Prices are collapsing, but uses are holding up. Between July 2025 and June 2026, the total capitalization of the crypto market was halved, or $2.1 trillion evaporated. However, the ecosystem was far from dead. A recent study by Chainalysis puts the decline in economic activity measured at only 1.6%.
The most severe bear market since 2022 has therefore washed away valuations without erasing usage and value flows.
Key Points
Crypto economic activity measured by Chainalysis reaches $9.4 trillion, down just 1.6% despite capitalization halved
Domestic peer-to-peer transfers jump 302.9% to $228.7 billion, cross-border stablecoin flows 77.5% to $220.3 billion
The share of stablecoins in on-chain stored value doubled, from 11% to nearly 25% between September 2025 and June 2026
Brazil ranks fifth in the world in the adoption index with 318.8 billion dollars received, India retains first place
Crypto: stablecoins hold the bar during the fall
Without the seventh edition of its annual Geography of Cryptocurrency report, the company Chainalysis returns to on-chain activities between July 2025 and June 2026. In total, the company recorded economic activity of 9,400 billion dollars over the past twelve months, compared to 9,500 billion a year earlier.
For its part, the total capitalization of the crypto market was halved, recording a difference of $2.1 trillion between the two years. A hundred billion dollars vanished from one side of the balance sheet, twenty times more from the other.
However, when looking at each sub-sector, not all had an equal year. Indeed, the amounts directed to exchanges, DeFi protocols and other crypto services fell by 4.3%. Conversely, domestic peer-to-peer transfers jumped by 302.9%, reaching 228.7 billion. Shipments that circulate directly from one wallet to another, between individuals in the same country, without an intermediary platform.
As for cross-border flows of stablecoins, they increased by 77.5%, going from 124.2 to 220.3 billion dollars. Note that Chainalysis presents this measurement as deliberately cautious. Indeed, its methodology excludes all transfers where the issuing country and the recipient country cannot be identified with certainty. The real figure is therefore most likely higher.
According to analysts, the key to reading lies in the average amounts of these payments.
“This cross-border growth comes from payments whose average amount is around $3,000: a transaction size far too small to be institutional. On the contrary, it corresponds to everyday uses: a person who pays a supplier, who sends money home, or who withdraws their savings from a currency they no longer trust. »
Chainalysis, annual report “Geography of Cryptocurrency”
Unsurprisingly, stablecoins seem to be doing well. All funds held in stablecoins by what appear to be individuals (excluding DeFi deposits, institutional wallets, etc.) have remained relatively stable between $98 and $109 billion. Their relative weight in the total value stored on blockchains has more than doubled, going from 11% to nearly 25%.
This switch to the tokenized dollar is based on a regulatory base that is now in place. The GENIUS Act, enacted in the United States in the summer of 2025, provided payment stablecoins with a federal regime with backed reserves and mandatory audits. The European MiCA regulation has imposed its own requirements on issuers since the end of 2024.
Crypto adoption: Brazil fifth in the world, India keeps the crown
Chainalysis accompanies its report with a global adoption index, built on the basis of four sub-indexes: activity on centralized services, retail transactions, use of DeFi and institutional transfers. India retains first place, ahead of the United States, Pakistan and Vietnam. The country maintains this domination despite some of the most hostile taxation in the world, with 30% capital gains tax and 1% withholding tax levied on each transaction.
Brazil rises to fifth place in the world and takes the lead in Latin America with $318.8 billion in crypto value received. The country alone captures almost a third of the amounts in the region, whose activity increased by 63% over the period. The Brazilian central bank has regulated operations on stablecoins and transfers to self-hosted wallets with rules that came into force at the start of 2026, without slowing down volumes.
Argentina completes the regional podium with 93.9 billion dollars received. The country remains a full-scale laboratory for dollarization through stablecoins, with USDT and USDC serving for years as a substitute for the peso for household savings and settlement between merchants.
The $8.9 trillion that still passes through exchanges and DeFi weighs twenty times the peer-to-peer flows and cross-border payments in stablecoins combined. These two channels, however, display the only ascending curves in the report, three digits for the first and two digits for the second, while the market capitalization lost half of its value.
