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🧨 Crypto won big in 2025 — So why does it feel like the party’s over?

🧨 Crypto won big in 2025 — So why does it feel like the party’s over?

From Trump-era wins to stalled bills, falling prices, rising compliance, and a market in transition

Cryptopolitan News
December 19, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 9 minutes

2025 was the year when crypto came to the White House.

Lawsuits were dropped. Stablecoins got rules. Banks joined in.

At one stage, Trump’s SEC was even discussing the idea of a native Bitcoin reserve for the U.S. government.

Bitcoin surged past $126,000. It was all champagne and Clarity Acts.

But now?

BTC is now lower by 6.8% on the year.
Scams are still making news.
And the legislation that had been billed as solidifying those victories … is stalled in the Senate.

Let’s break it down.

What’s gone right

The SEC eased its stance on aggressive crypto enforcement.
Claims against Coinbase and Binance? Gone.
The GENIUS Act bill on stablecoins passed in July. It marked the first federal oversight of dollar-backed tokens.
Bank regulators relaxed the rules.
And in a number of countries, traditional institutions have been given the go-ahead to work with crypto firms and provide services like custody and payments.
The CLARITY Act, the most far-reaching market structure bill to date, passed the House. It says it will determine what’s a security, what’s a commodity and where the CFTC and SEC should stop.

What’s still missing

That same CLARITY Act? Stalled in the Senate. Senators can’t agree on AML protections or how to fit DeFi into the picture.
Meanwhile, the industry has spent $245 million on lobbying efforts … but nothing has been fully locked in just yet.
And markets are beginning to realize that a friendly administration may not be a permanent plan.

❝

We need the market structure bill,
Without it, the rules can flip with the next president.

said David Mercer of LMAX.

👀 What smart money sees

The vibe is cautious optimism.

Yes, regulatory progress is real.
Yes, institutions are dipping their toes in.
Yes, stablecoin rules bring confidence.

But...Scams are still rampant:

This year, more than $330M lost to crypto ATM fraud.
Kidnappings for wallet passwords are back in the headlines.
Retail investors are scared to make new bets again. Fear of missing out is battling fear of getting rugged.

As Eswar Prasad of Cornell put it:
“Retail is teetering between juicy gains and unsavory promoters.”

🔮 The Bigger Picture

This is what happens when new tech matures.

Think dot-com boom → bust → rebuild
Think stock certificates → digital ledgers
Think crypto casinos → compliant infrastructure

What we’re witnessing is the messy in-between. The shift from degens to institutions.

From chaos to compliance. From “ape in” to “audit this.”

The industry has a window in the Trump era and the smart players are already leveraging it for building, lobbying and scaling.

Dumb money?

Still chasing pumps and memes.

🧠 Cryptopolitan’s take

For anyone who imagined 2025 to be the year that crypto “breaks out”, need to probably adjust their definitions of the word.

What is a break out? Is it only when price pumps crazy and their are constant FOMO cycles going on?

2025 has showed us how the actual break out period of emerging technologies look like.

They are quit, slow, come with a lot of ambiguity and are legally complex to deal with. But what matters is the direction.

So ask yourself today - are we going in a direction that lays a strong foundation for the next decade? The answer would probably be yes, and that’s how 2025 defined the “break-out“ for us.

🗳️ What do you think?

Has crypto matured or just lost its edge?

📊 Market Watch

💡 Bitwise wants to launch a spot SUI ETF

Bitwise filed with the SEC for a spot Sui ETF to provide investors regulated access to SUI without holding the token directly. It’s part of a wider ETF play, Bitwise already offers exposure to BTC, ETH and XRP on a spot basis.

If it is approved, this would be the first spot ETF for SUI in the United States.

🧠 Senate confirms two key crypto regulators

Trump’s choices for CFTC and FDIC chairs Mike Selig and Travis Hill just received Senate confirmation. Selig, a former official at the S.E.C., is expected to head up crypto rulemaking at the C.F.T.C. Hill has already repealed bank restrictions on crypto activity.

Get ready for a regulatory speed-up in 2026.

🪙 Coinbase takes three States to court over prediction markets

Coinbase is suing Michigan, Illinois and Connecticut for in their alleged overstepping of federal authority on prediction markets. It contends that the CFTC has sole jurisdiction and the states are endangering federally compliant platforms like Kalshi.

The lawsuit could establish who dictates the future of prediction markets in America.

👀 Are you watching this

Solana presents quantum-proof signature

— (@)

Solana uses Ed25519, which isn’t quantum-proof. If future quantum machines can reverse public keys, that’s game over for asset security.

Read here

🐥 Top tweets

Here are Cryptopolitan’s top picks:

🎭 Culture corner

Meta’s Mango vs Open AI’s Sora vs Google’s Banana 🍌🥭🎥

Meta is releasing Mango (images + video) to accompany their soon-to-be-released Avocado (text). And all part of Zuck’s plan to compete with Google’s Gemini and OpenAI’s Sora.

He’s poached more than 20 ex-OpenAI researchers, built a team of 50+, and launched a new division: Meta Superintelligence Labs.

Meanwhile:
– OpenAI’s Sam called code red after Gemini 3 dropped
– Google just launched Gemini 3 Flash to go mass-market
– Sam says images are the new stickiness
– Zuck says: bet.

🚀 TL;DR:

The AI image wars are here. It’s Google’s Banana vs Meta’s Mango vs OpenAI’s Sora. Everyone wants to be the Midjourney for the masses.

Headline picks by our Social Media Lead

Whoop Wow GIF by H&Z Management Consulting

Meme of the day

— (@)

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