PakGazette – The cryptocurrency market hit an all-time high of $3.91 trillion in December 2024, driven by optimism over regulations, institutional adoption and the new all-time high of $108,000.
Factors contributing to Bitcoin’s rise included MicroStrategy’s inclusion in continued Bitcoin acquisitions, according to Binance Research.
However, the market saw a sharp correction in late December, when the Federal Reserve reduced its planned 2025 rate cuts from four to two, despite a modest 0.25% cut during the month.
This decision resulted in a market correction that wiped more than $0.5 trillion off the cryptocurrency market capitalization.
Despite the late December correction, Bitcoin ended the year with a 123.4% increase in its market capitalization, placing it as the seventh global asset by market capitalization, ahead of Saudi Arabia (TADAWUL 🙂 and Silver. Bitcoin’s performance was one of the best among the top 10 global assets, second only to Nvidia (NASDAQ:).
Factors contributing to this performance include spot ETF approvals, the Bitcoin halving, changes in monetary policy, and expectations of a more favorable regulatory environment. If growth continues through 2025, Bitcoin’s position as a leading asset class could further solidify.
Meanwhile, Ethena’s USDe has seen a rapid rise in its market capitalization to around $5.9 billion, surpassing DAI to become the third-largest stablecoin by market capitalization. Factors behind this success include the high performance behind staked USDe and the addition of sUSDe as a collateral asset on Aave in November.
In December, decentralized spot and perpetual volumes reached all-time highs of $326 billion and $356 billion, respectively. Trading in decentralized perpetual stocks is up more than 370% so far this year, driven largely by Hyperliquid. Liquid staking and lending protocols also hit new TVL highs of $55 billion and $71 billion, respectively. The DeFi sector could see further growth under the upcoming pro-crypto Trump administration.
AI Agents are becoming more prevalent in the world of cryptocurrencies, with top AI Agent tokens now boasting multi-million dollar valuations and around 100,000 daily impressions. Major platforms include Virtuals and ai16z, the team behind the Eliza framework to launch its own agent.
The most notable individual broker is aixbt, which provides daily market analysis on a variety of crypto topics. While many agents focus on similar use cases, there are a growing number of entertainment agents and commercial agents are also being developed.
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