The State of Crypto: The Future of Money is Here and It's Only Just Begun

Below is a summarized version of The Block Research and Coinbase's The State of Crypto: The Future of Money is Here and It's Only Just Begun report. The full PDF version of this report is accessible here .

Coinbase's 2025 State of Crypto report, developed in collaboration with The Block Research, presents a comprehensive analysis of blockchain adoption across American corporations. The report tracks on-chain initiatives among Fortune 100 companies through Q1 2025, as well as other key themes, including stablecoin adoption, real-world asset (RWA) tokenization, and institutional investment interest. 

In the report’s first section, corporate adoption findings reveal significant momentum, with 60% of Fortune 500 companies now working on blockchain initiatives, representing a 47% increase year-over-year. Fortune 100 companies announced 17 unique blockchain initiatives in Q1 2025 alone, tying the second-highest quarterly activity on record. Over the last year, Blockchain infrastructure emerged as the dominant category with 24 total initiatives, primarily driven by the Technology sector, which contributed 16 of these initiatives.

Main street involvement was another key trend as small and medium business adoption demonstrated striking growth with Coinbase citing a “triple double” for crypto among SMBs. Current crypto usage among SMBs doubled from 17% to 34% year-over-year, stablecoin adoption doubled from 8% to 18%, and crypto payment acceptance doubled from 16% to 32%. Looking forward, 82% of SMBs believe crypto addresses at least one financial pain point, with transaction fees and cross-border payment challenges ranking as primary concerns. 

Tokenized assets also reached new heights across both stablecoins and other RWAs. Stablecoin supply grew 54% year-over-year to $247 billion, representing nearly 10% of US currency in circulation, with 160 million holders globally, exceeding the combined population of the world's ten largest cities. The issuers of these stablecoins have become some of the largest holders of U.S. Treasury bills, outpacing even nation-states. Other tokenized assets also experienced significant growth, expanding 250 times over five years, with private credit and tokenized treasuries leading the way. 

Institutional investor interest is poised for continued expansion, with 86% indicating current or planned digital asset exposure and 83% planning to increase crypto allocations in 2025. The Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs achieved record-breaking adoption rates, with Bitcoin ETFs attracting $50 billion in cumulative inflows, double the performance of top-performing ETFs historically. 

Looking forward, regulatory uncertainty remains a barrier to adoption. Nine in ten Fortune 500 executives agree that further regulatory clarity is necessary to support innovation, while 72% of SMBs indicate they would be more likely to adopt crypto with a defined market structure. The findings emphasize that while the momentum for crypto adoption is strong across corporate America, realizing its full potential depends significantly on establishing comprehensive regulatory frameworks.