Research Roundup Newsletter [March 2025]

We present to you our latest issue of Research Roundup, featuring our deep dives into ‘Crypto Card Consumer Spending Insights 2024’ and ‘RWA Tokenisation’.

Welcome to the Crypto.com Monthly Research Roundup Newsletter!

1. Market Index

In March, the price and volume indices dropped by -2.98% and -19.12%, respectively, while the volatility index surged by +53.92%.

2. Charts of the Month

The US government currently holds US$16.7 billion worth of crypto, including $16.3 billion worth of BTC (198,109 BTC) that accounts for 97.5% of the portfolio, according to Arkham Intelligence. 

With the recently signed Executive Order to establish a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, the government will not sell any bitcoin in the reserve, effectively removing $16 billion of potential sell pressure on bitcoin. Additionally, the Secretaries of Treasury and Commerce are authorised to develop budget-neutral strategies for acquiring additional bitcoin.

Ethereum’s income from Layer-2 (L2) blob fees dropped significantly, setting a new low for 2025. According to Etherscan and Dune, Ethereum only earned 3.18 ETH (~US$6,000) in blob fees in the last week of March, a 72% drop from the previous week, and a 96% decline compared to two weeks prior. This decline raised concerns about the post-Dencun revenue model, as Ethereum relies heavily on L2s for transaction throughput. The upcoming Pectra upgrade aims to change how Ethereum allocates blob space, potentially impacting fee revenue further.

3. Monthly Feature Articles

Crypto Card Consumer Spending Insights 2024

The Crypto.‌com Visa Card is one of the most popular cryptocurrency-linked cards. Every year, the Crypto.‌com Research & Insights Team takes a deep dive into how and where our users spend their crypto. 

Key Takeaways:

• The Crypto.com card spending index rallied by 16% year-over-year. 
  • Almost all spending categories saw increases. Health/personal care and education spending grew the most, with 5% year-over-year growth each.
  • Information and communication expenses dropped by 8%.
• Grocery remains the biggest spending category, accounting for 65% of volume in 2024.
• Amongst out-of-home consumption categories, entertainment (concerts, arts, exhibitions, and sports events) and fashion led the growth of volume by around 5%. 
• Crypto.com cards have registered transactions in over 200 countries and regions around the world. 
  • Approximately 70% of offline travel spending was done in Europe.
  • Trip.com became the most popular online travel booking platform for Crypto.com card users, followed by Booking.com.
• Online spending accounted for 52% of volume in 2024, similar to the percentage in 2023 (55%).
  • Amazon continued to lead e-commerce spending, accounting for 33% of the volume, which was a drop from 50% last year.

Wall Street On-Chain Part 2 – RWA Tokenisation

Real-world asset (RWA) tokenisation is revolutionising traditional finance by bringing liquidity, efficiency, and accessibility. Stablecoins that tokenised fiat currencies dominate the RWA market; other popular tokenised assets like private credit, treasuries, commodities, and public stocks also have been growing.

Traditional financial institutions are increasingly recognising the potential of RWA tokenisation in enhancing their existing product offerings. On the country level, regulatory changes and government-led RWA trials also provide clearer and more favourable guidelines for asset tokenisation.

Tokenised RWA represents only 0.02% of the total RWA market size in traditional finance. This highlights the significant underpenetration and the large potential ahead.

Key Takeaways:

• Real-world asset (RWA) tokenisation is revolutionising traditional finance by bringing liquidity, efficiency, and accessibility. In the past 12 months, the overall RWA market grew by 106%, reaching US$19.2 billion. 
• Stablecoins that have tokenised fiat currencies dominate the RWA market, with a US$235 billion market cap. Other popular tokenised RWAs are private credit, treasuries, commodities (e.g., gold), public stocks, and others (e.g., real estate, carbon credits). Tokenised private credit and treasuries represent the two largest asset classes within the RWA realm, with a market cap of $12.2 billion and US$5.2 billion, respectively.
• Traditional financial institutions have increasingly recognised the potential of RWA tokenisation in enhancing their existing product offerings.
• On the country level, regulatory changes and government-led RWA trials have also provided clearer and more favourable guidelines for asset tokenisation. Examples include Singapore’s Project Guardian and Hong Kong’s Project Ensemble Sandbox.
• When selecting a blockchain for RWAs, issuers consider the network’s performance (e.g., transaction speed and cost), security and stability, and the ecosystem. Ethereum has the largest share of the tokenised RWA market in terms of market cap (54%), becoming a popular choice for issuers like BlackRock, Hashnote, and Ondo Finance. Recently emerging as the second-largest RWA blockchain is zkSync Era (22%).
• Institutions are also increasingly embracing the trend of multichain deployment to boost liquidity. In addition, there’s a rise of RWA-specific chains, including Plume Network and Mantra, with built-in features to simplify asset tokenisation.
• Tokenised RWAs represent only 0.02% of the total RWA market size in traditional finance, according to Roland Berger. This highlights the significant underpenetration of tokenisation and major potential ahead. In fact, according to Boston Consulting Group, tokenised RWAs are expected to grow exponentially to US$16.1 trillion by 2030, representing 10% of the global GDP by then. 

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4. Alpha Navigator

This institutional-focused report dives into macro trends, market-neutral pairs, style-factor screens, and events. Read the full Alpha Navigator report here.

• Asset performance was mixed. Crypto and Equities led the drop, while Gold and Commodity increased.
• BTC’s 1-month performance correlation with Gold decreased and turned negative with some equity indices, including S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100.

5. Crypto Conference & Economic Calendar

Crypto Conferences Calendar

Economic Calendar

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Research & Insights Team