This week began with a hopeful recovery in the cryptocurrency market following a $19 billion downturn earlier in the month, as interest in digital assets surged with a possible resolution to the tariff conflicts on the horizon.
Much of the crypto investor focus was centered on US President Donald Trump’s discussions with China’s President Xi Jinping, aimed at finalizing a trade agreement to prevent new import tariffs.
However, the positive trend reversed sharply on Wednesday when Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) recorded a $470 million outflow, despite the US Federal Reserve’s decision to lower interest rates by 25 basis points.
The investor outlook dimmed further when Thursday’s tariff meeting between the two leaders concluded without major announcements regarding import tariffs, leading to increased uncertainty in global and digital asset markets.
Saylor predicts Bitcoin could reach $150,000 by late 2025
Michael Saylor, co-founder of MicroStrategy—the largest Bitcoin (BTC) treasury holder—predicted that Bitcoin could reach $150,000 by the end of 2025.
“I believe these 12 months may represent the best period in the industry’s history,” Saylor told CNBC at the Money 20/20 conference in Las Vegas.
Saylor pointed to the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s acceptance of tokenized securities, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s support of stablecoins to maintain dollar supremacy, and the broader regulatory shift in the US as grounds for his bullish outlook. He stated:
“Our expectation is that by year-end, it should be around $150,000, which aligns with the views of the equity analysts covering our firm and the Bitcoin sector.”
This forecast arrives amid falling crypto asset prices, following a market decline sparked by President Trump’s announcement of 100% additional tariffs on China, which raised investor concerns about macroeconomic instability.
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Standard Chartered anticipates $2 trillion in tokenized RWAs by 2028, rivaling stablecoins
Tokenized real-world assets (RWAs) could reach a cumulative value of $2 trillion over the next three years as more global capital and payments transition to efficient blockchain systems, according to Standard Chartered.
The investment bank stated in a Thursday report shared with Cointelegraph that the “trustless” nature of decentralized finance (DeFi) is set to rival traditional financial (TradFi) systems dominated by central entities.
The increasing application of DeFi in payments and investments could propel non-stablecoin tokenized RWAs to a $2 trillion market cap by 2028, as per the bank’s predictions.
From this $2 trillion projection, $750 billion was expected to flow into money market funds, another $750 billion into tokenized US stocks, $250 billion into tokenized US funds, and $250 billion into “less liquid” segments of private equity, including commodities, corporate debt, and tokenized real estate.
“Stablecoin liquidity and DeFi banking are essential for the rapid growth of tokenized RWAs,” remarked Standard Chartered’s global head of digital asset research, Geoff Kendrick, who added:
“We foresee exponential growth in RWAs in the coming years.”
Achieving a $2 trillion market cap signifies a growth of over 57 times for RWAs in the next three years from their present cumulative value of $35 billion, as per data from RWA.xyz.
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“No BlackRock, no party” for Bitcoin and altcoin ETF inflows: K33 Research
The anticipated approval of altcoin ETFs may not trigger the significant inflows that investors hope for without involvement from asset management titan BlackRock, according to market data.
BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF garnered $28.1 billion in investments in 2025, being the sole fund to show positive inflows year-to-date, thereby bringing total spot Bitcoin ETF inflows to $26.9 billion.
In the absence of BlackRock’s fund, the spot Bitcoin ETFs have faced a cumulative net outflow of $1.27 billion for the year, stated K33’s head of research, Vetle Lunde.
The inflows from spot Bitcoin ETFs have been the main driver behind Bitcoin price movements in 2025, as shared by Standard Chartered’s global head of digital assets research, Geoff Kendrick, in a recent Cointelegraph interview.
BlackRock is currently the world’s largest asset management company, with $13.5 trillion in assets under management as of the third quarter of 2025.
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Solana ETFs could draw $6 billion in the first year as SOL enters the “big league”
Investors are eagerly awaiting the launch of the inaugural Solana staking ETF, anticipated to channel billions into Solana and the broader altcoin market.
At least three altcoin ETFs were expected to debut later this Tuesday: Bitwise’s Solana (SOL) ETF alongside Canary’s Litecoin (LTC) and Hedera (HBAR) ETFs, as reported by Bloomberg analyst Eric Balchunas.
The SEC’s approval of the first Solana staking ETF represents a “transformative” milestone, potentially attracting an additional $3 billion to $6 billion in new investments into the altcoin within its first year, according to Bitget exchange’s chief analyst, Ryan Lee.
“Solana could now draw between $3–$6 billion in its first year.”
The staking component of the new ETF adds an extra 5% passive income benefit for holders, a factor that may entice more institutional investment into the broader altcoin market beyond just ETFs, according to the analyst.
Staking involves locking tokens into a proof-of-stake blockchain network for a set duration to secure the network and earn passive income in return.
New crypto-based ETFs could elevate the underlying altcoins to all-time highs. For Bitcoin, ETFs represented about 75% of new investments when Bitcoin reclaimed the $50,000 threshold on February 15, shortly after the launch of spot BTC ETFs on January 11.
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DYdX community set to vote on $462,000 compensation proposal following outage
The decentralized exchange dYdX published a post-mortem and community update outlining plans to compensate traders impacted by a chain halt that paused operations for approximately eight hours during last month’s market downturn.
The exchange announced on Monday that its governance community will vote on compensating affected traders with up to $462,000 from the protocol’s insurance fund.
DYdX indicated that the outage on October 10 was due to “a misordered code process, and its duration was prolonged by delays in validators restarting their oracle sidecar services.” The DEX noted that when operations resumed, “the matching engine processed trades/liquidations at incorrect prices due to outdated oracle data.”
DYdX confirmed that no user funds were lost on-chain; however, some traders experienced liquidation-related losses during the halt.
The dYdX governance community will decide if affected traders should be compensated using funds from the protocol’s insurance fund.
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DeFi market overview
Based on data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView, the majority of the 100 largest cryptocurrencies by market capitalization closed the week in negative territory.
The Plasma (XPL) token saw the largest drop among the top 100, plummeting over 18%, followed by DoubleZero (2Z), which fell over 17% during the past week.
Thank you for reading our summary of this week’s significant DeFi developments. Join us next Friday for more stories, insights, and education regarding this rapidly evolving space.
