U.S. crypto traders on CEXs overwhelmingly prefer BTC, while institutional funds pour into tokenized Treasuries and crypto ETFs.
In the past year, Bitcoin (BTC) proved to be the people’s preferred cryptocurrency in North America, Chainalysis analysts say. Meanwhile, institutions are piling into tokenized money market funds, which hold U.S. Treasuries, and crypto exchange-traded funds (ETFs).
In an excerpt from its 2025 Geography of Cryptocurrency report shared with The Defiant, the New York-headquartered blockchain forensics firm revealed that between June 2024 and July of this year, everyday users in the United States purchased $2.7 trillion worth of Bitcoin with U.S. dollars on centralized exchanges, with Ethereum (ETH) purchases came to $1.5 trillion, and USDT came in third at $454 billion.
The report noted that the share of Bitcoin against fiat trading pairs in North America “has remained incredibly stable over the past four years, capturing around 42% of all fiat trading in December 2022 and 42% of all fiat trading again in June 2025.”
Global Governments ‘Will Be Closely Monitoring’
That sustained demand coincides with the rapid growth of stablecoins, and growing global demand for USD-pegged stablecoins, in particular. Per the report:
“Meanwhile, the global adoption of dollar-backed stablecoins is extending American monetary influence beyond traditional borders, reflecting and entrenching the outsized role of the U.S. dollar in global markets.”
According to Chainalysis’ report, stablecoins now move trillions in dollar liquidity each month, with transfer volumes frequently exceeding $2 trillion per month and peaking near $3 trillion in 2025.
Total adjusted stablecoin volumes. Source: ChainalysisThat dynamic occurs alongside regulatory clarity — in July President Trump signed the GENIUS Act, which establishes criteria for federal and state oversight, and provides restrictions around issuers and reserves.
As Chainalysis explains in the report excerpt, dollar-referenced stablecoins “have become integrated into global finance,” serving both as settlement rails for trading and as lifelines for unbanked populations, just as the total market capitalization of stablecoins surpassed the $290 billion mark, per DefiLlama.
Speaking with The Defiant, Chengyi Ong, head of APAC policy at Chainalysis, said that governments “will be closely monitoring the use of dollar-backed stablecoins.”
“Central banks with concerns about dollarisation and the degree of U.S. influence over global monetary infrastructure will need to consider whether and how to respond,” Ong told The Defiant.
She also pointed out regional approaches to stablecoin regulation. In Korea, for instance, Ong said that “one thread running through the stablecoin discourse is the importance of providing a regulated pathway for won-backed stablecoins to emerge,” while in the EU, “MiCA differentiates between electronic money tokens denominated in EU currencies and those that are not, with guardrails where the usage of the latter exceeds pre-set thresholds.”
Regarding the U.S., Ong says the GENIUS Act will open the door to more regulated stablecoin issuers, though she cautioned that “the compliance expectations in GENIUS will certainly be costly for smaller projects,” adding that in the longer term, the pathway to licensing is “also necessary for scale.”
This week, Tether, the issuer of the world’s largest stablecoin, USDT, announced it will launch a new, separate USD stablecoin specially for U.S. markets.
Source: https://thedefiant.io/news/cefi/us-retail-traders-prefer-bitcoin-chainalysis
