VanEck Crypto Monthly Recap For August 2025

Summary Bitcoin and Ethereum vol spiked to multi-month highs, breaking the summer lull as markets traded in tighter correlation with ￰0￱ ETPs pulled in $4B while BTC saw $600M in outflows, helping push BTC dominance down from 65% to 57%. Okex (+248%) and Cronos (+112%) led August gains, far outpacing flat or negative returns in listed CEX equities like Coinbase and OSL ￰1￱ saw a sharp return of crypto volatility, with Ethereum inflows surging, Bitcoin dominance slipping, and CEX tokens like OKB and CRO leading market ￰2￱ Returns August (%) YTD (%) Ethereum 15.81 29.93 MarketVector Smart Contract Leaders Index 7.39 2.07 S&P 500 Index 1.91 9.84 MarketVector Decentralized Finance Leaders Index 1.75 -31.84 Nasdaq Index 1.58 11.11 MarketVector Infrastructure Application Leaders Index 0.65 -37.42 Bitcoin -7.42 15.71 MarketVector Meme Coin Index -7.82 -47.35 Coinbase -19.38 22.65) and ETH ( ETH-USD ) 30-day volatilities broke their summer malaise, reaching 40% and 90% , ￰3￱ BTC volatility reached its highest volatility readings since May 2025, ETH’s zoomed to elevated levels not attained since the aftermath of the Yen crash in September ￰4￱ rebounded unevenly, with ( 60% ) of the assets we track showing gains in ￰5￱ notable winners were our MarketVector Smart Contract Leaders Index (MVSCLE) ( +13% ), ETH ( +18% ), and SOL ( SOL-USD ) ( +15% ).

Unfortunately, BTC ( -7% ), SUI ( SUI-USD ) ( -10% ) and TON ( TONCOIN-USD ) ( -10% ) lagged during the dog days of ￰6￱ August, cryptocurrencies traded closely in line with movements of the S&P 500, as the correlation between the MarketVector Smart Contract Leaders Index (MVSCLE) and the S&P 500 reached 0.73, the largest since April ￰7￱ supply of stablecoins across all blockchains reached $276 billion in August, which is a ( +36% ) gain in ￰8￱ Value Locked (TVL), a strong barometer of DeFi’s success and the performance of alt-tokens, increased by 11% month-over-month (M/M). Ethereum's Volatility Approach 1-Year Highs in August In August 2025, Ethereum's Volatility Approached 1 Yr Highs) at the end of June and sagged to 57% in August.

A big driver of this move was the violent resurgence of ETH, gaining ( +24% ) in August, as the continuing narrative around stablecoins and digital asset treasury accumulation (DATs) drove ETH ETPs ￰9￱ August, Ethereum recorded more than $4 billion in ETP inflows, while BTC ETPs lost $600 million due to ￰10￱ unexpected surge in volatility in August, combined with the DAT activity, translated into daily DEX volumes increasing ( +18% ) month-over-month (M/M) to reach $16.7 ￰11￱ figure is the second-highest level since January 2025 and the second-highest ever recorded. Likewise, DEX volume reached its second-highest ratio to centralized exchange volume (CEX) spot volume ( 17.1% ).

Daily average blockchain revenues increased by 7% month-over-month (M/M), with Hyperliquid still leading the pack with an average of $3.7 million per day in August, up 24% M/M. Ethereum Updates ETH ETPs Post $4.0B Inflows in August, Beating BTC by Record Margin; Now 3% of Network) drawdown while ETH did not, a setup that occurred just 52 of 1,927 days ( ~2.7% ). Historically, BTC has returned a median of ( -2.8%) over the following 7 days and ( -15.6%) over 30 ￰12￱ the other hand, while ETH initially gains 6.4% over 7 days, it tends to follow a lower trend ( -8.4% ) over the next 30 days. Accordingly, we urge short-term caution: while ETH may offer a temporary cushion, both assets have historically rolled over after such ￰13￱ August, Strategic ETH Reserve companies grew their share of ETH’s supply by (+ 50% ).

This represents the addition of ~1.4 million ETH to the DAT ￰14￱ leaders in August’s ETH DAT accumulation were Bitmine Immersion Technologies ( +1.1M ETH), Sharplink Gaming ( +300k ETH), and ETHZilla corporation ( +102k ETH). Other noteworthy treasury companies that added ETH in August include FG Nexus ( +41k ETH), The Ether Machine ( +10.6k ETH) and Aave DAO ( +573 ETH). In total, ETH treasury strategies added ( +1.13%) of ETH supply during the month, compared to ( +0.24%) added to Bitcoin ￰15￱ some believe that ETH DATs are simply catching up to BTC DATs, we remain open to the possibility that ETH is a better store of value than ￰16￱ therefore, a better treasury ￰17￱ a result of ETH’s exuberance, the ETH/BTC ratio rebounded to its highest level, 0.043 , since September ￰18￱ apex of the ETH/BTC move occurred on Sunday, August 24, when a BTC whale with over 24k BTC rapidly dumped 8k BTC in the course of 20 minutes, sending the BTC price from ~ $114k to $112k.

Over the next twenty-four hours of trading, the whale sold the remaining 16k of BTC in his wallet. Interestingly, this whale not only dumped its BTC but also swapped its position for ￰19￱ a long time, the communities of Ethereum and Bitcoin have been at odds, with many Bitcoin zealots looking acrimoniously at Ethereum’s development. A large whale with over 24k BTC dumping his BTC for ETH is a stunning development that approximates Babe Ruth leaving the Red Sox for the Yankees. Ethereum’s Exit Queue Hits All-Time Highs in August) of the entire network.

Ethereum’s exit queue exists to prevent a sudden mass validator exodus that may destabilize Ethereum’s ￰20￱ a certain scale, the departure of ETH validators from the network may also pose a security concern. However, we view the current buildup as being driven by three factors. First, we believe validators are still consolidating operations following this spring’s increase in the maximum validator ETH holdings, which rose from 32 ETH to 2,048 ETH. Second, we believe that many long-term holders are removing ETH from staking to participate in ETH DATs, which accept in-kind contributions.

Third, we believe the long exit queue is partly explained by holders selling ETH as its price hovers near its all-time high of approximately $4,956. Regarding the argument that validators are consolidating operations, the portion of the ETH supply staked has remained remarkably stable at 29.5% , despite the mass exits of ￰21￱ we consider the contention that many ETH holders are joining DATs, we need look no further than the massive inflow of ETH into DATs, which totaled +1.4 million ETH in August. Additionally, these DATs intend to stake ETH to generate additional yield and should be added to new ￰22￱ the third count, ETH has rallied ( +258%) from April lows to August highs, providing a good excuse for holders to reduce risk going into the typically tumultuous ￰23￱ the past, large exit queues have occurred without much incident for Ethereum’s network or its ￰24￱ instance, in January 2024, the bankruptcy and restructuring of the crypto lending platform Celsius drove mass unstaking, but this behavior proved to be more operational than ￰25￱ after the event, ETH rallied in the ensuing ￰26￱ Ecosystem Share of DEX Volumes Approaches 50%) in ETH terms from the previous month and ( -72% ) since August ￰27￱ attribute this dramatic decline in costs to Ethereum sagaciously raising the gas limit from 30M -> 36M -> 45M in two increases since January 2025.

Effectively, this lowers prices for Ethereum users by increasing the amount of blockspace that can be packed with ￰28￱ forward, Ethereum developers are currently working on a significant update to enhance Ethereum’s processing capabilities ￰29￱ Improvement Proposal 7928, proposed in March 2025 and currently in the testing and planning phase, will build the capability for parallel processing of transactions on ￰30￱ is a monumental development that, if implemented, will enable the Ethereum Virtual Machine ((EVM)) to increase its transaction capacity by at least 2.6 ￰31￱ is accomplished through something called “Access lists,” which would inform which parts of Ethereum’s ledger a transaction will ￰32￱ a result, transactions that touch different parts of Ethereum’s ledger, ones that do not conflict, can be processed simultaneously.

High-speed competitors to Ethereum like Sui and Solana utilize this capability to increase their transaction throughput. Currently, Ethereum can only process one transaction at a time, even if the transactions alter separate parts of the Ethereum ￰33￱ implemented, users sending payments on Ethereum and those trading on Uniswap will be able to have their transactions processed ￰34￱ Updates SOL/ETH Hovers Below 1 Yr Avg of 0.062) of ~0.087 in April 2025. Currently, SOL/ETH sits around 0.047 , which compares to a year earlier when it was ￰35￱ attribute the majority of this decline in the ratio to renewed institutional interest in blockchain tokenization and stablecoins, as well as the perception that most deployments will occur within the Ethereum ￰36￱ continued lethargy of memecoin trading in spring/summer 2025 has also disproportionately affected Solana and contributed to its relative share of onchain trading dropping ( -6% ) in August 2025 vs August 2024.

Likewise, the emergence of ETH DATs, combined with ETH ETPs gobbling up almost 10% of the total ETH supply, has accelerated ETH’s momentum. SOL, by contrast, has fewer, less capitalized DATs and awaits SEC approval of a Solana spot ￰37￱ the time of writing, 1.4% of SOL supply worth $1.7B is held by DATs as opposed to ETH DATs, which have $31B ETH, corresponding to 5.6% of the ETH ￰38￱ course, we would also be remiss if we did not mention that competition for onchain trading has intensified with Hyperliquid offering a suite of enticing trading products. Hyperliquid’s success, most notably in perpetual futures (perps) trading, has drawn away a vast number of speculators from ￰39￱ has been successful in churning users from Solana by offering a better platform for perpetual futures ￰40￱ inferior user experience of perpetual exchanges on Solana is directly attributable to the chain’s technical issues despite strong projects on Solana like Drift offering serviceable ￰41￱ futures require fast, reliable execution to manage leveraged positions, avoid liquidations, and capitalize on short-term price ￰42￱ minor shortcomings in a perps DEX can greatly impact the bottom-line economics of traders.

Solana’s defects, compared to Hyperliquid, include: Network jitter causing transaction delays and performance fluctuations Users are uncertain if their transactions will land Market makers are unsure if their orders will be cancelled quickly enough High activity congesting the network during periods of peak volatility Market makers cannot quote spreads as tight as they can on Hyperliquid/CEXes Oracle messages may not be able to update onchain prices quickly Transaction compute limitations constraining logic for running perps exchanges Perpetuals exchanges rely upon complex functions to operate effectively Additionally, Solana has other complex idiosyncrasies that make exchanges run less smoothly than they do on centralized competitors and ￰43￱ August, Solana addressed some of its technical shortcomings by beginning the process of upgrading to a new software version called ￰44￱ comes after Solana increased its compute limit per block from 60M to 100M in July, enabling more logic to be processed with each ￰45￱ will be implemented piecemeal, after the validators approve two separate Solana Improvement Documents (SIMD): 0326 and a yet-to-be-numbered ￰46￱ component of Alpenglow, called “Votor,” will allow validator voting to occur offchain through a single round of ￰47￱ result is that Solana transaction feedback will sharply decrease from 12.8s to 150ms .

Likewise, this change will increase the resiliency of Solana by enabling the network to function still even when ( 20% ) of the validators are offline and ( 20% ) of the validators are malicious, corresponding to ( 40% ) of the network being down. Previously, Solana could not progress if > than 33.3% of the network was not ￰48￱ interesting component of Alpenglow is that validators will no longer pay for their votes with transaction fees. Instead, they will pay 1.6 SOL upfront at the start of each epoch for the right to validate the ￰49￱ entirety of this fee will be burned compared to ( 50% ) of the voting fees being burned in the past. Therefore, in addition to making Solana faster, Alpenglow will enhance the token economics (tokenomics) of ￰50￱ second portion of Alpenglow is a more optimized cadence for fanning out messages from the leader validator to the other ￰51￱ is important because it paves the way for cutting-edge advancements on Solana, such as multiple concurrent leaders, while also further solidifying low latency and network stability.

Additionally, August saw the Jito team release its BAM upgrade, which promises to improve trading economics by substantially cutting down onchain maximal extracted value (MEV). Reducing MEV is much coveted by traders because MEV can cause transaction fees to be as high as ( 10% ) of the value of a ￰52￱ is due to trader bots manipulating token prices as speculators buy, especially during volatile periods, resulting in eye-watering execution ￰53￱ Tokens (OKB, CRO) Rallied in August While CEX Equities Stayed Flat/Down) Components Token Weight% Binance Coin ( BNB-USD ) 22.7 OKB 22.3 Cronos 21.9 WhiteBIT Coin ( WBT-USD ) 14.3 Bitget Token 12.4 KuCoin Token ( KCS-USD ) 4.0 NEXO ( NEXO-USD ) 1.9 WOO 0.3 Bitmart Token ( BMX-USD ) 0.2 Tokocrypto 0.1) (+248%) and Cronos ( CRO-USD ) (+112%) were top performers in August, following a series of announcements on scaling and deepening their integrations with public blockchain ￰54￱ the native cryptocurrency of the OKX ecosystem, holding the OKB token effectively rewards users with “premium” features on the exchange.

Historically, OKB’s utility has included trading fee discounts, boosted yield on OKX’s Earn products, partnership integrations (e. g., discounts, payments), and privileged access to the platform’s Initial Exchange Offering (“IEO”) service, OKX ￰55￱ mid-August, OKX announced overhauling both its L2 network, “X Layer”, and OKB’s economic ￰56￱ the upgrade, OKB became the exclusive native gas token of X Layer, meaning that all network transaction processing fees must be paid in OKB, just as the Ethereum network requires ETH for gas. A concurrent, one-time burn of ~65.3M OKB tokens was announced alongside the upgrade, reducing OKB’s circulating supply to a now fixed 21.0M , mirroring Bitcoin’s max ￰57￱ burned supply was sourced from OKB’s treasury reserves and historical repurchases.

OKB’s X Layer upgrade hinges on adopting Polygon’s Pessimistic Proof ((PP)) zero-knowledge proofs upgrade, which brings performance improvements such as increased throughput ( ~5,000 transactions per second), reduced transaction fees, and enhanced security and interoperability with Ethereum’s ￰58￱ integrating with OKX Wallet, Exchange, and Pay, the strategic move aims to capture a share of the growing DeFi, payments, and RWA ￰59￱ an offshore exchange, OKX’s initiatives also benefit from the CFTC’s August 28th announcement , which creates a path for ￰60￱ to provide ￰61￱ direct market access to their trading platforms. Crypto. com’s CRO also benefited from a DAT partnership with some important partners.

A press release on August 26th announced that Trump Media & Technology Group and ￰62￱ agreed to a SPAC deal to accumulate CRO, making CRO the latest digital asset to join the DAT ￰63￱ Media Group CRO Strategy will go public via a merger with Yorkville Acquisition Corp and listed on the Nasdaq under the ticker MCGA. However, the deal is not the first between TMTG and ￰64￱ March of this year, TMTG announced partnering with ￰65￱ to launch ETFs and other digital assets and securities products with a “Made in America focus” through its ￰66￱ ￰67￱ in late 2021, Cronos is also an EVM-compatible chain targeting DeFi, payments, and ￰68￱ OKB is for OKX’s X Layer, CRO is the native gas token of Crypto.

com’s Cronos Chain, used for paying transactions, chain governance, and ￰69￱ Crypto. com’s CEX, CRO also offers holders lower trading fees, higher earning rates, and reduced margin borrowing ￰70￱ and Pitfalls of CEX Tokens In general, CEX tokens offer a unique hybrid product that marries conventional L2 token utilities with the kinds of premium features that only centralized exchanges can ￰71￱ they can potentially expose users to the exchange’s growth through as a quasi-equity-like instrument, they offer asymmetric risks as ￰72￱ tokens often have hidden supply dynamics, and insiders with important, non-public information often control ￰73￱ 2022 collapses of CEXs Celsius (CEL) ( -99% ), FTX (FTX) ( -99% ), and Voyager (VGX) ( -100% ) not only left their depositors empty-handed with a fraction of their crypto but also gave investors CEX tokens that lost effectively all their ￰74￱ attractive yields offered by these exchanges, boosted by holding CEX tokens, drew millions of unsophisticated ￰75￱ offering sleek “earn” and “savings” products resembling traditional banks, these institutions were not (and still are not!) banks, and do not carry banking safeguards like the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), which offers a standard maximum deposit insurance of $250k per depositor, per insured bank, for each account ownership ￰76￱ response to the 2022 CEX collapses, regulators worldwide are advancing frameworks to protect users and stabilize the crypto ￰77￱ European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation, fully effective as of late 2024, mandates that centralized exchanges segregate client assets, maintain full reserves, and undergo regular audits to prevent the commingling and mismanagement seen in FTX and ￰78￱ also imposes strict transparency and anti-money laundering requirements, aiming to curb the risks of high-yield products that lured Voyager’s ￰79￱ the U.

S., proposed legislation like the CLARITY Act, building on FIT21, mandates protections such as CEX registration and segregation of customer funds to prevent their use for proprietary ￰80￱ of August 2025, the bill has passed the House and is advancing in the Senate, signaling progress toward robust oversight. Globally, the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) is pushing for unified standards on CEX ￰81￱ these measures indicate progress, gaps in enforcement and jurisdictional disparities persist. Thus, while we are not opposed to CEX tokens in principle, we urge caution due to their historical volatility and the catastrophic losses from past exchange failures, pending more robust and globally consistent regulatory ￰82￱ to third party websites are provided as a convenience and the inclusion of such links does not imply any endorsement, approval, investigation, verification or monitoring by us of any content or information contained within or accessible from the linked ￰83￱ clicking on the link to a non-VanEck webpage, you acknowledge that you are entering a third-party website subject to its own terms and ￰84￱ disclaims responsibility for content, legality of access or suitability of the third-party ￰85￱ Index Definitions S&P 500 Index: is widely regarded as the best single gauge of large-cap ￰86￱ index includes 500 leading companies and covers approximately 80% of available market ￰87￱ 100 Index: is comprised of 100 of the largest and most innovative non-financial companies listed on the Nasdaq Stock Market based on market ￰88￱ Centralized Exchanges Index: designed to track the performance of assets classified as 'Centralized Exchanges'.

MarketVector Decentralized Finance Leaders Index: designed to track the performance of the largest and most liquid decentralized financial assets, and is an investable subset of MarketVector Decentralized Finance ￰89￱ Media & Entertainment Leaders Index: designed to track the performance of the largest and most liquid media & entertainment assets, and is an investable subset of MarketVector Media & Entertainment ￰90￱ Smart Contract Leaders Index: designed to track the performance of the largest and most liquid smart contract assets, and is an investable subset of MarketVector Smart Contract ￰91￱ Infrastructure Application Leaders Index: designed to track the performance of the largest and most liquid infrastructure application assets, and is an investable subset of MarketVector Infrastructure Application ￰92￱ Digital Assets 100 Large-Cap Index: market cap-weighted index which tracks the performance of the 20 largest digital assets in The MarketVector Digital Assets 100 ￰93￱ Digital Assets 100 Small-Cap Index: market cap-weighted index which tracks the performance of the 50 smallest digital assets in The MarketVector Digital Assets 100 ￰94￱ Meme Coin Index: modified market cap-weighted index which tracks the performance of the 6 largest meme ￰95￱ coin refers to crypto assets often named after characters, individuals, animals, artworks, or other memetic ￰96￱ supported by enthusiastic online traders and communities, these coins are intended for entertainment ￰97￱ Definitions Bitcoin ((BTC)): A decentralized digital currency enabling peer-to-peer transactions without intermediaries or a central ￰98￱ ((ETH)): A decentralized smart contract platform enabling developers to build and deploy decentralized applications (dApps) and financial ￰99￱ ((SUI)): A Layer 1 blockchain built by Mysten Labs focused on high-performance smart contracts and fast finality, utilizing the Move programming ￰100￱ (SOL): A high-performance Layer 1 blockchain known for its low fees, fast transaction processing, and a rapidly growing ecosystem of DeFi and consumer ￰101￱ (OKB): The native token of the OKX ecosystem, used for paying transaction fees on its X Layer network, participating in governance, and accessing exchange benefits such as trading fee discounts, yield boosts, and token ￰102￱ (TON): A layer-1 blockchain originally developed by Telegram, optimized for scalability, speed, and integration with the messaging ￰103￱ (HYPE): A hybrid blockchain optimizing decentralized futures trading with Layer-1 scalability and Layer-3 Ethereum ￰104￱ Considerations This is not an offer to buy or sell, or a recommendation to buy or sell any of the securities, financial instruments or digital assets mentioned ￰105￱ information presented does not involve the rendering of personalized investment, financial, legal, tax advice, or any call to ￰106￱ statements contained herein may constitute projections, forecasts and other forward-looking statements, which do not reflect actual results, are for illustrative purposes only, are valid as of the date of this communication, and are subject to change without ￰107￱ future performance of any assets or industries mentioned are ￰108￱ provided by third party sources are believed to be reliable and have not been independently verified for accuracy or completeness and cannot be ￰109￱ does not guarantee the accuracy of third party ￰110￱ information herein represents the opinion of the author(s), but not necessarily those of VanEck or its other ￰111￱ performance is not representative of fund ￰112￱ is not possible to invest directly in an ￰113￱ in digital assets and Web3 companies are highly speculative and involve a high degree of ￰114￱ risks include, but are not limited to: the technology is new and many of its uses may be untested; intense competition; slow adoption rates and the potential for product obsolescence; volatility and limited liquidity, including but not limited to, inability to liquidate a position; loss or destruction of key(s) to access accounts or the blockchain; reliance on digital wallets; reliance on unregulated markets and exchanges; reliance on the internet; cybersecurity risks; and the lack of regulation and the potential for new laws and regulation that may be difficult to predict.

Moreover, the extent to which Web3 companies or digital assets utilize blockchain technology may vary, and it is possible that even widespread adoption of blockchain technology may not result in a material increase in the value of such companies or digital ￰115￱ asset prices are highly volatile, and the value of digital assets, and Web3 companies, can rise or fall dramatically and ￰116￱ their value goes down, there’s no guarantee that it will rise ￰117￱ a result, there is a significant risk of loss of your entire principal ￰118￱ assets are not generally backed or supported by any government or central bank and are not covered by FDIC or SIPC ￰119￱ at digital asset custodians and exchanges are not protected by SPIC and are not FDIC insured.

Furthermore, markets and exchanges for digital assets are not regulated with the same controls or customer protections available in traditional equity, option, futures, or foreign exchange ￰120￱ assets include, but are not limited to, cryptocurrencies, tokens, NFTs, assets stored or created using blockchain technology, and other Web3 products. Web3 companies include but are not limited to, companies that involve the development, innovation, and/or utilization of blockchain, digital assets, or crypto ￰121￱ investing is subject to risk, including the possible loss of the money you ￰122￱ with any investment strategy, there is no guarantee that investment objectives will be met and investors may lose ￰123￱ does not ensure a profit or protect against a loss in a declining ￰124￱ performance is no guarantee of future performance. © Van Eck Associates ￰125￱ Post