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This Week’s Summary

• The crypto market ends the week at a total market capitalization of $2.98 trillion.
• Bitcoin’s trading price dropped to around $87,900.
• Ethereum lost over 1% to trade at around $2,800.
• XRP is down 2%, Solana is up 1%, and Dogecoin is down 4%.
• Almost all altcoins are trading in the red, with very few exceptions.
• The DeFi sector saw total value locked (TVL) decline to about $118 billion.

Crypto Trends 22 – 28 December 2025: Market Analysis and Performance

The crypto market continued its disappointing downtrend for the last whole week of 2025. Most cryptocurrencies continued to bleed, albeit not significantly. Meanwhile, the overall market capitalization failed to recover enough to return above the $3 trillion threshold, remaining just below it.

Bitcoin also failed to recover substantially or at least enough to spend Christmas above $90,000. The king of cryptocurrencies did not lose much, but enough to keep it at around $88K. With the new year just around the corner, traders are hoping for a bullish return in January.

Ethereum languishes at a dismal valuation compared to its ambitions. The second crypto in command is still struggling to overcome intense market pressure and climb back above $3,000. Analysts remain pessimistic about its chances for a speedy recovery anytime soon.

Altcoins & DeFi

Most altcoins are trading in the red, though some notable exceptions exist. For example, XRP is down 2%, Solana is up 1%, Cardano is up 3%, Avalanche is up 6%, Sui is up 3%, Chainlink is up 1%, and TRON is down 1%. On the other hand, Zcash is up 24%.

The memecoins also saw some interesting trajectories. For instance, Dogecoin is down 4%, Shiba Inu is up 2%, and Pepecoin is up 6%.

The Metaverse sector has also seen notable movements over the past week. For instance, Axie Infinity is up 5%, The Sandbox is up 1%, and Floki is up 3%. Meanwhile, Decentraland is down 1%, Render is up 7%, and ApeCoin is up 9%. Stacks increased by 8% and Virtuals by 2%. Meanwhile, MultiversX decreased by 2%.

The DeFi sector lost nearly $1 billion from the total value locked in protocols (TVL), bringing the total to about $118.3 billion.

Crypto Market Analysis – What’s in the News?

• Trust Wallet reportedly lost $7 million in various cryptocurrencies due to a recent hacker attack.

Next Week’s Crypto Market Forecast

The crypto market is likely to end the year on a depressing downtrend. The situation is radically different from that of exactly one year ago, when everyone had high hopes for the market on New Year’s Eve. Nevertheless, the market could recover substantially in January if regulatory pressure eases and investors choose to reenter the sector.

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