The global crypto market capitalization climbed to $2.5 trillion on March 25, posting a 0.4% gain over the last 24 hours. Total trading volume reached $98.4 billion. Bitcoin stayed above $70,000, but market sentiment remained weak, with the Crypto Fear & Greed Index at just 14, still in Extreme Fear.
Bitcoin slips slightly while Ethereum moves higher
CoinMarketCap data showed Bitcoin at $70,754, down 0.09% in 24 hours, with trading volume of $40.24 billion and a market capitalization of $1.41 trillion. Ethereum traded at $2,158.4, up 0.79%, with $18.4 billion in volume and a market cap of $261.47 billion.
Bitcoin’s market dominance stood at 56.5%, while Ethereum accounted for 10.4%. Large-cap price action was mixed. At the same time, altcoins continued to show stronger momentum, with the source highlighting activity in the Polkadot and XRP Ledger ecosystems.
TAO leads gainers as SIREN records the steepest drop
Among top performers, Bittensor (TAO) traded above $332, gaining between 11.53% and 11.78% over the past day, with about $1.01 billion in trading activity. Artificial Superintelligence Alliance (FET) rose between 8.22% and 8.39%, while Hyperliquid (HYPE) added 8.13%. Ontology (ONT) posted the sharpest percentage rise in the broader list, up 59.76% with volume of $257.07 million.
On the losing side, Siren (SIREN) fell 30.17% to $1.54. Sun Token (SUN) dropped 8.57%, and Decred (DCR) lost 7.60%. The spread between leading gainers and major decliners showed a market still trading in a highly uneven pattern.
Stablecoins soften while DeFi posts gains
The stablecoin segment recorded a 0.3% decline over the last 24 hours, with market capitalization at $310.5 billion and trading volume of $75.9 billion. DeFi, or decentralized finance, moved in the opposite direction, rising 2.1% to a market cap of $52.4 billion with $3.7 billion in volume. Its global dominance was also listed at 2.1%.
Compared with March 24, the market’s pace slowed sharply. The previous update had shown an overall jump of 3.5%, while March 25 came in at only 0.4%. Sentiment improved from 11 to 14, but stayed inside the Extreme Fear range.
Institutional and exchange updates take the spotlight
On the corporate side, Morgan Stanley said it plans to expand its crypto business without chasing FOMO, focusing on infrastructure improvements and pointing to tokenized stock trading by 2026. The report also said outdated banking systems remain a key institutional obstacle.
Coinbase added CHECK and SIGN to its roadmap, included the Perletoken airdrop, and started ICNT spot trading on March 25. Binance said it will launch perpetual contracts tied to US stock futures for Meta, Nvidia, and Google starting March 26, with leverage of up to 10x.
Other developments in the roundup included GameStop posting $418 million in profit despite lower revenue. The company held $368 million in Bitcoin but also reported $131 million in losses linked to digital asset accounting. Jump Trading rejected a $4 billion lawsuit tied to Terraform Labs-related disputes. In security news, LiteLLM was hit by a malicious PyPI package attack that exposed SSH keys, cloud credentials, crypto wallets, and other sensitive data.