What significant things happened in the crypto industry in the past year?

Bitcoin's new ATH

In November 2024, following Donald Trump's victory in the U.S. presidential election, the major cryptocurrency, Bitcoin (BTC), reached its all-time high, reaching nearly $100,000. Later, in January 2025, the value of the leading cryptocurrency updated ATH at $109,000.

Trump's election was one of the events in 2024 that accelerated the growth of cryptocurrencies. This is in no small part because Trump is going to use Bitcoin along with Ethereum (ETH), XRP (XRP), Solana (SOL), and Cardano (ADA) to create a government crypto reserve, which could lead to a new wave of crypto market growth.

Although many users, including crypto experts, saw signs of a new bull run in this move, a massive correction in the crypto market began as early as January 2025, which crashed the exchange rate of many altcoins by 50 percent or more in just three months.

ETF launches

The year 2024 saw the launch of two ETFs at once — Bitcoin (BTC) — Bitcoin-ETF in January and Ethereum (ETH) — Ethereum-ETF in July. This triggered a new wave of interest in cryptocurrencies and increased the inflow of funds into the crypto industry. According to monitoring service CoinMarketCap, crypto market capitalization has more than quadrupled since the beginning of 2024, reaching $3.71 trillion at its peak by the end of the year.

As a result, many investment companies have issued their crypto-ETFs. These include:

Grayscale (GBTC);
Fidelity (FBTC);
VanEck;
Hashdex;
Invesco;
WisdomTree.

Even the world's largest investment firm, BlackRock, has issued its own Bitcoin-ETF called iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT), with $1.47 billion as of March 2025.

Institutional adoption

In 2024, large financial firms have increased their presence in the crypto market by partnering with blockchain platforms and launching their products.

For example, in addition to iShares Bitcoin Trust, investment company BlackRock launched crypto-index funds that track an index of significant crypto-assets such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, and others. Moreover, BlackRock has chosen the well-known Chainlink network as the data provider for its funds.

Another not less famous company in the world, JPMorgan, has also released its crypto products:

Corporate cryptocurrency JPM Coin for settlement between institutional clients;
Cryptodepository Receipts (CDRs) to access crypto assets through traditional financial platforms;
A lending platform utilizing crypto-assets.

In addition, JPMorgan is partnering with prominent blockchain projects, such as Avalanche's decentralized platform and Polygon's Tier 2 solution. Both partnerships aim to grow JPMorgan's influence in decentralized finance (DeFi).

Other investment firms working closely with Web3 projects include Fidelity, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley. Each uses blockchain ecosystems to develop its own Web3 products.

New regulatory rules

In 2024, two new laws were passed to regulate cryptocurrencies — the Digital Asset Regulation Act (DARA) in the U.S. and Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) in the European Union.

The Digital Asset Regulation Act, adopted in the U.S., defines the rules for cryptocurrency exchanges, taxation, and investor protection. The DARA law is also designed to regulate the stablecoin market, mandating that issuers must provide stablecoins with reserves. In addition, the U.S. Digital Asset Regulation Act introduces the classification of cryptocurrencies and divides them into three categories:

Digital commodities, such as Bitcoin;
Digital securities — any token subject to regulation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC);
Stablecoins — tokens linked to the exchange rate of fiat currencies or other assets.

The MiCA bill, passed in the summer of 2024 in the EU to regulate cryptocurrencies and related services, requires companies to provide transparency to protect investors, implement effective measures to combat illegal activity, and strictly follow regulatory rules.

Like DARA, the MiCA bill introduces three categories to categorize cryptocurrencies:

Asset-Referenced Tokens (or ARTs — tokens tied to one or more assets, such as stablecoins);
Electronic Money (E-Money Tokens and EMT) — tokens tied to a specific fiat currency, such as USDT, USDC or EURC;
Other Cryptoassets — all other cryptocurrencies that do not fall into the previous two categories (Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, etc.).

Regulation that introduces clear rules for dealing with cryptocurrencies brings closer the acceptance of cryptocurrencies, especially by institutional investors.

Memcoin boom

While some meme tokens' explosive rise in popularity occurred in 2021, when notables such as Shiba Inu (SHIB) and FLOKI took the pedestal, 2024 saw an even more significant jump. As a result, it brought new players to the top of the cryptocurrency rankings:

The high popularity of memcoins is due not only to the network effect of social media but also to the launch of gaming applications in ecosystems and meme-token launch platforms such as Pump.Fun.

As of March 2025, the memcoin market is worth more than $48 billion — even more than the RWA sector, which has a capitalization of less than $47.7. Both markets are growing rapidly and are the most attractive for investors.