF inflows, but sentiment peaked mid-May as altcoins underperformed, ETF inflows slowed, and no fresh catalysts emerged. June brought macro uncertainty, including hotter U.S. inflation data and geopolitical tensions in the Middle East briefly spiked crude oil and global volatility, further cooling investor confidence.

🧠 Key Insights:

1. Risk Appetite Faded Despite Market Cap Resilience

While total crypto market cap hovered around $3.29T, volume fell and investor optimism cooled. ETF flows remained net positive—+$473M in June—yet the Fear & Greed Index slid, showing cautious positioning and potential profit-taking.

2. Bitcoin’s Institutional Gravity Strengthened

BTC dominance jumped from 62.9% (last month) to 65% (current), while Ethereum slipped to 8.9%, echoing capital rotation into BTC and growing institutional preference for “safer” crypto exposure.

3. Sentiment Normalizing After Q1 Extremes

Q2 marked a psychological reset—investors moved from extreme pessimism in March to balanced neutrality by June. This could reflect stabilization after the volatility spike and regulatory headlines earlier in the year.

🧭 What This Means Going Into Q3

❌ No Altcoin Season in Q2 — Bitcoin Still Leads

Despite a few strong individual outliers, Q2 did not mark a broad-based altcoin rally. Bitcoin's dominance continued to rise, hitting a yearly high of 65%, reflecting institutional focus and risk aversion across the market.

🔍 Characteristics of Altcoins That Outperformed BTC in Q2:

✅ Memecoins & Community Tokens:

• $SPX (+160%), $WIF (+78%), $PEPE, $PENGU
• These tokens are often driven by social momentum, virality, and low liquidity — allowing for outsized moves even in a cautious market.

✅ Underdog L1 & Ecosystem Plays:

• $SEI, $KAS, $KCN, $TAO, $CORE
• Select Layer 1s and infrastructure tokens gained momentum from network upgrades, incentive programs, or narrative rotation.

🔮 What It Means for Q3

• BTC Will Likely Continue to Dominate unless a major catalyst — such as altcoin ETF approvals (e.g. for SOL, XRP, DOGE, etc.) — emerges to shift the market narrative.
• Hype-driven microtrends rather than structural altcoin revival: narratives like Payments, BTCLending, and AI/Agents could still deliver strong growth.

Bitcoin printed a continuous uptrend for the entire Q2: April +14.08%, May +10.99%, and June +2.67%.

Top Gainers/Losers This Month (from CMC Top 100 projects)

https://coinmarketcap.com/gainers-losers

Chapter 2  Market Sentiment: Unwrapping CMC's Unique Data

CoinMarketCap is the world’s most trafficked crypto website and the number one source of crypto data, insights, and community. By analyzing the viewing behavior of our millions of users, we can detect emerging trends and changing priorities within the global crypto community.

In this section, we unwrap our exclusive CMC data to cover:

• Most popular CMC categories
• Top coins per category
• CMC users around the world
• Most Popular Coins per Region
• Community Sentiment Check

Most popular CMC categories

In Q2 2025, crypto market interest shifted noticeably from early-year hype cycles toward more foundational infrastructure plays. While Q1 was marked by speculative surges in memecoins and AI narratives—driven by tokens like FLOKI, Mubarak—Q2 saw a return to fundamentals. The Ethereum ecosystem cemented its lead as the most viewed sector, while Layer 1s like Bitcoin and Solana sustained high visibility, signaling a user preference for established blockchains. Meanwhile, BNB Chain evolved from a meme-centric narrative in Q1 to a more balanced mix of infrastructure and community tokens in Q2. Real World Assets (RWA) and Payments continues to grow in user engagement and attention. Overall, the trend suggests users are moving past short-lived hype and refocusing on ecosystems and applications with perceived staying power.

Top coins per category

This chart highlights the Top 5 most viewed tokens within each trending sector on CoinMarketCap, offering a snapshot of where user interest is currently concentrated.

In Layer 1, Pi Network continues to attract attention despite limited exchange listings, signaling the power of grassroots community marketing and speculative interest in future token unlocks. In DeFi, MANTRA surged in views following its volatile Q2 performance—after a major rally earlier in the year, its sharp correction triggered widespread discussion. Hyperliquid, on the other hand, saw explosive growth in volume (~$650B in Q2), reflecting increasing appetite for decentralized perpetuals and suggesting traders are rotating into newer, high-speed trading platforms. In the BNB Chain ecosystem, the rise in visibility for BUILDOn etc. can be attributed to Binance’s promotional pushes via the Alpha program and BNB Chain’s accelerator grants—demonstrating how ecosystem-level support can quickly drive user attention. This aligns with Binance’s broader strategy to cultivate native innovation and community-led projects.

Together, these viewership trends suggest a broader market shift: from meme speculation toward infrastructure, ecosystem-backed growth, and emerging tech convergence (AI x crypto). User interest appears to be maturing—seeking specialized perp marketplace catering pro-traders, narrative-rich verticals, and strategic ecosystem alignment.

CMC users around the world

Between Q1 and Q2 2025, CoinMarketCap saw a clear shift in user concentration toward core markets. The United States led the surge, growing from 18.86% to 21.71% of total users—driven by renewed institutional interest, Bitcoin ETF momentum, and regulatory headlines. Circle’s IPO has been the golden moment that brought in significant institutional attention in the U.S. market. India and Indonesia also gained, with Indonesia jumping from 5.24% to 6.48%, reflecting rising retail adoption in mobile-first markets. In contrast, as the meme season cools down, Brazil, Turkey, and Nigeria saw declines. Overall, user interest is consolidating in regions with strong infrastructure and sustained investment narratives, signaling a more mature and fundamentals-driven market phase.

Most Popular Coins per Region

Most Bullish By CMC Community

https://coinmarketcap.com/best-cryptos/

Emerging Narratives to Watch

• CMC Daily Bullish Trending page is a  useful tool to track the tokens that are gaining bullish momentum quickly—watch for these as possible next narrative plays.
• The most recent daily trends are showing surprising strength in sentiment, hinting at community revival or renewed interest in tech-heavy projects.

Chapter 3 Market Pulse

Bitcoin

Diamond Hands Grew Their Holdings

Bitcoin (BTC) reached close to $112,000 on some exchanges this Q2, marking a new all-time high, even when adjusting for inflation.

Today, more than 15.9M bitcoins are controlled by long-term holders, i.e., entities that have held their BTC for at least 155 days. This figure is up 10.4% quarter-on-quarter (QoQ).

Meanwhile, the short-term holder supply fell 23.8% QoQ, showing that BTC is changing hands between short-term speculators and long-term believers.

The BTC on exchange balance continued to slide this quarter, with withdrawals spiking alongside Bitcoin’s price rallies. Just 2.05M BTC are now held by exchange wallets, its lowest value in more than 7 years.

U.S. Bitcoin ETFs saw rapid growth in Q2

U.S. Bitcoin ETFs saw rapid growth in Q2 2025, reaching roughly ~$130B in combined assets under management. iShares Bitcoin Trust (Blackrock) currently leads the way with 695.8k BTC held, achieving a 55.8% market share.

BTC Holder Demographics

Q2 saw the proliferation of Bitcoin treasury companies, including Strategy (formerly Microstrategy), Metaplanet, and MARA holdings. Together, these now control over 840,000 BTC, equivalent to ~4.2% of the circulating supply.

Nation-states hold roughly 2% of the supply: the US government (~198K BTC) and China (~190K BTC) lead, followed by the UK (~61K) and Bhutan (~13K). Kazakhstan is set to join the fray after announcing plans to establish a national crypto reserve.

BTC Hashprice Soared in Q2

Bitcoin’s hash rate continued to trend upward this quarter, reaching a peak of ~943.5 exahashes (943M terahashes) per second by mid-June before falling off somewhat.

BTC’s exploding value precipitated growth in the hashprice index — a measure of how much miners earn per hash contributed to the network. This now sits at $0.0586/THS/day and is still gaining.

The average Bitcoin mining cost is up 14% QoQ and 8.4% year-to-date (YTD) but profitability is up due to soaring prices.

Layer-1

Popular Gas Tokens Saw Gains

Following a tough Q1, the gas tokens of most popular L1 platforms experienced growth this quarter.

Ethereum (ETH) was the best-performing L1 token among the top 5 by mcap, achieving a 36.1% gain this quarter. This comes alongside the appearance of new ETH treasury companies and the May 2025 Pectra upgrade. It showed strong growth on the back of the Feb Bybit ETH hack that has tanked ETH price.

SOL and TRX posted gains of 24.5% and 20.4% respectively.

Much of Solana’s Q2 momentum can be attributed to the anticipation of SOL spot ETFs. At the same time, TRX saw a significant expansion in stablecoin transactions.

BNB experienced less volatility than its rivals but saw more muted gains of 8.8% QoQ. There has been a significant growth of memecoins and AI projects on BNB chain. The recent BNB MVP and AI hackathon has attracted many quality new projects to build on BNB. With the upcoming US-listed companies adding BNB as treasury, this should further drive up BNB price in Q3.

Daily Active Addresses Across Major L1s

Most L1s saw their daily active addresses (DAAs) fall or hold steady this Q2, with just Ethereum and BNB bucking the trend.

Ethereum saw DAAs climb 17.2% following a sustained period of low transaction fees. The Uniswap V4 router is currently by far the hottest DeFi contract on the network by user count.

BNB saw its DAAs surge by more than 140% this quarter, thanks to the growth of the chain’s memecoin ecosystem and user base. Fueled by the success of BNB's no-code "Memecoin Solution" platform and Meme Liquidity Program, memecoins like Tutorial (TUT) drove activity on the chain.

Tron saw its DAAs slide 4.2% QoQ despite increased stablecoin transfer volumes while Cardano saw an equal decline, after struggling to onboard new users despite renewed interest following stockpile plans.

Despite a brief surge in early June, Solana DAAs remained flat across Q2. This comes alongside a cooling of the Solana memecoin sector. The L1 achieved 100% uptime over the last 16 months.

In terms of transactions, most top L1s saw an improvement in their daily tx counts, but none are currently operating at close to their maximum throughput.

The Rise of BNB

BNB Chain secured the spot as the second most popular network by on-chain activity.

Daily DEX volumes soared from $982.8M to a peak of $21.2B, briefly surpassing all other chains in mid-June. Current levels remain elevated at ~$1.5Bday.

Despite the traffic surge, BNB Chain’s fee revenue dropped from $801.8K to $279.8K/day in Q2 due to the Habor hard fork, improving affordability.

The chain’s roadmap execution, including block capacity upgrades, MEV protection, and faster finality, enabled it to absorb the demand surge without major slowdowns.

Binance Labs supported the frenzy with a $4.4M Meme Liquidity Program, securing BNB Chain’s dominance as Q2’s memecoin hub.

Layer-2

Exchanges (CEX & DEX) Launch L2s

Between Q1 and Q2, DEXes grew their spot volume market share from 12.4% in March to 28.4% as of June.

CEXs and DEXs are now building L2s to control UX, reduce fees, and capture sequencer revenue.

Uniswap launched Unichain in February 2025—built on Optimism’s OP Stack, and the first rollup to debut with Stage 1 security. Despite an initial slow start, it is now the fourth-largest L2 by TVL.

Kraken’s L2 “Ink” launched in Q4 2024, but the Ink Foundation didn’t announce the launch of the INK token until June 2025. Tokens will be initially airdropped to users.

In late June, Robinhood announced plans to launch an Arbitrum-based L2, aiming to power the 24/7 trading of tokenized stocks. It is expected by Q4 2025.

Base, currently the largest L2 by TVL, earned $14.7M in sequencer fees in Q2, proving the financial viability of the model.

Polygon Labs also unveiled a new DeFi-focused zk-powered L2 chain, which may evolve into a direct competitor to Unichain.

Daily Active Addresses for Top 5 L2s by TVL vs Ethereum

The top 5 L2s by TVL also saw growth in their DAAs, with the Optimism Mainnet almost doubling its user activity in Q2.

Base dominated Q2 with DAAs consistently above 1M/day, peaking at 3.7M in early June. It remains the only L2 to dramatically exceed the Ethereum L1 in user engagement.

Major upgrades to several L2s are expected in H2 2025, including Base’s 200ms blocks and 50 Mgas/s throughput update, Optimism’s Season 8 governance overhaul (Aug 1), and Arbitrum’s ongoing ArbOS enhancements.

Daily Transactions for Top 5 L2s by TVL vs Ethereum

Three L2s regularly exceeded Ethereum's daily transaction counts this quarter — Base, Polygon PoS, and Arbitrum.

Most also saw growth in their daily transaction figures, but Polygon PoS saw its counts slip 3% QoQ.

Unichain saw the most dramatic increase in daily transactions, surging from 245K to 1.4M tx/day over the last quarter, equivalent to a 471% gain. It also led the L2 space by TVL growth, gaining 9,110% and soaring from $9.4M to $865.8M.

Unichain’s growth was fueled by the Gauntlet-backed $5M UNI liquidity mining campaign as well as the rollup boost upgrade.

DeFi

DeFi TVL up 24% in Q2, Driven by ETH Price Recovery

TVL Market Share by Chain

Hyperliquid has hit a milestone this quarter: HYPE had over $1.57T worth of on-chain perpetuals trading volume in the past 12 months, with revenue over $300M. HLP Vault recovered from April’s $177M to June’s $377M signifies users' confidence in the platform. After its mainnet launch in Feb, HyperEVM has now achieved $1.2B in TVL

Uniswap's launch of Unichain advanced its $UNI liquidity incentive campaign, driving rapid TVL growth from $9M at Q1's end to $874M by Q2's close.

Berachain experienced a significant setback, with a 2.87% market share decline and an 80% TVL drop from Q1. Low yields from Boyco pre-deposit and the complexity of its PoL consensus drove funds outflow.

TVL by Sector

Lending, Liquid Staking, and Bridge remained the top three sectors by TVL, with each reaching more than 30% QoQ growth.

While most sectors had TVL gains, the CDP and Yield sectors stayed essentially steady, with little change.

Top 10 DeFi Apps

Hyperliquid dominated the perpetual DEX market

HYPE’s $648B trade volume in Q2 accounted for over 60% of the perps DEX market share, 10 times more than the next competitor.

Several aspects appear to be driving HYPE's success. Their HYPE airdrop promotion and fair point system drove a significant increase in trading volume during November and December of last year. Besides, the professional-grade UX and rich API design help retain traders. Hyperliquid has built a loyal community, a cult drowned in by arbitrage opportunities and deep liquidity. Top traders like James Wynn, also helped draw more attention. Furthermore, buyback and burn for $HYPE helps to maintain the price momentum.

BNB’s leading perp dex Aster also saw a spike in trade volume in early June, jumping from 3% ($2.5B) market share to 11.9% ($11.4B).

Jupiter continued to see a decline in market share, falling from 8.66 % ($6.4B) to 4.76 % ($3.2B) in Q2. As new perp dexs come onto the market, liquidity is further fragmented, top 2 dexes HYPE and Aster capture majority of the volume.

RWA

Stablecoin MarketCap Grew 7.46% in Q2, reaching $247.9B

USD1's market cap surged from $57M to $2.2B this quarter, driven by its Binance listing, a $2B investment from MGX, and an aggressive trading campaign on PancakeSwap.

USDT continues to dominate, adding $14.1B in market cap and slightly expanding its lead—even as other stablecoins like USDS and FDUSD also posted quarterly growth.

USDC held firm in second place with a $1.3B increase, boosted by investor enthusiasm following Circle’s IPO.

PYUSD maintained strong momentum, growing 28.5% QoQ and approaching the $1B milestone.

In contrast, USDS and FDUSD saw sharp declines, down -8.85% (-$403M) and -42.79% (-$1.08B) respectively.

Adjusted Stablecoin Transfer Volumes

According to Artemis data (adjusted for MEV and intra-CEX transfers), monthly stablecoin trading volume remains robust at around $2 trillion—highlighting continued strong demand.

Tron and Ethereum consistently dominate, together accounting for over 50% of total stablecoin volume. Ethereum led in March and April, but Tron took the lead in June.

BNB Chain saw a notable surge, now representing 8.6% of total stablecoin volume—up more than 4x from $63.1B in April to $296.8B in June. While USD1 contributed to this growth, the bulk of the volume still comes from USDT transactions tied to Binance CEX and its Alpha initiatives.

RWA Landscape: Private Credit and US Treasuries Dominate

As of June 29, over 88% of tokenized Real-World Assets (RWA) are concentrated in just two categories: Private Credit (58.1%) and US Treasury Debt (30%), reflecting investor preference for yield-bearing and relatively low-risk instruments.

Private Credit accounts for the largest share, with $10B primarily driven by Figure’s activity on the Provenance Blockchain. This highlights a growing appetite for alternative fixed-income products outside of traditional banking channels—mirroring broader trends in private credit expansion across both TradFi and DeFi.

Meanwhile, tokenized US Treasuries have become a backbone for on-chain liquidity strategies, now totaling $7.38B in value. Leading the charge is BlackRock’s BUIDL fund, which has captured nearly 39% of the Treasury-backed RWA market. Its integration with DeFi protocols (via USDC instant redemption and Wormhole multi-chain access) has made it especially attractive for on-chain treasuries, DAOs, and yield aggregators such as Ondo, Frax, and Ethena.

Memes

Memecoins Underperform YTD

Despite a strong recovery in Q2, most top meme coins performed far worse than the market average when measured YTD

Using the CMC 100 Index as a benchmark, most top 100 memecoins performed very poorly. The index posted a 1.8% gain YTD, whereas the average memecoin in CMC100 lost 28.5%.

Prominent memes like Dogecoin (DOGE), Shiba Inu (SHIB), Pepe (PEPE) and Bonk (BONK) are all down around 48-51% apiece.

Barring a brief rally in April owed to much-maligned Trump Dinner accumulation spree, the OFFICIAL TRUMP (TRUMP) meme has declined steadily since its January launch.

SPX6900 (SPX) and Fartcoin (FARTCOIN) were the only top 100 memecoins to gain YTD, up 32.2% and 17.8% respectively

Pump.Fun Revenue Trends Downward

Pump.fun saw its revenue slowly decline throughout Q2, as interest moved away from Solana-based memecoins.

The platform announced plans to raise $1B at a $4B fully diluted valuation (FDV) in early June. Sentiment surrounding the raise is generally negative, with some calling it a “max extraction” event.

Pump.fun tokens now graduate to Pump.Swap, its native DEX, instead of Raydium, marking a shift to an integrated launch-to-trade pipeline that makes post-launch tracking more difficult.

Memecoin Mania Migrated From SOL to Base/BNB

Base memecoins surged, led by Brett (BRETT) crossing an $850M market cap and 850K+ holders after its listing on Coinbase Futures. Others like Toshi (TOSHI) and Degen (DEGEN) also gained traction in Q2.

BNB Chain saw strong momentum with tokens like Test Token (TST), Floki (FLOKI), CZ’s Dog (BROCCOLI), and Simon’s Cat (CAT), capturing over 45% of global memecoin DEX volume in June.

Solana’s memecoin activity collapsed ~68% QoQ, with top tokens like WIF and BONK losing steam. Solana’s DEX volume fell from $250M/day to under $80M/day, highlighting a clear shift in retail hype toward Base and BNB.