2024 was a watershed year for digital assets, with Bitcoin’s annual volatility reaching a record low and stablecoin transaction values exceeding Visa and Mastercard.
These are among the major takeaways from ARK Invest’s “Big Ideas 2025” report, released on Feb. 4. According to the report, Bitcoin’s (BTC) annualized one-year volatility fell below 50% in 2024. By comparison, BTC volatility was closer to 80% in 2022 and well above 100% in 2018.
Bitcoin returned 122.2% in 2024 as its volatility continued to decline. Source: ARK Invest
A large part of Bitcoin’s success in 2024 was owed to the “most successful ETF launch in history,” ARK said, referring to the 11 spot exchange-traded funds that were approved in the US in January.
By the end of the year, the US spot Bitcoin ETFs had accumulated more than $100 billion in net assets.
At the same time, Bitcoin’s inflation rate fell to 0.9% after the quadrennial halving in April, marking the first time in history that Bitcoin’s issuance rate was below gold’s long-term supply growth.
🔥 BULLISH: Ark Invest CEO Cathie Wood says, “The more uncertainty and volatility there is in the global economies, the more our confidence increases in #Bitcoin.” pic.twitter.com/siX3HEfWYo
— Cointelegraph (@Cointelegraph) January 5, 2025
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Stablecoins: Crypto’s other major use case
In addition to Bitcoin, stablecoins cemented themselves as a dominant blockchain use case in 2024, with annualized transaction value reaching $15.6 trillion, which is roughly 119% and 200% of Visa’s and Mastercard’s, respectively.
“The number of transactions hit 110 million monthly, roughly 0.41% and 0.72% of those processed by Visa and Mastercard, respectively,” the report said. However, “the stablecoin value per transaction is much higher than that for Visa and Mastercard.”
Stablecoin transaction values exceeded Visa, Mastercard and American Express in 2024. Source: ARK Invest
On the regulatory front, stablecoins are a top priority for pro-crypto Republicans in Congress. Before the November presidential election, Senator Bill Hagerty introduced the Clarity for Payment Stablecoins Act of 2024, which builds off a previous proposal by former House member Patrick McHenry.
Earlier in the year, Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and Republican counterpart Cynthia Lummis introduced a bipartisan bill to establish a regulatory framework for stablecoins.
After Republicans swept both houses of Congress during the November elections, “passing comprehensive market structure and stablecoin legislation” is an important first step for cementing clear crypto guidelines, according to Republican Representative Tom Emmer.
Miller Whitehouse-Levine, who heads the DeFi Education Fund advocacy group, told Bloomberg that stablecoin regulation has reached a “broad consensus” in Congress.
Magazine: Bitcoin payments are being undermined by centralized stablecoins