Crypto in 2025: Institutional Adoption and Market Integration (Part 2)

In 2025, institutional participation in crypto accelerated materially.

After years of cautious experimentation, large financial institutions, fintech companies, and payment networks expanded their crypto offerings and began integrating blockchain infrastructure into core financial operations.

This second article of our 5-part series reviews how Wall Street, Big Tech, and global payment networks deepened their involvement in crypto and how that shift changed the industry’s institutional landscape.

Feels like it’s time to introduce cryptocurrency payments to your checkout? Sign up for CoinGate.

Wall Street and Big Tech Get on Board

One of the defining trends of 2025 was the increased entry of traditional institutions into the crypto market.

Financial industry heavyweights – including Visa, BlackRock, Fidelity, JPMorgan Chase, PayPal, Stripe, and Robinhood – launched or expanded crypto products and services. This marked a shift from prior years, when large banks and asset managers had largely remained on the sidelines.

By 2025, crypto had become a strategic priority for both Wall Street and major technology and fintech firms.

Bitcoin ETFs and Institutional Capital Inflows

A milestone development was the continued growth of U.S. spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs).

U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs were approved in January 2024, and inflows accelerated throughout 2025 as institutional investors gained access to regulated crypto exposure.

By the end of 2025, U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs had attracted over $115 billion in assets, with BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) holding approximately $75 billion and Fidelity’s fund exceeding $20 billion, as B2Broker points out.

A significant portion of this capital came from pensions, hedge funds, and family offices, reflecting growing institutional acceptance of Bitcoin as an investable asset.

Globally, Bitcoin and Ethereum exchange-traded investment products held more than $175 billion in assets under management by late 2025, reinforcing crypto’s position as a recognized institutional asset class.

Banks Expanded On-Chain Finance Initiatives

Major banks also deepened their crypto involvement.

In 2025, JPMorgan Chase launched its first tokenized money market fund on a public blockchain (Ethereum). The fund, known as “MONY,” was seeded with $100 million of the bank’s own capital, Bloomberg reports. 

This followed similar blockchain-based fund initiatives by BlackRock and Franklin Templeton, highlighting a broader shift toward tokenizing traditional financial instruments.

Banks also expanded direct crypto services.

JPMorgan began allowing institutional clients to use Bitcoin and Ether as collateral for certain transactions. Goldman Sachs and Citi advanced their tokenization and digital asset custody platforms.

Across the sector, large financial institutions increasingly treated on-chain infrastructure as a long-term strategic layer rather than a short-term experiment.

Even conservative players such as pension funds increased crypto exposure via ETF allocations. By 2025, over 75% of institutional investors reported plans to raise their crypto exposure compared with previous years.

Big Tech, Fintech, and Payment Network Integration

Big Tech and fintech firms also expanded crypto integration.

PayPal’s crypto ecosystem – including its stablecoin PYUSD – gained traction. Robinhood, Stripe, and Cash App continued making crypto easier to buy, hold, and use in everyday financial workflows.

Payment networks made some of the most visible infrastructure moves.

Visa ran a pilot enabling merchants to settle transactions in USD Coin (USDC). In December 2025, Visa formally launched USDC settlement for U.S. banks, allowing American banking partners to settle obligations on Visa’s network using a dollar stablecoin instead of fiat, with initial integrations on the Solana blockchain.

By year-end, Visa was clearing stablecoin payments at an annualized run-rate of $3.5 billion, indicating growing demand for blockchain-based settlement infrastructure.

Mastercard pursued a more consumer-facing approach. It partnered with crypto fintechs such as MoonPay to introduce wallet-linked debit cards, allowing users to pay anywhere Mastercard is accepted by converting stablecoins at the point of sale.

From Pilots to Core Financial Infrastructure

Taken together, these developments indicated a shift in how crypto was used within large financial organizations.

Crypto was no longer limited to isolated pilots. It was being embedded into:

• Banking settlement processes
• Asset management platforms
• Payment networks
• Consumer-facing fintech applications

For the first time, crypto – particularly stablecoins – began operating as background financial infrastructure, improving settlement speed, reducing cross-border friction, and expanding access without requiring end users to interact directly with blockchain systems.

By the end of 2025, Wall Street and Big Tech were no longer approaching crypto as an experimental technology. They were integrating it into production financial systems.

In Part 3, we examine how stablecoins reached payment-network scale, gained regulatory clarity, and emerged as one of the most practical use cases in the crypto industry.