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Total cryptocurrency market capitalization fell 18.6% to $2.8 trillion in the first quarter of 2025, with Bitcoin strengthening its market position amid broad declines in altcoins, according to CoinGecko’s Q1 Crypto Industry Report.
The market briefly reached $3.8 trillion in mid-January right after Donald Trump’s inauguration before sliding downward for the rest of the quarter. Bitcoin demonstrated resilience by falling only 11.8% while increasing its market dominance to 59.1%—levels not seen since early 2021.
Despite Bitcoin’s relative strength among cryptocurrencies, it was significantly outperformed by gold, which gained 18% in the same period.
Source: CoinGecko
Ethereum had one of its worst quarters ever, dropping 45.5% and wiping out all its gains from 2024. Jonathan Inglis, Managing Director at Protocol Theory, suggested that Ethereum’s price no longer reflects its infrastructure development pace.
“It remains central to collateral, staking, and settlement across rollups; demand should follow usage over time,” Inglis explained. “But if alternative assets begin to take on those roles, ETH’s long-term value proposition may need to be reassessed.”
Solana gained ground as Ethereum’s main competitor, handling 39.6% of all decentralized exchange (DEX) trades in the first quarter. The network reached peak dominance of 52% in January during the height of meme coin trading.
The meme coin market faced chaos after the launch of the Trump token, followed by the LIBRA token crash. This token, endorsed by Argentina’s President Javier Milei, collapsed in a scandal that caused trading activity to drop over 56%.
Meme coins faced volatility following the launch of the Official Trump ($TRUMP) token. The trend reached its breaking point with the LIBRA token endorsed by Argentinian President Javier Milei, which collapsed amid a scandal that caused activity on Pump.fun to drop 56.3%.
Project failures hit record levels with 1.8 million crypto tokens dying in the first quarter alone. The report indicated that 52.7% of tokens launched since 2021 have now failed, with the failure rate accelerating.
Decentralized finance (DeFi) lost $48.9 billion in total value locked (TVL), a 27.5% drop across all blockchains. Ethereum’s DeFi value fell from $112.6 billion to $72.7 billion, showing widespread struggles. Newcomer Berachain, launched in February, quickly established itself with $5.2 billion in DeFi TVL.
Looking ahead to the next quarter, the market watches for the U.S. interest rate decision and Ethereum’s upgrade, both set for May 7. Standard Chartered Bank still predicts Bitcoin could reach $120,000 by mid-2025, pointing to strong interest from institutional investors through ETFs.
“A neutral market environment often creates the perfect conditions for a big move,” said Abbas Abdul Sater, Head of Sales at Capital.com. He added that ongoing tariff pressure might support wider Bitcoin adoption in the coming months.
Despite the rough quarter, Bitcoin’s relative strength compared to other cryptocurrencies suggests the market may be shifting toward established assets during uncertain economic times.
