Concise content:
📉 The macro decline has significantly affected cryptocurrency market cap and trading volume shrinkage.
🏆 Binance's market share continues to rise steadily as the leader.
🪙 Bitcoin's market cap share continues to rise, while altcoins are under pressure.
💎 Ethereum: The ecosystem is weak, valuation has halved.
🤡 Meme coins: A winter after the carnival.
💰 DeFi has significantly contracted, with SOL dominating on-chain spot trading.
Key data changes:
🔸 The total cryptocurrency market cap fell by 18.6%, peaking at $3.8 trillion.
🔸 BTC's dominance increased to 59.1%.
🔸 BTC fell by 11.8%, underperforming compared to gold and U.S. Treasuries.
🔸 ETH fell by 45.3%, erasing its gains in 2024.
🔸 Meme coins have plummeted, with Pumpfun's deployment volume dropping by 56.3% after the Libra incident.
🔸 CEX spot trading volume is $5.4 trillion, a month-on-month decrease of 16.3%.
🔸 Solana dominated Q1 DEX trading (39.6%).
🔸 Multi-chain DeFi TVL decreased by $48.9 billion (-27.5%).
Summary and reflections:
🌍 The power of cycles is inevitable: macro events such as Trump's inauguration, U.S. tariffs, and the Bank of Japan's interest rate hikes indicate that the cryptocurrency market is no longer an isolated 'digital utopia,' but increasingly interconnected with global political and economic situations. In the future, analyzing the cryptocurrency market will require an increasingly macro perspective.
❄️ The winter of Q1 2025 is not only a cyclical adjustment but also a process of the industry weeding out the false. In the future, compliance, technological innovation, and real application scenarios (such as RWA, payment protocols, etc.) will enable the industry to generate actual cash flow away from the aerial narrative.
🏦 The security and stability of centralized exchanges are the core competitive advantages of exchanges, winning long-term trust from users and achieving 'the strong get stronger.' The homogeneity of exchanges is serious, and Binance significantly differs from others in capturing user attention, activity, and funds in Q1 2025. Despite market criticisms, users will vote with their feet, and data represents the most genuine trust curve.
⛓️ The co-prosperity and shared losses of Ethereum and its ecosystem: The significant decline of ETH reflects its high binding with application ecosystems like DeFi and NFT. When these areas cool down or risk appetite decreases, ETH often faces greater impacts, and the overall health of the Ethereum ecosystem is on the verge of collapse.
💎 Narrative-driven and value return: The frenzy and rapid cooling of meme coins, Solana briefly surpassing Ethereum due to meme coin trading, and the immense influence of short-term market sentiment and narrative on price and activity. However, in the long run, technology, applications, and real value creation (such as the actual utility of DeFi, the performance and security of public chains) may be the cornerstone supporting the market's sustainable development (e.g., Sui). When the tide recedes and the bubble bursts, true value will gradually emerge.
Below is the detailed report content👇
1️⃣ Overall market performance: The total cryptocurrency market cap has significantly declined, and trading activity has decreased.
🔸 In Q1 2025, the total cryptocurrency market cap declined by 18.6% from its peak of $3.8 trillion at the beginning of the year to $2.8 trillion, marking a significant drop.
🔸 Investor activity has declined simultaneously, with average daily trading volume decreasing by 27.3%, from $200.7 billion in Q4 2024 to $146.0 billion, reflecting a cautious market sentiment.
2️⃣ Bitcoin's share increases, while altcoins are under pressure.
🔸 Bitcoin's market share has risen to 59.1%, reaching its highest level since 2021.
🔸 In contrast, Ethereum's (ETH) market share decreased to 7.9%, the lowest since 2019, with its price crashing from $3,336 to $1,805, erasing all gains from 2024.
🔸 Altcoins are generally under pressure, especially meme coins have plummeted, with the daily new token deployment on the Pumpfun platform dropping by 56.3% and meme coins retreating after Trump.
🔸 Bitcoin fell by 11.8% in Q1, with the Nasdaq index and S&P 500 also experiencing declines greater than Bitcoin, while gold rose by 18%.
3️⃣ Changes in the landscape of centralized exchanges.
🔸 The spot trading volume of the top ten exchanges is $5.4 trillion, a month-on-month decrease of 16.3%.
🔸 Binance remains the industry leader, with a spot market share of 40.7% at the end of March, and its share has continued to rise throughout the quarter.
🔸 Other mainstream exchanges like Coinbase, Bybit, Upbit, etc., have experienced varying degrees of market share decline. HTX is the only mainstream exchange with counter-cyclical growth, Upbit plummeted by 34% month-on-month, and Bybit's monthly trading volume fell sharply by 52.4% due to a hacking incident.
This quarter saw hacking incidents (Bybit) and compliance issues (OKX wallet), which impacted market share. Exchanges are all competing for user attention, activity, and funds, but what truly determines long-term user trust and fund retention is the platform's security and stability.
The increase in Binance's market share is largely related to wallet IPOs, the hot BNBChain, Alpha market empowerment, and the increased frequency of Launchpad sessions, providing retail investors with more opportunities to profit compared to other exchanges.
4️⃣ On-chain data changes.
🔸 The total TVL of multi-chain DeFi decreased by $48.9 billion, a decline of 27.5%, mainly due to the drop in altcoin prices and overall market weakness.
🔸 Ethereum's DeFi TVL decreased by 35.4%, but still maintains a dominant position with 56.6%.
🔸 In terms of decentralized exchanges (DEX), Solana continues to dominate on-chain spot trading, accounting for 39.6%, with trading volume increasing by 35.3% compared to the previous quarter, mainly driven by political meme coins.
🔸 Emerging chains like Berachain are rising rapidly, with DeFi's total value locked (TVL) reaching $5.2 billion, showing a trend of ecological diversification.
