$BTC Bitcoin Volatility Hits All-Time Low; Stablecoin Transactions Outperform Visa

ARK Invest has released its “Big Ideas 2025” report, revealing significant milestones in the digital asset space. In 2024, Bitcoin’s annual volatility fell to an all-time low, with its one-year annualized volatility falling below 50%, in stark contrast to the 80% seen in 2022 and over 100% in 2018. This drop in volatility was accompanied by a remarkable 122.2% return for Bitcoin in the same year.

The report attributes Bitcoin’s successful year to several factors, including the launch of 11 spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in the United States in January, which ARK Invest described as the “most successful ETF launch in history.” By the end of 2024, these US spot Bitcoin ETFs had accumulated over $100 billion in net assets.

Furthermore, following the quadrennial halving event in April, Bitcoin’s inflation rate slowed to 0.9%, marking the first time its issuance rate has lagged behind the long-term growth in gold’s supply.

According to CoinTelegraph, stablecoins also had a banner year in 2024, with their annualized transaction value soaring to $15.6 trillion. This figure surpasses the transaction values ​​of Visa and Mastercard by approximately 119% and 200%, respectively. While the number of monthly stablecoin transactions reached 110 million, just a fraction of those processed by Visa and Mastercard, the value per stablecoin transaction was significantly higher than that of the card networks.