From Washington to Wall Street, Crypto is Getting the Green Light

Building the Web3 Equivalent to AWS with Nick White of Celestia

Join Andrew Young as he decodes the world of Web3 with special guest Nick White, Vice President of Celestia Labs. Listen in as they discuss Nick’s background and journey into crypto, how to think about modularity and data availability in blockchain architecture, the future of decentralized applications and the use cases unlocked by Celestia’s scalable infrastructure, why Celestia is focused on growth over revenue right now, the economics of decentralized compute, whether modularity is the final evolution of blockchain design, the role Celestia fulfills within the Web3 ecosystem, the evolution of tokenomics and lessons from past models, and more.

At the end of July, the total crypto market cap briefly broke above $4 trillion for the first time ever. What’s interesting is that this milestone lined up with a sharp drop in Bitcoin dominance, which fell about 6% over the month, from roughly 63% to 57%. The main driver behind both of these moves was Ethereum. ETH was the clear standout in July, jumping nearly 53% and massively outperforming Bitcoin’s 9.3%. In the process, the ETH/BTC ratio broke above its 200-day moving average and is now up around 80% since bouncing off its low in mid-April. So what does that tell us? A few things. It suggests that what Alex flagged back in mid-July is starting to play out. The data is pointing to the early signs of an altcoin season. Historically, altcoin seasons have started with a big rotation of capital out of Bitcoin and into Ethereum, triggering a major ETH rally. After that, capital typically flows into other cryptoassets further down the risk curve. To be sure, the market structure this time around is definitely different.   The rise of crypto ETFs and digital asset treasury companies has brought a surge of institutional capital into the space, though most of it lives offchain in the TradFi market rather than truly onchain or on crypto exchanges. But even with all the differences, historical data can still give us some clues about where we might be headed. In past altcoin seasons, Bitcoin dominance dropped from 86% to 34% in 2018, and from 68% to 36% in 2021. It might still be too early to call it officially, but the signs are promising. It’s also worthwhile to think about how far this space has grown. Since the peak of the 2021 bull run, the crypto market is actually up about 30%, even with many cryptoassets trading below their all-time highs. Compared to the 2018 cycle top, the market is up more than 400%. Bottom line: the trend has been up and to the right.

Chart 2:  DEX Activity is Accelerating as Trading Moves Onchain. What's Driving This?

With the SEC’s new Project Crypto initiative aiming to bring traditional capital markets onchain, we took a closer look at the total spot trading volume on decentralized exchanges (DEXs). Since January 2020, DEXs have processed nearly $7 trillion in cumulative trading volume. Zooming in, that number is up nearly 50% YTD. It’s a big jump, but not exactly surprising. As we’ve mentioned before, the share of spot trading happening on DEXs relative to centralized exchanges (CEXs) keeps climbing. It’s now around 17%, up from 11% a year ago and just 2% five years ago, a clear sign that trading activity is rapidly shifting onchain. So why has this grown so much in 2025? The short answer is regulatory clarity. With the new crypto-friendly administration and SEC, the environment has taken a major turn. Now that the rules are clearer and more supportive, both traditional enterprises and crypto-native projects are finally moving forward with innovative onchain offerings. Just in the past few months, Robinhood announced it’s launching its own Ethereum L2 to bring tokenized equities onto blockchain rails. Coinbase said it plans to directly integrate DEXs into its platform, and others like Kraken and Gemini have rolled out similar initiatives. While Uniswap remains the clear leader in DEX volume, a wide range of other DEXs have seen a meaningful pickup in volume. This reflects the strength of a true multichain crypto ecosystem where DEXs across Ethereum, Solana, BNB Chain, and other networks are all undergoing strong growth in activity. As regulation continues to improve, more real-world assets are tokenized on public blockchains, and apps increasingly integrate onchain support, we’re confident that DEXs will keep narrowing the gap with CEXs.