The most popular cryptocurrencies for exchange: which digital assets are used most often and why?

In 2024 alone, the number of cryptocurrency users worldwide grew by more than 30%, from 420 million to 562 million, making 6.8% of people on the planet interact with cryptocurrencies. However, some digital assets are more popular than others.

Bitcoin (BTC)

Bitcoin is the first and most capitalized cryptocurrency. As of February 2025, its market capitalization was $1.9 trillion — that's more than silver, Meta, Tesla, Walmart, and JPMorgan Chase. According to CompaniesMarketCap, Bitcoin is the first cryptocurrency to rank among the world's top 10 largest assets.

However, the Bitcoin network is not the most suitable for microtransactions due to relatively high fees compared to other blockchains, so it is ideal for large-sum transfers. Nevertheless, the Bitcoin blockchain is considered one of the most trustworthy, as it would be tough to gain control of it. In addition, bitcoin is the most popular cryptocurrency for long-term storage.

Additional demand for BTC cryptocurrency makes it possible to use it in other major blockchain ecosystems, such as Ethereum and BNB Chain, as a wrapped token — WBTC.

Tether (USDT)

Although Bitcoin leads the crypto market in capitalization, the most traded digital asset by volume is the Tether (USDT) stablecoin. By comparison, USDT's monthly trading volume totaled $2.08 trillion in February 2025 data, while bitcoin's volume was almost half that ($1.2 trillion).

The reasons for the popularity of USDT are several:

• Used in payments and cross-border transfers, saving on fees and simplifying the currency conversion process;
• Required by traders and investors to buy cryptocurrencies, including on decentralized exchanges like Uniswap, Curve and Balancer;
• Available for deposits that allow for passive income.

USD Coin (USDC)

USDC is significantly behind USDT in terms of capitalization but not in popularity and trading volume, firmly following the leading stablecoin in the crypto market. There are no significant differences between USDT and USDC, except for the composition of the reserves that back them, and the USDC stablecoin itself is used for the same purposes.

However, unlike the Tether issuer, the company behind the development of USDC, Circle, was one of the few companies to obtain a license to provide services with its stablecoin in the European Union.

Tron (TRX)

The USDT stablecoin is the leader in terms of trading volume but not the number of transactions — Tron has surpassed everyone in this respect. The Tron blockchain initially became popular due to the ability to make cheap transfers of USDT tokens and cheap exchanges on DEX exchanges.

Although there are now many networks with lower fees, such as Solana, Avalanche, TON, and Polygon, Tron remains one of the most sought-after blockchains for USDT token transactions.

In the first half of 2024, Tron had the highest daily active user count, exceeding 1.9 million. While this number reached 2.3 million in early 2025, Tron has lost the lead to BNB Chain and Solana blockchains.

Ethereum (ETH)

Leading the crypto market by market capitalization, which exceeds $328 billion as of February 2025, the Ethereum altcoin is one of the most popular among both long-term investors and active cryptocurrency users.

The Ethereum blockchain platform has the most developed ecosystem in the decentralized finance (DeFi) marketplace, so its cryptocurrency is used not only for gas payments and staking but also in many applications, including liquidity.

The ETH cryptocurrency is used in many other ecosystems, including for gas payments in Layer-2 networks such as Arbitrum, Polygon, Base, and Optimism.

XRP (XRP)

XRP is the only cryptocurrency hundreds of banks use for cross-border payments in many countries worldwide. In addition, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has recognized the XRP cryptocurrency as part of payment systems.

However, the XRP cryptocurrency is equally popular among users, and the XRP Ledger network is among the top four blockchains in terms of the number of daily transactions, which stands at 1.6 million.

Solana (SOL)

In 2024, the Solana cryptocurrency was even in the top four in capitalization but later lost ground again to XRP (XRP) and Binance Coin (BNB). In addition to fast and cheap transactions, Solana gained popularity mainly due to the active development of the memcoin ecosystem, which attracted the attention of many retail investors and contributed to user activity growth.

According to February 2025 data from the analytics service Token Terminal, the Solana blockchain is second behind the BNB Chain in terms of daily active users, which totaled 4.6 million.

Binance Coin (BNB)

In 2024, BNB Chain surged to the top of the crypto market in terms of daily active users, which reached 5.2 million as of February 2025. Like Solana, one reason for this popularity was meme tokens.

A new wave of popularity for BNB Chain came with the launch of the sensational BROCCOLI memcoin, which attracted the attention of ex-Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ) himself. As a result, more meme tokens started appearing in the BNB Chain ecosystem.

Dogecoin (DOGE)

When it comes to in-demand cryptocurrencies, one cannot fail to mention the first and leading memcoin, DOGE, in the crypto market. Due to its fast and inexpensive transactions, Dogecoin cryptocurrency is also a favorite among users.

Dogecoin is among the top ten leading cryptocurrencies in terms of market capitalization, which exceeded $37 billion as of February 2025. By this indicator, it surpasses even its "father" — the cryptocurrency Litecoin, based on the protocol of which the main memcoin was created.

Litecoin (LTC)

Litecoin, like Dogecoin, refers to early altcoins, created based on Bitcoin and their protocols — to the first-generation blockchains. Litecoin performs the same functions as the first cryptocurrency but has cheaper transactions, which is one of the main reasons for the altcoin's popularity.

Conclusion

The cryptocurrency market continues to evolve dynamically, offering users assets for different purposes — from investing and trading to fast transactions and decentralized financial solutions. The popularity of certain digital assets is determined by their functionality, level of security, liquidity, and user base. As technology, regulation, and the integration of blockchains into the traditional economy continue to evolve, we can expect to see further growth and new leaders in this area.