What's new with the first cryptocurrency?
At the end of February 2025, the bitcoin exchange rate began to fall rapidly and, in just a couple of weeks, reached a quarterly low, dropping by about 23% — from $96,000 to $78,000.
According to analysts, one of the main reasons for cryptocurrencies' fall during this period was the new trade duties introduced by current U.S. President Donald Trump, which increased inflation and interest rates. As a result, investors began to favor less risky assets over cryptocurrencies.
At the same time, major stock indices such as the S&P 500 and Nasdaq began to decline, the cryptocurrency exchange rate followed suit. This happened because there is a strong correlation between the stock and cryptocurrency markets.
There is a strong correlation between cryptocurrencies and the technology sector. For example, the launch of China's new artificial intelligence model, DeepSeek, caused a lot of excitement in the tech markets, which affected, among other things, the cryptocurrency exchange rate.
ByBit hack and compensation to FTX clients
The fall in the exchange rate of the major cryptocurrency and, as a result, other digital assets was exacerbated by the hack of one of the largest crypto exchanges, ByBit, at the end of February 2025.
In a successful cyberattack, hackers withdrew about $1.4 billion in Ethereum (ETH) cryptocurrency from a multi-signature-protected cold wallet. The incident was the most significant attack in the crypto industry regarding damage since the hack of the infamous Mt. Gox crypto exchange in 2014.
However, unlike Mt. Gox, the ByBit exchange continued operating, and its customers were unaffected. As of May 2025, ByBit's cryptocurrency exchange reserves are estimated at more than $11 billion, as evidenced by data from the CoinMarketCap monitoring service. Immediately after the news of the ByBit hack, the Bitcoin exchange rate fell from $98,600 to $95,000.
Earlier in the month, it became known that the crypto exchange FTX, which went bankrupt in November 2022, began paying its customers whose accounts held up to $50,000 in digital assets — adding to the pressure on the cryptocurrency market.
FTX was one of the top three crypto exchanges before its collapse, but investigations revealed misuse of customer funds, leading to the trading platform's collapse. Nevertheless, the assets managed by FTX and the Alameda Research fund associated with the exchange rose in value amid the general rise of the stock and crypto markets.
In early March 2025, the rate of the first cryptocurrency jumped sharply by more than 9% from $85,900 to $94,000 amid U.S. President Donald Trump's announcement of a national strategic reserve in cryptocurrency. According to Trump himself, this reserve will include cryptocurrencies such as:
- Bitcoin (BTC);
- Ethereum (ETH);
- Ripple (XRP);
- Solana (SOL);
- Cardano (ADA).
However, within a couple of days, the value of Bitcoin has once again retreated to $83,800 amid the fall of the U.S. stock markets. Due to the escalation of the trade war initiated by Donald Trump, stock markets have lost about 4 trillion dollars since the beginning of 2025.
On March 10 alone, stock markets lost $1.7 trillion in just one day amid the increase in trade duties. Analysts have already called this day "Black Tuesday" by analogy with the famous 1929 stock market crash in U.S. history. Against falling stock indices, the bitcoin rate collapsed again to a local minimum of $78,500.
Analysts have called the beginning of 2025 the worst quarter for Bitcoin in the last seven years. Despite this, the analytical service Sentiment notes the growth of wallets owned by crypto wales: in March alone, their number increased by 2.6%.
The launch of Bitcoin-ETP and $1.5 billion to buy bitcoin
In the second half of March 2025, the Bitcoin exchange rate resumed growth and reached $88,000 by the end of the month. During this period, it was reported that the largest investment company, BlackRock, which manages more than $10 trillion in assets, plans to launch its first crypto exchange-traded fund in Europe called Bitcoin-ETP.
At the same time, Trump Media and another major crypto exchange, Crypto.com, are studying the prospects of launching their crypto-ETF based on Bitcoin cryptocurrency, CRO (the platform's native token), and other crypto assets. Earlier, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ended its prosecution of Crypto.com and withdrew all charges against it.
In April 2025, the value of the major cryptocurrency continued rising after a brief correction to $75,500. By the end of the month, it returned to February values at levels of $94,000 — $95,000.
At the end of March, GameStop, a world-famous chain of video game stores in the United States, announced the start of fundraising to buy Bitcoin. GameStop planned to raise a total of $1.5 billion and, just a week after the announcement, was able to sell $1.48 billion in bonds.
At the end of April, MicroStrategy, the company of well-known crypto-enthusiast Michael Saylor, purchased about 1,500 more bitcoins worth $1.42 billion. As of May 2025, MicroStrategy's balance sheet holds more than 553,000 bitcoins worth about $52.4 billion at an average price of $68,459 per BTC.
The same month also saw large inflows into spot Bitcoin ETFs, totaling more than $3 billion in the last week of the month alone — the highest level since November 2024.
Meanwhile, Bitcoin has become one of the top five most capitalized assets, beating Alphabet (Google) and Amazon, as well as silver, albeit by a small margin. Now Bitcoin is capitalized second only to gold, as well as shares of the three largest technology companies Apple, Microsoft and NVIDIA. The market capitalization of the world's first cryptocurrency reached $1.88 trillion as of early May 2025.
