Q1 crypto drop but treasuries and stablecoins rise

Crypto prices fell sharply in early 2025, but cash-like tokens and corporate Bitcoin stockpiles kept growing. (coingecko.com) CoinGecko said total crypto market value fell 18.6% in the first quarter to $2.8 trillion after reaching $3.8 trillion on January 18, 2025. Average daily trading volume dropped 27.3% from the prior quarter to $146 billion. (coingecko.com) Bitcoin held up better than much of the market. CoinGecko said Bitcoin’s share of total crypto value rose to 59.1% by quarter-end, the highest level since early 2021, while Bitcoin itself fell 11.8% to $82,514. (coingecko.com) Stablecoins are digital tokens designed to hold a fixed value, usually $1, and traders use them like on-chain cash. DefiLlama now shows total stablecoin market capitalization at about $318.7 billion, above the roughly $311 billion level CoinGecko reported at the end of 2025. (defillama.com) (coingecko.com) Bitcoin treasuries are companies or governments that keep Bitcoin on their balance sheets instead of only cash or bonds. CoinGecko’s treasury tracker now lists 164 entities holding 1,789,288 Bitcoin, equal to 8.52% of the total supply, with Strategy alone holding 766,970 Bitcoin. (coingecko.com) The quarter’s split picture showed up inside decentralized finance too. CoinGecko said total value locked across multichain decentralized finance fell 27.5% in the quarter, wiping out $48.9 billion, even as stablecoins benefited from investors moving toward lower-volatility parking spots. (coingecko.com) Another part of the market also kept expanding: tokenized real-world assets, or blockchain versions of things like Treasury bills and private credit. CoinGecko’s April 2025 real-world-asset report put fiat-backed stablecoins at $224.9 billion and tokenized Treasuries at $5.5 billion, up $4.7 billion over the prior 12 months. (assets.coingecko.com) Regulators were also building rules around the safer-looking parts of crypto. The European Securities and Markets Authority says the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation sets uniform rules for crypto issuers and service providers, including stablecoin-like tokens, and Congress.gov shows the GENIUS Act became law in the United States in 2025. (esma.europa.eu) (congress.gov) That left early 2025 looking less like a broad rally than a rotation. Prices and trading cooled, while dollar-pegged tokens, tokenized Treasury products, and Bitcoin balance-sheet holdings kept taking a larger role in the market’s plumbing. (coingecko.com) (assets.coingecko.com) (coingecko.com)