Crypto market review March 2025: is this the bear market?

Market Overview

March 2025 was marked by persistent instability across the entire crypto market. Following the sharp correction in February-driven by recession fears and Donald Trump's aggressive economic policies-Bitcoin saw significant volatility.

In early March, BTC surged over 12% to reclaim the $95,000 level. However, this rally was completely erased the next day, leading to a prolonged correction that bottomed out around $76,500. Bitcoin ended March at approximately $82,500, down -2.2% for the month.

Altcoins, meanwhile, saw sentiment hit rock bottom. A glance at their leading representative, Ether (ETH), tells the story: ETH dropped -18% in March, closing around $1,800. The $2,000 level seems out of reach for now. So far in 2025, ETH is down -46% against the dollar and -38% against BTC.

Despite the downtrend in altcoins, a few assets managed to stand out. The month was dominated by high-volatility or low-cap tokens, such as Saros (+754%), Venom (+97%), Solayer (+73%), Fartcoin (+61%), and EOS (+57%).

Bitcoin dominance continued to climb throughout March, reaching nearly 63%-a multi-month high. This rise reflects widespread investor caution across both financial and crypto markets, as capital gravitates toward safer assets in the face of mounting uncertainty.

In this context, crypto assets are increasingly moving in sync with macro-driven portfolio reallocations-a strong sign of market maturity, but also of growing dependence on global economic cycles, potentially challenging the traditional "bullrun" dynamics.

Macro Environment

The global macroeconomic outlook deteriorated significantly in March-and April is shaping up to be just as turbulent. On April 2nd, Donald Trump announced historic new tariffs on foreign imports, the largest in a century, targeting major global industrial hubs:

• 54% on Chinese products
• 46% on Vietnamese goods
• 32% for Taiwan
• 24% for Japan
• 20% for the European Union

These protectionist measures far exceeded expectations. In response, U.S. markets corrected sharply, while the dollar index and bond yields plunged-indicating heightened risk aversion and growing fears of a global slowdown.

The stated goal: force companies to bring manufacturing back to the U.S. Some, like TSMC, responded positively-announcing a $100 billion investment in a U.S.-based plant. Others, like Apple, face margin pressure as parts of their supply chains are now subject to tariffs exceeding 40%.

Two scenarios are emerging:

• Companies absorb the cost increases, reducing margins and impacting earnings and stock prices;
• Or they pass on the costs to consumers, weighing on purchasing power and consumption.

It’s worth noting that nearly 50% of U.S. consumption comes from high-income households with significant market exposure. If the markets falter, so does consumer confidence-amplifying the risk of economic contraction.

This tense climate is pushing investors toward safe-haven assets: government bonds, gold-and selectively, Bitcoin. Overall, risk assets remain under pressure, with altcoins among the hardest hit as risk premiums reset.

Spot Bitcoin ETFs

After a February marked by massive outflows (-$3.55 billion), spot Bitcoin ETFs saw a slowdown in March, posting net outflows of -$680 million. While the trend remains bearish, the scale of withdrawals was much less dramatic.

Most issuers remained in the red for the month, with notable exceptions: BlackRock’s IBIT (+$256.9 million) strengthened its lead in the sector, followed by BTC (+$65.2 million) and HODL (+$13.5 million). On the flip side, the largest outflows hit FBTC (-$285.1 million) and GBTC (-$230.5 million) once again.

The February trend-defined by an institutional exodus-has eased, but disinterest in Bitcoin ETFs remains visible, especially in retail-heavy products (GBTC) or arbitrage-focused instruments (FBTC/IBIT). However, positive inflows at selected issuers suggest the market may be stabilizing. April will be key, especially in light of the macroeconomic backdrop.

Spot Ethereum ETFs

In contrast to February-where Ethereum ETFs surprisingly ended in the green (+$60 million)-March marked a reversal, with net outflows of -$389 million. This confirms ETH’s underperformance versus Bitcoin in institutional portfolios.

The hardest hit was BlackRock’s ETHA (-$200.9 million), accounting for over half the monthly outflows. ETHE (-$91.5 million) and FETH (-$56.9 million) followed suit, while other funds like QETH, ETHW, EZET, and ETHV saw little to no activity-registering many days without any flows.

This trend reflects Ethereum’s structural weakness this quarter, with a falling price, declining on-chain activity, and ongoing questions about valuation. The capital rotation into Bitcoin continues, and institutional interest in ETH appears to be waning-at least in the short term.

Ethereum vs. Solana

After several months of Solana’s clear dominance in on-chain activity, Ethereum regained momentum on multiple fronts in March. Although memecoins fueled Solana’s ecosystem throughout 2024 and early 2025, a sudden collapse in that segment reversed the tide.

In March 2025, Ethereum DEX trading volumes totaled $57.9 billion, compared to $45.2 billion for Solana. This comeback is all the more notable given Solana’s consistent lead on this metric since September 2024, driven by the memecoin boom.

However, scandals surrounding LIBRA, TRUMP, and MELANIA tokens triggered a 95% drop in Pump.fun revenue-highlighting the fragility of speculative demand on Solana. Meanwhile, Ethereum benefited from renewed interest in legacy DEXs (Uniswap, Curve, etc.), fueled by stablecoin growth and the institutionalization of on-chain activity.

In terms of fees, Solana still holds a slight lead with $31.5 million collected in March, compared to $20.8 million for Ethereum. However, this dominance is somewhat misleading: Solana’s figures include MEV-driven fees, which are highly concentrated and don’t benefit all stakers equally.

Again, the trend is worth monitoring: Ethereum’s fees have steadily grown since January, while Solana’s have begun to decline following the peak of memecoin mania.

March Highlights

Solana: Aborted Inflation Reform

The rejection of proposal SIMD-228 revealed a major divide in Solana’s governance. Designed to replace the fixed issuance model with a dynamic inflation model indexed to the staking rate, the proposal aimed to significantly reduce annual SOL emissions. At current participation rates (~65% of SOL staked), inflation would have dropped from 4.7% to 0.9%, with the goal of reducing dilution and redirecting capital into DeFi.

Despite strong early support, the vote swung just hours before the deadline, driven by small validators who overwhelmingly rejected the proposal. Final result: 58.7% approval-below the 66.7% threshold.

This division highlights diverging economic interests:

• Large validators, exposed to MEV revenue and less reliant on inflationary rewards, supported the change.
• Small validators, for whom inflation is a crucial revenue source, viewed the proposal as a direct threat to their viability.

Beyond technical considerations, SIMD-228 raises a broader ideological question: should long-term sustainability be prioritized, even if it concentrates validation among a few players? The reform may return in a new form in coming months, but it marks a turning point in Solana’s governance.

→ Find our analysis of Solana's SIMD-228 (SOL), how it works and debates in the community:

Pump.fun vs Raydium: War Declared

Another rift in the Solana ecosystem, this time commercial: the war between Pump.fun and Raydium, two former partners now rivals in the memecoin world.

• On March 19, Raydium launched LaunchLab, a permissionless launchpad directly competing with Pump.fun.
• Less than 24 hours later, Pump.fun responded with PumpSwap, a native AMM, severing ties with Raydium for good.

Both platforms are now vying to capture all the value generated by memecoins-without relying on their former partner. But this war comes amid a tough time for the crypto market, especially memecoins:

• Tokens migrated from Pump.fun dropped from 1,200 per day to under 200.
• Daily revenues plummeted 95%, from $15.38 million in January to around $1 million in March.
• Recent scandals (TRUMP, MELANIA, LIBRA) have caused billions in trader losses, eroding faith in memecoins as a viable market.

The question is no longer just who will dominate memecoins-but whether the sector has a short-term future at all. Notably, Pump.fun may resort to an airdrop to retain users-a weapon Raydium no longer has.

→ Find our insight on Pump.fun vs. Raydium, the memecoin war on Solana:

Hyperliquid: The JELLY Incident

On March 26, Hyperliquid faced a sophisticated attack centered on the JELLY token, exposing major flaws in its liquidation mechanism. A single trade-a $4.5M short, deliberately liquidated by the trader-nearly destabilized the protocol, trapping the Liquidator Vault and causing a peak unrealized loss of over $12 million.

The issue: the automated liquidation system couldn’t find sufficient liquidity on the order book to close the position. The HLP (Hyperliquidity Provider) took over via the Liquidator Vault, designed to handle troubled positions. But the situation worsened when an external actor-colluding with the trader-artificially pumped JELLY’s price +250%, turning a routine liquidation into a systemic debt.

This should have triggered the emergency auto-deleveraging (ADL) mechanism. But it didn’t-because the protocol’s architecture pooled funds at the HLP level, the system failed to detect the loss as critical (the calculation was based on global vault data, not just the Liquidator Vault). In short, the protocol’s structure masked the severity.

In response, the team acted quickly: validators voted to temporarily override the JELLY oracle price to settle the position at pre-attack levels-eliminating losses for the HLP. The team also compensated long-position traders (excluding “flagged” wallets involved in the attack).

Though contained, the incident raised serious concerns about protocol security, governance, and decentralization. Hyperliquid responded with major structural reforms:

• Segregation of the Liquidator Vault, now capped at a minority share of the HLP.
• A dedicated ADL trigger threshold activated when a sub-module suffers a critical loss.
• A revised Open Interest Cap formula, now dynamically adjusted based on token market cap and liquidity.
• Introduction of an on-chain delisting process to quickly remove risky assets.

→ Find our analysis of Hyperliquid and the JELLY attack to understand the technical flaw and the team's solutions: