the crypto market has been sending mixed messages
lately bitcoin has been charging ahead while most altcoins not so much and this has left many
investors wondering is the crypto bull market starting to run out of steam well a recent
report suggests that the answer is no nope no and to say that its outlook is bullish would
be an understatement and that’s why today we’ll be breaking down this report for you in simple
terms and telling you what could be next for the crypto market my name is Nick and you’re
watching the Coin Bureau the report we’ll be summarizing today comes from Coinbase one of the
world’s largest crypto exchanges it’s titled quote “The future of money is here and it’s only just
begun.” which is quite possibly one of the best titles of any report we’ve covered so far we’ll
leave a link to the full report for you in the description but we’ll be giving you the highlights
right here in this video and if that title alone has you juiced up and ready to go then fire up
those like and subscribe buttons decimate that notification bell and let’s get into it shall
we so the report starts by saying that quote more of America’s top companies are onchain than
ever before specifically six in 10 executives of surveyed Fortune 500 companies say their firms
are exploring onchain initiatives and what’s more is that nearly half say that their company’s
investment in onchain solutions has increased and the average number of onchain projects per company
has increased from six projects to 10 projects which is up 67% naturally the most popular
type of onchain initiatives is payments and settlements at 47% and this is closely followed
by supply chain management at 44% and a rather ominous blockchain infrastructure at 40%
notably though the fastest growth areas are in onchain cross transfer payments which have
grown by 31% since last year corporate treasuries are the second fastest grower at 21% followed by
crypto investment product development at 19% the report also notes that in Q1 of this year there
were 17 unique onchain initiatives announced by Fortune 100 companies obviously the top of
the Fortune 500 list in fact there have been 46 unique onchain initiatives since Q3 last year
which have diversified across different sectors like transport retail food and beverage and even
healthcare companies the report adds that quote onchain is seen as a big part of the future of
the Fortune 500’s businesses specifically 18% of executives say onchain initiatives play a key role
in their business strategy a 47% increase from 2024 additionally 38% see blockchain as a gateway
to new revenue streams and 37% say they have ideas for onchain products next the report turns to
small and medium businesses or SMBs described as the backbone of the US economy impressively SMBs
are rapidly adopting onchain solutions to address their top financial pain points currently 34% say
that they use crypto in their businesses while the 46% of those who are not expect to start using it
within the next 3 years and a whopping 82% of SMBs said that crypto can help them to address at least
one of their main pain points which is up from 68% a year ago not bad at all but still kind of makes
you wonder about the other 18% i reckon they’ll come around when they see their peers enjoying
crypto’s many benefits the report then reveals a pretty awesome statistic which is that quote 2025
has been a triple double for crypto among SMBs it’s a little confusing but what this means is
that three areas of crypto have doubled in usage specifically 34% of SMBs are using crypto up from
17% in 2024 18% are using stable coins up from 8% last year so more than double and 32% have paid or
accepted a payment in crypto up from 16% last year and what’s awesome is that this means that more
broadly 84% of SMBs are interested in using crypto in their business which is up from 65% just
last year but what are the main pain points that SMBs are using crypto to address well at the
top of the list is transaction fees and processing times which 72% of SMBs said are a major pain
point and this is up from 66% last year 50% also noted crossborder payments and remittances up from
34% in 2024 49% said that another pain point was accepting the payment method the customer wants
to use up from 43% last year and 46% also noted that multiple payment systems and processes are
a pain point that crypto can help them with up from 43% last year and rather intriguingly 46%
said that cyber security is a pain point that blockchain technology can help them with which is
a huge increase from the 27% in 2024 and this is impressive given that crypto discussions typically
center around finance and the jump suggests SMBs are becoming more aware of blockchain’s broader
benefits notably the report also comments that 57% of SMBs said that adopting crypto will save
their business money which is up from 42% last year what you might not know though is that the
amount of money being saved could be much bigger than you think if you watched our recent roundup
of the Bitcoin 2025 conference you’ll know that the COO of Staken Shake said that accepting crypto
for payments has cut the company’s processing fees down by 50% oh and if you want to see what else
was covered at this year’s Bitcoin conference then check out our video on that right over here
next the report examines stable coin adoption starting with organic transfer volumes which have
grown exponentially transferred volumes peaked at $719 billion in December 2024 and $717 billion
in April 2025 remarkably stable coin transfers have been soaring since early 2020 with a strong
uptrend beginning in September 2023 more than doubling volumes since then and it’s not just
transfer volumes uh the report notes that stable coin annual settlement volumes have also grown
significantly since 2019 and are even surpassing the global remittance market as well as fintech
giants like PayPal and Venmo wow and during this same period the number of stable coin owners has
climbed to over 161 million people for perspective that’s more than four times the population of
Canada and is apparently enough to circle the earth six times if we were all to hold hands just
imagine how loud it will be if we all sang Kumbaya musical fantasies aside the report then states
that as of May 2025 stable coins now account for 10% of US currency in circulation and the total
stable coin supply has now reached $247 billion a massive 54% increase since 2024 the report
notes that Circle’s USDC market cap reached an all-time high of $62 billion and adds that Circle
and Tether the issuer of USDT now hold more US Treasury bills than major nations like Germany
which underscores the importance of stable coins in the global financial system notably the report
explains that quote “This growth is driven by the belief among consumers and both the Fortune
500 companies and SMBs that stable coins can help address some of their biggest financial pain
points.” Where have I heard that before anyway 47% of Fortune 500 executives and 82% of SMBs said
stable coins can help tackle slow transaction speeds and high fees additionally 31% of Fortune
500 execs and 30% of SMBs believe stable coins can improve crossborder payments the report then
highlights specific examples where stable coins can improve a business operations these include
remittances where fees for international transfers can be as high as 50% of the value sent and often
take days to complete credit card fees and can range from 1.5% to 3.5% which eats into profit
margins for the SMBs a payroll management involves navigating different regulations currencies and
banking systems moreover in countries grappling with rising inflation virtually all of them
people are seeing their purchasing power erode daily making it harder than ever to save to
make matters worse some governments force citizens to hold depreciating fiat currency pushing many
to resort to black markets meanwhile millions around the world still lack access to even basic
banking services naturally stable coins can help fix all of this they offer a lowcost near instant
alternative that can retain a stable dollar pegged value and can be accessed by anyone in the world
that has an internet connection all without an intermediary the report then focuses on stable
coins use among the Fortune 500 companies 7% of executives say their firms hold stable coins
while 29% are exploring them a 3.6 times jump from the 8% last year twothirds see stable coins as
part of the solution for faster cheaper customer payments and 58% believe regulated stable coins
can lower settlement costs smbs show a similar level of enthusiasm as noted earlier 18% are using
stable coins and more than double the 8% in 2024 meanwhile 36% receive requests to implement
stable coins from customers employees vendors and suppliers and this is up from 17% last year
additionally 81% are interested in integrating stable coins and this is up from 61% in 2024 the
report also notes several key milestones in the stable coin space this includes Circle launching
a crossborder remittance network stripe and bridge introducing stable coin financial accounts and uh
Meta reexploring stable coins what could possibly go wrong but as the report puts it quote “This is
just the beginning of the rise and rise of stable coins.” Now the next part of the report looks at
the adoption of other tokenized realorld assets or RWAs to say that the tokenized RWA sector has
grown quickly would be a major understatement and that’s because between April 2020 and April
2025 the RWA sector has grown by more than 245 times and there’s no signs of it slowing
down anytime soon the tokenized RWA sector is dominated by private credit which accounts
for 61% of the space tokenized treasuries come in second at 30% followed by commodities at 7%
and institutional funds at 2% then the report notes that tokenized RWA have expanded across
multiple business use cases and are expected to keep expanding into the future the report then
gives three examples of business use cases for RWAS with the first of these being with tokenized
treasuries and cash management and that’s because traditionally businesses will use bank accounts
for their cash reserves which offer very little yield if any alternatively they can park their
funds in short-term treasury bills via traditional brokers or funds however this results in slower
settlements and a lack of access to 24/7 market liquidity which can lead to lost opportunities
especially for larger international companies by tokenizing these treasuries many of these pain
points can be ironed out they’re available 24/7 and benefit from near instant settlement times
they’re also programmable and offer increased transparency and as the report notes tokenized
treasuries can even offer web3 native companies and Dows a way to earn yield without ever
moving funds offchain the second business use case for RWAS is with tokenized invoices and
accounts receivable the report explains that cash flow bottlenecks can often cause issues to many
businesses especially SMBs and that’s because traditional invoicing is slow there’s lots of
paperwork and there are geographical restrictions moreover the financing terms often suck access
is frequently limited and getting access to short-term working capital is difficult because
liquidity is fragmented across different regional providers when combined these factors can make
it much harder for smaller businesses to scale up their operations however by tokenizing invoices
and accounts receivable this liquidity becomes readily available at any given time and can even
be fragmented and offered to global investors and what’s more is that smart contracts can be used to
automate payment tracking and could likely reduce fraud and admin overhead costs the third business
use case highlighted is tokenized private credit traditionally limited to large institutions
and high- netw worth individuals aka rich folk via opaque financial systems financing networks
are often expensive and suffer from fragmented liquidity making private credit hard to access
these markets also come with long lockup periods and limited exit options but tokenizing private
credit removes many of these barriers making them much more accessible to anyone regardless of how
much initial capital they have tokenized private credit can also be traded on secondary markets
meaning there’s much more flexibility when it comes to exiting a position the report adds
that private credit tokenization has grown from basically nothing to $12 billion by April 2025
while tokenized treasuries have gone from under $500 million in October 2022 to more than $6
billion and that is some insane growth in just a few years especially when the bulk of this time
was during a bare market okay the next part of the report looks at institutional adoption of crypto
it notes that 2024 was a landmark year in this regard thanks to the success of the spot Bitcoin
and Ethereum ETFs as you’ll probably know the latter took a bit longer to really take off but in
both cases they’re among the most successful ETF products ever launched the top 10 spot Bitcoin
ETFs ranked in double the cumulative inflows of the top 10 all-time ETFs in their first year
at $50 billion 79% of this was driven by retail investors but institutions have been lapping
them up too so much so that in the first three quarters the Bitcoin ETFs had outperformed all
other ETFs by institutional holders and assets under management the spot Ethereum ETF saw a
modest $3.5 billion worth of inflows in their first quarter after launch also beating other top
performing ETFs in both institutional holders and AUM notably this momentum is set to continue
the report notes that a survey was conducted in January 2025 of 352 decision-making institutional
investors it revealed that 86% of institutional investors have exposure to digital assets or plan
to in 2025 and 83% plan to increase their crypto exposure this year and what’s more is that 59%
plan to allocate more than 5% of their AUM to cryptoreated products while 73% said their
firms hold crypto outside of ETH and BTC 84% are either actively utilizing or plan to
utilize stable coins while 76% intend to invest in some type of tokenized RWA in 2026 in other words
RWAs will likely explode in the following months and years now the next part of the report looks
at the number one hurdle to crypto’s adoption and that is of course regulatory uncertainty
while there have been significant steps in that direction in the US many investors both retail and
institutional believe that more clarity is needed if crypto’s true potential is to be unlocked in
fact 90% of Fortune 500 executives feel that clear regulation is required to support crypto and web
3 innovation 54% said that regulatory concerns are a barrier to adoption of blockchain technology
while 67% said that regulatory uncertainty is a hurdle for adopting stable coins on top of all
of this 72% of SMBs said they would be more likely to consider crypto if there was a clearer market
structure for crypto and 57% of investors said that regulatory clarity will be the next major
catalyst for driving the growth of the broader crypto industry the report then explains that US
crypto legislation is happening at the state level and this is a double-edged sword specifically 38
different states have passed or are considering more than 130 different crypto bills while
this might sound good at first the problem is that many of the rules set out by the different
states contradict one another and this creates conflicting consumer protection requirements
causing all kinds of headaches for investors as such market structure legislation is needed at
the federal level to ensure that everyone’s on the same page when it comes to crypto regulation
the other hurdle highlighted in the report is the lack of available developer talent in the
US a problem that also stems from the lack of regulatory clarity the report notes that while
the US still maintains the greatest share of developers at 39% since Ethereum’s launch in 2015
this share has been cut in half during that time notably India holds the second largest share of
global developer pool at 12% and continues to grow suggesting that this balance could shift
further and this is significant as Fortune 500 executives now site a lack of trusted talent as
a major barrier to crypto adoption similarly over half of the SMBs say they’re more than likely
to seek crypto native candidates for finance legal or technical IT roles the report adds that
quote clear rules for crypto are key to keeping developers in the US and for the US continuing
to lead the world in cuttingedge technological innovation food for thought for anyone out there
considering a career change and that brings us to the end of the report which I’ll remind
you can be found in the description for your reading pleasure for now though there’s just one
question remaining what does all of this mean for the crypto market well if we could sum up the vibe
of this report into three simple words it would be we’re still early while the adoption of crypto
is well underway institutions and even retail investors are still warming up to the space those
of you who have been around through the toughest times are better positioned than any institution
that decides to embrace crypto in the future when they do finally dive in there will be a
tsunami of capital flooding the crypto market and pumping all of our bags in the process the
catch is that clear regulation remains a major hurdle legislation on crypto market structure
is essential for crypto to be fully embraced as an asset class the good news is that it’s on the
horizon sec Commissioner Hester Pierce confirmed as much at the recent Bitcoin 2025 conference
pers said that the SEC is prioritizing stable coin legislation followed by market structure and then
the strategic Bitcoin reserve meanwhile President Trump is impatiently waiting to sign the genius
stable coin bill which could become law at any moment once that’s done market structure will take
center stage unlocking significant institutional investment in crypto bitcoin will continue to
play a huge role in the global financial system being added to more national stockpile reserves
and company balance sheets and stable coins will weave their way deeper into the traditional
financial system meanwhile as regulations improve Wall Street will be more inclined to explore the
broader crypto market and this is especially true for larger smart contract cryptos like Salana
or Ethereum the latter of which is arguably the best position for the RWA sector to really
take off and if you want to see what RWA cryptos could see the most institutional adoption you can
check out that video right over here okay if you enjoyed that video smash those like and subscribe
buttons to show it some love and if you want to learn more about crypto’s adoption check out that
video right over here and if you want to see how the PayPal mafia could be influencing the White
House then check out that video right over here that’s me Nick signing off thank you very much
for watching and I’ll see you guys again soon
