From late 2024 to early 2025, the crypto market was broadly aligned around a common narrative for the next cycle: post-halving momentum, the expansion of ETFs and institutional adoption, and more favorable regulatory expectations were widely seen as the core fuel that would push BTC — and risk assets overall — higher.
In its 2025 Crypto Market Outlook, KuCoin Research’s core thesis — based on “historical post-halving performance plus institutional ETF-driven adoption” — was that BTC could test a peak of around USD 250,000 in 2025.
In hindsight, the miss was concentrated mainly on “price intensity”: BTC’s intra-year peak was only a bit above USD 126,000, and it retreated to around USD 88,000 by year-end — far from the USD 250,000 target.
Partial successes were more evident in “structural and supply-side trends”: 2025 did see progress and actual trading launches of compliant products linked to SOL and XRP (for example, BSOL began trading on 2025–10–28, and XRPC on 2025–11–13), aligning more closely with its view on ETF diffusion and expanded product supply.
However, scale targets such as “stablecoins exceeding USD 400 billion by year-end” were closer to being unfulfilled or overly optimistic.
In January 2025, Tom Lee publicly discussed a potential BTC target of USD 250,000, citing factors such as regulatory tailwinds, market resilience, and improving liquidity conditions.
In January 2025, H.C. Wainwright raised its year-end BTC target to USD 225,000. The rationale included historical cycle patterns, expectations of a more favorable regulatory environment, and rising institutional interest.
In December 2024, Matrixport characterized 2025 as a “breakout year” for BTC and set a target of USD 160,000 — lower than the USD 200,000–250,000 camp.
Bitwise opened with an aggressive call: BTC, ETH, and SOL would all reach new all-time highs, with BTC trading above USD 200,000 in 2025.
VanEck’s “Top 10 Predictions for 2025” not only set price targets but also outlined a very specific cycle path. It expected the bull market to reach a mid-cycle peak in Q1, with cycle-top targets of roughly USD 180,000 for BTC, over USD 6,000 for ETH, above USD 500 for SOL, and above USD 10 for SUI. It then anticipated a potential 30% pullback in BTC and up to a 60% drawdown in altcoins, followed by a recovery in momentum toward year-end.
Compared with actual 2025 performance, the general framework of “large drawdowns and high volatility” was not unreasonable, but the key hard price levels (180k, 6k, 500, 10) were broadly not realized.
On October 28, 2025, Bitwise’s Solana Staking ETF (BSOL) began trading; subsequently, on November 13, 2025, the Canary XRP ETF (XRPC) started trading on Nasdaq.
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