The week started with a promising cryptocurrency market recovery after a $19 billion market crash earlier this month as the potential end of the tariff war looms and demand for digital assets begins to rise.
Cryptocurrency investors’ attention was largely focused on the meeting between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping aimed at securing a trade deal that would avoid new import tariffs.
But that momentum suddenly changed on Wednesday when Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) recorded $470 million in outflows despite the Federal Reserve’s decision to cut interest rates by 25 basis points.
Fueling investor concerns, a tariff meeting between the two presidents on Thursday ended without any significant announcements on import tariffs, increasing uncertainty in global and digital asset markets.
Saylor says Bitcoin could soar to $150,000 by the end of 2025
Michael Saylor, co-founder of MicroStrategy, the financial firm with the largest holding of Bitcoin (BTC), predicted that Bitcoin would reach $150,000 by the end of 2025.
“I think the last 12 months have been probably the best 12 months in the history of our industry,” Saylor told CNBC at the Money20/20 conference in Las Vegas on Monday.
Saylor cites the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s acceptance of tokenized securities, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s support for stablecoins to protect the dollar’s primacy, and the regulatory axis across the U.S. as reasons for his bullish stance. he said:
“Our current expectation is that it should be around $150,000 by the end of the year. That is the consensus of our company and the equity analysts covering the Bitcoin industry.”
The forecast comes amid a slump in crypto asset prices following the market crash triggered by US President Donald Trump’s announcement of 100% tariffs on China, raising investor concerns about macroeconomic instability.
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Standard Chartered expects tokenized RWA to reach $2 trillion by 2028, comparable to stablecoins
Tokenized real world assets (RWA) could reach a cumulative $2 trillion over the next three years as more global capital and payments move to efficient blockchain rails, according to investment bank Standard Chartered.
The bank said in a Thursday report shared with Cointelegraph that the “trustless” structure of decentralized finance (DeFi) is poised to challenge the dominance of traditional finance (TradFi) systems controlled by centralized organizations.
The market capitalization of non-stablecoin tokenized RWA could reach $2 trillion by 2028, the investment bank predicted, due to the growing use of DeFi in payments and investments.
Of the $2 trillion, $750 billion is expected to flow into money market funds, another $750 billion into tokenized US equities, $250 billion into tokenized US funds, and another $250 billion into “illiquid” segments of private equity, including commodities, corporate bonds, and tokenized real estate.
“Stablecoin liquidity and DeFi banking are key prerequisites for the rapid expansion of tokenized RWA,” said Jeff Kendrick, Global Head of Digital Asset Research at Standard Chartered, adding:
“We expect RWA to increase rapidly over the next few years.”
A $2 trillion market cap would mean RWA would grow more than 57 times over the next three years from its current cumulative value of $35 billion, according to RWA.xyz data.
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“No Blackrock, no political parties” for Bitcoin and altcoin ETF investing: K33 Research
The long-awaited approval of altcoin ETFs may not bring in the huge inflows investors are expecting without the participation of asset management giant BlackRock, according to market data.
BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF was the only fund to record positive inflows year-to-date, receiving $28.1 billion in investments in 2025, bringing total spot Bitcoin ETF inflows to $26.9 billion.
Without BlackRock’s funds, the Bitcoin Spot ETF would have recorded net outflows of $1.27 billion since the beginning of the year, according to Vettle Runde, head of research at K33.
Inflows from Spot Bitcoin ETFs will be the main driver of Bitcoin price momentum in 2025, Jeff Kendrick, Global Head of Digital Asset Research at Standard Chartered, recently told Cointelegraph.
BlackRock is the world’s largest asset manager, with $13.5 trillion in assets under management as of Q3 2025.
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Solana ETF could raise $6 billion in first year as SOL joins the ‘big leagues’
Investors are eyeing the launch of the first Solana staking ETF, which is expected to inject billions of dollars into Solana and the broader altcoin market.
At least three altcoin ETFs are expected to launch later Tuesday: Bitwise’s Solana (SOL) ETF and Canary’s Litecoin (LTC) and Hedera (HBAR) ETFs, according to Bloomberg analyst Eric Balchunas.
The SEC’s approval of the first Solana staking ETF is a “transformational” milestone that could attract an additional $3 billion to $6 billion worth of new capital into altcoins within a year, according to Ryan Lee, principal analyst at BitGet exchange.
“Solana has the potential to raise $3 billion to $6 billion in its first year.”
The new ETF staking feature introduces an additional 5% passive income for holders, which could potentially drive more institutional capital into the ETF as well as the broader altcoin sector, the analyst added.
Staking means locking your tokens into a proof-of-stake blockchain network for a predetermined period of time to secure the network and earn passive income in return.
A new crypto-based ETF could push the underlying altcoins to all-time highs. In the case of Bitcoin, ETFs accounted for about 75% of new investments on February 15, when Bitcoin returned to the $50,000 level less than a month after the Spot BTC ETF debuted on January 11.
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DYdX community to vote on $462,000 payment after outage
Decentralized exchange dYdX has released a post-mortem and community update detailing its plans to compensate traders affected by a chain outage that shut down operations for approximately eight hours during last month’s market crash.
The exchange announced Monday that its governance community will vote on whether to compensate affected traders with up to $462,000 from the protocol’s insurance fund.
DYdX wrote that the October 10 outage was “due to a misordered code process, and its duration was further exacerbated by validators’ delays in restarting Oracle Sidecar services.” According to the DEX, when the chain was restarted, “the matching engine processed trades/liquidations at incorrect prices due to outdated oracle data.”
DYdX said that no user funds were lost on-chain, but some traders suffered liquidation-related losses during the outage.
The dYdX governance community will vote to decide whether affected traders should be compensated with funds drawn from the protocol’s insurance fund.
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DeFi market overview
Most of the top 100 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization ended the week in the red, according to data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView.
The Plasma (XPL) token fell more than 18%, making it the biggest drop this week among the top 100, followed by DoubleZero (2Z), which fell more than 17% last week.
Thanks for reading our overview of this week’s most influential DeFi developments. Tune in next Friday for more stories, insights, and education on this dynamically evolving universe.