Funds and synthetic intelligence emerged as the 2 pillars of crypto adoption in 2025, in response to a report launched by Reown in partnership with public opinion analytics firm YouGov.
The research, which surveyed over 1,000 energetic crypto customers throughout the US and the UK, confirmed that synthetic intelligence and funds have been cited as key drivers of adoption by 37% of the respondents.
Crypto funds noticed a big year-over-year development, with 34% of survey members reporting energetic engagement. The report mentioned this outpaces conventional decentralized finance (DeFi) use circumstances like farming and staking, although it nonetheless trails buying and selling.
The report mentioned that 27% of members pointed to funds because the onchain expertise that may turn out to be dominant within the subsequent three to 5 years. This signaled confidence in crypto’s skill to assist real-world utility.
Crypto funds and AI resolve completely different layers of the identical drawback
Reown CEO Jess Houlgrave informed Cointelegraph that funds and synthetic intelligence are fixing completely different layers of the identical drawback: the best way to make crypto helpful, trusted and intuitive.
“They’re distinct however complementary,” Houlgrave informed Cointelegraph. “Funds deliver real-world demand. AI improves the expertise. We don’t see one displacing the opposite.”
Houlgrave mentioned AI helps enhance person expertise and developer productiveness.
She informed Cointelegraph that AI is bettering personalization, fraud detection and assist. However, it hurries up onboarding, auditing and automation for builders.
She mentioned that adoption is rising as a result of funds are lastly changing into usable. Houlgrave mentioned real-world use circumstances like remittances and gig payouts imply funds are “now not only a crypto demo,” however are actually “real-life infrastructure.”
In Might, Mercuryo CEO Petr Kozyakov informed Cointelegraph that extra firms are settling worker compensation with crypto belongings. He mentioned the pattern is increasing, and due to this, employees are on the lookout for methods to spend their crypto instantly.
Crypto buying and selling stays “most loved” onchain exercise
Crypto buying and selling stays essentially the most loved exercise onchain, in response to 36% of the respondents, and funds are actually the second-most loved onchain exercise, with 10% of respondents. Nonetheless, 14% of members mentioned funds are the onchain exercise they’re most enthusiastic about transferring ahead.
“Onchain funds are now not an edge case,” mentioned Houlgrave. “From real-world remittances to stablecoin rails powering embedded finance, we’re witnessing a shift.”
Houlgrave mentioned the instruments are lastly catching as much as the “use case that introduced many to crypto within the first place.”
She mentioned the asset was described as a peer-to-peer, digital money system within the unique Bitcoin white paper. “International, borderless, and trustless funds have been the founding imaginative and prescient,” Houlgrave added.
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Survey reveals stablecoins move SOL in possession
Aside from funds and buying and selling, the report additionally dived into crypto possession. It was discovered that 63% of respondents owned Bitcoin (BTC), whereas 48% owned Ether (ETH).
The report additionally famous that stablecoin possession has elevated to 38%, placing stablecoins forward of Solana (SOL), which is at 37%.
Reown mentioned 51% of 18 to 34-year-olds maintain stablecoins, although adoption amongst customers above 45 is considerably decrease.
“The necessity for embedded, multichain UX is changing into clear: Customers need to transact from wherever they already maintain belongings, whether or not that’s a pockets or alternate,” Reown wrote.
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