Crypto And DeFi Markets Rally, Bitcoin Mining Stocks Surge As BTC Sets All-Time High Of Over $126K

Crypto and DeFi markets are surging again with fresh new momentum as we enter the final quarter of 2025. As a result of this renewed investor enthusiasm, following a slight crypto market dip in September, Bitcoin mining stocks (including those of Riot Platforms and Hive, among others) are now surging as BTC achieves another all-time high of over $126,000.

At this point, even large banking institutions like Citi and JPMorgan have fairly bullish outlooks for the Bitcoin price, with some even claiming that current levels have the market undervalued. It’s also worth noting that it is probably quite easy right now to get hyped and be bullish given that the market has appreciated in value by over 100% in just the past year. Whether or not these levels are sustainable is anyone’s guess but there is definitely a correction we should all anticipate in the coming year.

And despite these seemingly positive developments, certain challenges persist such as the US federal government shutdown that could potentially stall crypto and web3 ecosystem progress as the SEC may not be able to do its part for now at least, TD Cowen has cautioned.

Notably, the US SEC had recently been considering exemptive relief for new cryptocurrency-focused products along with somewhat similar relief for digital assets firms that support tokenized equities. However, with the recent US government shutdown announcement, there may not be any substantial progress on such relief or various other crypto-focused initiatives.

Despite these seemingly temporary setbacks, Morgan Stanley appears to have followed BlackRock, Grayscale Investments, and other major financial institutions in providing their perspective on how crypto-assets could form part of a well-balanced investment portfolio.

According to Morgan Stanley, a very modest 4% crypto cap could be best for “opportunistic” portfolios. While this appears to be a positive sign for crypto adoption, it is worthwhile to note that it might be too low considering that Bitcoin has significantly outperformed the S&P 500 and other traditional financial investments since 2020 (following the COVID outbreak which briefly crashed global markets in a huge and unprecedented way).

It’s also worth pointing out that recently, Schwab and the generally more reserved Vanguard are seemingly beginning to shift their approach, indicating a somewhat gradual change in how they approach Bitcoin and digital assets investments in general. They are seemingly joining giant Wall Street investment banks like Goldman Sachs which back in 2018 had famously asserted that Bitcoin and crypto-assets were merely speculative and would not retain their value. But given the current state of the market, the majority of institutions now appear to be taking a different approach.

Another notable development recently in the crypto-assets space is BlackRock completing its third-largest Bitcoin purchase, which comes after the introduction of spot Bitcoin ETFs. BlackRock, which remains the largest asset manager, carried out one of its most significant BTC purchases via its iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) which brought in about $970 million in net inflows.

In addition to these developments, the CoinShares Fund Flows report for the week of October 6 revealed:

• Record inflows of US$5.95 billion appear to have been driven by employment and shutdown worries
• Digital asset investment products attracted significant capital last week, driven by a delayed response to weak employment data, and concerns over US government stability.
• The US led with a record US$5.0 billion in inflows, followed by Switzerland (US$563m, new record) and Germany (US$312m).
• Bitcoin saw a record US$3.55 billion in inflows, Ethereum US$1.48bn, while Solana (US$706.5m) and XRP (US$219.4m) also set notable records.

As the crypto markets continue to mature, Galaxy Digital appears to be focused on competing with Robinhood Markets, digital assets exchange Coinbase, and other industry platforms with its latest announcement of up to 8% yield, leading to the firm’s stock surging nearly 10% in the past 24 hours.

In some other significant updates, PLUME, an EVM-compatible blockchain and ecosystem purpose-built for Real-World Assets (RWAs), surged as much as 25% as the network registered with the SEC as a transfer agent for tokenized securities. This move should help with bringing more TradFi services to an on-chain environment.

Meanwhile, decentralized finance protocols Aave and Uniswap are now leading the charge behind a sizeable rebound DeFi fees as these so-called decentralized, permissionless protocols adopt more buybacks and other fundamentals. Although buybacks and revenue sharing have characteristics somewhat similar to traditional finance, it is important to clearly distinguish digital tokens from regulated equity securities. And regulatory frameworks around these innovations are currently under development under a more progressive Trump Administration.