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Binance Research: Binance Full-Year 2025 & Themes for 2026 — Key Insights & Market Outlook

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Binance

Binance Research (www.Binance.com) has published a full-year report summarizing what defined crypto markets in 2025 and outlining themes for 2026. The report outlines the most decision-useful takeaways, with emphasis on the structural signals: clearer regulatory frameworks, expanding institutional access, stablecoins scaling as settlement infrastructure, DeFi maturing into a cash-flow sector, and tokenization moving from pilot programs to production workflows. Read the full report here (https://apo-opa.co/3YHOUUg).

2025: Structural Progress, Macro-driven Markets

2025 delivered milestone achievements alongside a choppy market. Total crypto market capitalization surpassed $4 trillion for the first time, and Bitcoin reached a new all-time high of $126,000. At the same time, macro uncertainty – monetary policy, trade tensions, and geopolitical risk – dominated market behavior. Binance Research describes a year defined by “data fog,” including a new U.S. administration, the Liberation Day tariff shock, and a government shutdown that obscured economic signals. Crypto traded in a wide range, with total market value swinging between about $2.4 trillion and $4.2 trillion, and ended the year down about 7.9%.

The optimistic reading is that structural progress continued even when price action did not cooperate – and that is one of the clearest maturity signals in the report. Access, settlement rails, and regulation moved forward, and many of the strongest growth areas were tied to practical usage rather than speculation.

Crypto is Industrializing

A useful theme for 2025 is industrialization: the market increasingly rewarded infrastructure and credible access routes. Regulatory clarity, particularly around stablecoins, as well as the expansion of regulated investment products increased the number of ways institutions and sophisticated investors could participate. At the same time, the ecosystem’s economic center of gravity continued shifting toward compliance-friendly building blocks: stablecoins for settlement, tokenized treasuries for on-chain cash management, and applications that can monetize recurring flows rather than one-off hype cycles.

This is one reason “activity” alone became a weaker signal. The report repeatedly distinguishes between raw usage metrics and economic relevance: what matters is whether a network or protocol can capture recurring value, produce durable fees or revenue, and support reliable settlement and trading.

Bitcoin as a Macro Asset

Bitcoin in 2025 showed a divergence between market demand and base-layer activity. BTC maintained roughly 58% to 60% market dominance and a capitalization near $1.8 trillion, while liquidity and demand increasingly flowed through off-chain financial channels.

Two numbers in the report anchor that shift:

  • U.S. spot BTC ETFs accumulated over $21 billion in net inflows.
  • Corporate holdings surpassed 1.1 million BTC, equivalent to about 5.5% of total supply.

 

At the same time, active addresses declined about 16% year over year, and transaction counts stayed below prior cycle peaks. The point is not that the base layer is irrelevant, but that Bitcoin’s market role is increasingly defined by how it trades and is held within macro portfolios and regulated channels. Network security continued strengthening – hash rate exceeded 1 zettahash per second and mining difficulty rose about 36% year over year – reinforcing the idea of sustained investment into Bitcoin’s security budget even as usage metrics normalized.

In sum, Bitcoin is moving toward the status of a liquid, institutional-grade macro asset rather than a purely transaction-led network.

DeFi’s “Blue Chip” Moment

DeFi in 2025 moved further away from incentives-first growth and closer to capital efficiency and compliance. Total value locked stabilized at about $124.4 billion, but the composition of capital shifted meaningfully toward stablecoins and yield-bearing assets rather than inflationary tokens. In parallel, DeFi’s economic output strengthened: protocol revenue reached $16.2 billion, which the report frames as comparable to major traditional financial institutions.

A major trend was tokenization’s move from narrative to collateral. RWA total value locked reached $17 billion and surpassed DEXs, driven by tokenized treasuries and equities. This dynamic essentially changes what backs on-chain finance. When collateral shifts toward yield-bearing, real-world instruments, it makes DeFi more tied to repeatable financial demand.

The report also notes that on-chain execution continued gaining relevance, with DEX-to-CEX spot trading ratios peaking near 20%. While ratios fluctuate, the broader trend is that decentralized execution is becoming a meaningful venue for certain flows, especially as stablecoins grow and RWA collateral becomes more liquid and usable.

Stablecoins Enter the “Internet Fiat” Era

If one part of crypto clearly went mainstream in 2025, it was stablecoins, which have reliably become settlement infrastructure.

Key stablecoin takeaways from the report include:

  • Total stablecoin market capitalization rose nearly 50% to over $305 billion.
  • Daily transaction volumes averaged about $3.54 trillion.
  • Annual transaction volume reached $33 trillion, compared to Visa’s approximately $16 trillion.
  • Regulatory clarity accelerated, led by the U.S. GENIUS Act.

 

New competition expanded beyond a duopoly: BUIDL, PYUSD, RLUSD, USD1, USDf, and USDtB each crossed $1 billion market cap.

The optimistic narrative is straightforward: stablecoins are increasingly a default medium of exchange inside crypto markets and an increasingly practical rail for cross-border settlement, payments, and fintech applications. In many cases, stablecoins allow users and businesses to access crypto rails while abstracting the volatility that makes newcomers hesitant.

Layer-1s: Monetization is King

Across layer-1 networks, 2025 reinforced that transaction counts are not enough. Many networks failed to convert activity into fees, value capture, or sustained token performance. Meanwhile, differentiation increasingly came from recurring monetizable flows such as trading, payments, and institutional settlement.

  • Ethereum remained dominant by developer activity, DeFi liquidity, and aggregate value, but fee compression from rollup execution weighed on ETH relative performance versus BTC.
  • Solana maintained high usage, expanded stablecoin supply, generated meaningful protocol revenue even after speculative waves faded, and secured U.S. spot ETF approval, improving institutional accessibility.
  • BNB Chain benefited from strong retail transaction demand and market narratives, supporting large stablecoin settlement flows and RWA deployments. The report also frames BNB as the best-performing major crypto asset in 2025.

 

Layer-2 networks accounted for more than 90% of Ethereum-related execution in 2025, supported by upgrades that lowered data availability costs. Activity and fees concentrated among a small number of rollups such as Base and Arbitrum, while many others faded as incentives declined. Fragmentation across more than 100 rollups and uneven sequencer decentralization remain constraints, reinforcing another 2026 theme: value capture may move “upstream” to the application layer that owns the user relationship rather than remaining at the blockspace layer.

2026 Outlook: Risk Reboot and Adoption-led Growth

The report’s 2026 outlook is framed around a more constructive policy environment and a shift toward adoption-led growth.

On macro, a “policy triumvirate” could support a reset in risk appetite: monetary easing, fiscal stimulus via cash and tax refunds, and deregulation. When financial conditions ease, risk assets often benefit, and crypto has historically been highly sensitive to global liquidity impulses. The report also notes the potential for a U.S. Strategic BTC Reserve as a policy catalyst.

On product and market structure, the themes are less about a single narrative and more about where durable usage may concentrate:

  • PayFi: neobanks and wallets converging, with yield-bearing stablecoins supporting new consumer financial apps.
  • Institutionalization: on-chain money markets, treasuries, and RWA settlement embedded into workflows.
  • Value capture: as blockspace becomes cheaper, applications such as wallets, aggregators, DEXs, and prediction markets may capture more value.
  • Intelligent and agentic finance: AI-driven execution, automated workflows, and trust tooling.
  • Prediction markets: information pricing as an alternative to opinion-driven narratives.

 

In other words, 2026 is likely to reward systems that are verifiable, compliant, and built around recurring utility.

Final takeaways

In 2025, crypto kept progressing even against macro headwinds. Bitcoin’s demand increasingly flowed through regulated channels, stablecoins scaled as settlement infrastructure, DeFi matured into a revenue-generating sector, and tokenization moved closer to production-grade finance. The 2026 outlook in the Binance Research report builds on those foundations: more institutional integration, more application-layer adoption, and a macro setup that may become less restrictive. For the detailed charts, methodology, and the full list of 2026 themes, read the complete report here (https://apo-opa.co/3YHOUUg).

Disclaimer: Digital asset prices can be volatile. The value of your investment may go down or up, and you may not get back the amount invested. This content is for general information only and should not be construed as financial or investment advice. For more information, see our Terms of Use and Risk Warning.

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Binance.

 

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Namibia’s Orange Basin Moves Toward First Oil at African Energy Week (AEW) 2026

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African Energy Chamber

The “Invest in Namibia: Transforming Discoveries into Production” session will examine how Namibia can turn its offshore oil boom into a broader industrial opportunity through local suppliers, skills development, technology transfer and domestic investment

CAPE TOWN, South Africa, August 27, 2026/APO Group/ –After a series of major offshore discoveries transformed Namibia into one of the world’s most closely watched exploration frontiers, attention is shifting from proving resources to building the infrastructure, partnerships and industrial capabilities needed to bring them into production. At African Energy Week (AEW) 2026, the session “Invest in Namibia: Transforming Discoveries into Production. Orange Basin’s Path to First Oil” will examine how the country can capture value beyond the development of individual oil fields and use the emerging petroleum sector as a catalyst for wider economic growth.





 

TotalEnergies’ Venus discovery is technically ready to move toward a Final Investment Decision, with negotiations on fiscal terms still underway. The project’s development concept targets around 150,000 barrels per day at peak production, with first oil potentially around 2030. FEED has been completed and major contractors selected, bringing Namibia’s first potential deepwater oil development closer to execution.

The real measure of Namibia’s oil opportunity will not simply be how many barrels it produces, but how much economic value those barrels create at home

Meanwhile, the Orange Basin continues to attract major international players. TotalEnergies and Galp strengthened their positions across the Venus and Mopane discoveries in 2025, with TotalEnergies becoming operator of Mopane and Galp taking a participating interest in Venus. In August 2026, Equinor agreed to acquire a 17.4% stake in Chevron’s PEL 90, marking its first upstream entry into a new country since 2017. The block is expected to see another exploration well before the end of the year.

The scale of investment now being contemplated makes the question of local economic participation increasingly urgent. Namibia’s draft Local Content Policy identifies the development of national capabilities, employment, local procurement and stronger domestic value chains as central to ensuring that petroleum resources generate benefits beyond government revenues. The government has also highlighted technical training and partnerships with universities and industry as priorities for preparing Namibians for the emerging oil and gas sector.

For Namibia, this means moving beyond an export-led model in which capital, equipment and specialist expertise flow in and crude flows out. Developing local suppliers, financing Namibian businesses, building research and training hubs and creating opportunities for joint ventures could help establish capabilities that extend well beyond the life of individual oil projects. The opportunity spans engineering and fabrication, logistics, marine services, environmental management, digital technologies and other areas of the petroleum supply chain.

“The real measure of Namibia’s oil opportunity will not simply be how many barrels it produces, but how much economic value those barrels create at home,” said NJ Ayuk, Executive Chairman of the African Energy Chamber. “Namibia has a chance to build a competitive African energy industry around its discoveries – one that creates jobs, develops local companies, transfers technology and gives Namibians a meaningful stake in the country’s energy future.”

The session will look beyond first oil itself to the ecosystem required to sustain production and translate upstream investment into long-term industrial development. With Venus, Mopane and further Orange Basin exploration moving toward development, Namibia has an opportunity to establish the commercial partnerships, financing structures and technical capabilities needed to ensure its petroleum boom becomes an economy-wide growth story.

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of African Energy Chamber.




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BUTEC, secures major Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) contract for Casablanca Waste-to-Energy Project

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BUTEC

Serving a population of more than 4.2 million people across Greater Casablanca, this project represents a significant step in the region’s transition towards a more sustainable and circular approach to waste management

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates, August 28, 2026/APO Group/ –The consortium comprising Nareva, Kanadevia Inova and Itochu Corporation, through its 33.5-year concession agreement with the Municipality of Casablanca, has entrusted BUTEC (www.BUTEC.com) with a major Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) contract for Casablanca’s landmark Waste-to-Energy (WtE) project, leveraging BUTEC’s multidisciplinary engineering and contracting capabilities for one of Morocco’s most significant waste management and energy recovery developments.

 

For the delivery of this landmark project, BUTEC has joined forces with the Switzerland-based Kanadevia Inova, a global leader in Waste-to-Energy and renewable gas solutions.

Located northwest of the Mediouna landfill in the Casablanca-Settat region of the Kingdom of Morocco, this ultra-large waste incineration facility will process approximately 1.5 million tonnes of non-recyclable waste annually, significantly reducing reliance on landfill.

By diverting the waste from landfill and converting it into energy, this plant is expected to prevent up to 1.0 tonne of CO₂-equivalent emissions per tonne of waste while generating 126 MWe of baseload electricity.

BUTEC is establishing itself as the generalist EPC contractor of choice in this strategic sector

Serving a population of more than 4.2 million people across Greater Casablanca, this project represents a significant step in the region’s transition towards a more sustainable and circular approach to waste management, while supporting Morocco’s broader energy transition and long-term decarbonization ambitions.

BUTEC’s Scope of Work:

While Kanadevia Inova is responsible for the technology and the process part of the EPC works, as well as operations support, long-term maintenance, and financing of the facility, BUTEC will be responsible for civil works for the whole facility and for the engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) of Non-Process buildings, facilities, and associated works, including all civil, structural, architectural, mechanical, electrical and plumbing (MEP) works, as well as the external infrastructure works required for the Project.

Commenting on the significance of the award, Raymond Daou (SVP Strategy & Business Development) stated:

“Building on our affiliates’ long-standing presence in Morocco, where BUTEC has established itself as one of the country’s leading players in Electromechanical Solutions, the Group is reinforcing, through this landmark contract, its contribution to the Kingdom’s sustainable development ambitions.

Furthermore, with three consecutive large-scale Waste-to-Energy projects across the geographies in which it operates, BUTEC is establishing itself as the generalist EPC contractor of choice in this strategic sector. This latest award confirms once again our ability to combine multidisciplinary engineering expertise, strong local execution capabilities and close cooperation with world-leading process technology partners to deliver complex energy and environmental facilities.”

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of BUTEC Group.

 

 




 

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Asantehene opens Africa Business Investment Summit in Washington, DC with a $500m Investment Target in Africa

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Asantehene

The opening ceremony, themed “The Asante Crown Meets the Diaspora,” convened more than 400 registered delegates, including senior government officials, C-suite executives, and US-based institutional investors

 




 

WASHINGTON D.C., United States of America, August 28, 2026/APO Group/ —

  • Asantehene presented a royal vision for Africa’s economic renaissance
  • Day 1 proceeded under the theme – The Vision Day: Unlocking Africa’s Century, A Diaspora Mandate”
  • Fireside chat with Boris Kodjoe on The Diaspora Return

The Africa Business Investment Summit 2026 opened this morning at the MGM National Harbor, in Washington D.C. Metro, with a royal keynote by the Summit’s Patron, His Majesty Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, Asantehene, as the Millennium Excellence Week hosts its first event outside of Ghana.

The opening ceremony, themed “The Asante Crown Meets the Diaspora,” convened more than 400 registered delegates, including senior government officials, C-suite executives, and US-based institutional investors. They were drawn together under a single mandate: to facilitate $500 million in structured capital commitments between African deal originators and US institutional capital during the two-day summit.

Delivering his keynote address, His Majesty articulated a vision of African economic sovereignty where the diaspora serves as architects of continental development. Speaking with characteristic authority, His Majesty called on African governments, diaspora communities, and international institutional partners to align capital, policy frameworks, and political will behind a shared agenda for the continent’s economic future.

In his address, His Majesty Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, Asantehene said: “For too long, Africa has been described mainly in terms of its deficiencies. We have heard of the roads not built, the electricity not generated, the jobs not created, the capital not available, and the institutions not strong enough,”

For too long, Africa has been described mainly in terms of its deficiencies

Speaking further he noted that “Africa must no longer be regarded merely as a continent of future potential. Africa is already becoming a central part of the future global economy, and those who understand this early will position themselves advantageously.”

Honorable Sampson Ahi, Deputy Minister for Trade, Agribusiness, and Industry, who represented the President of the Republic of Ghana, detailed macroeconomic indicators signalling domestic economic recovery and industrial policy priorities: “ Our ambition is transformation. We want an economy that moves beyond exporting raw materials to manufacturing finished products, creating value, jobs, and shared prosperity. We want capital that drives productivity, entrepreneurship, and innovation. This is the philosophy behind the twenty-four-hour economy program, which is a commitment stimulating round-the-clock production, improving productivity, and developing a competitive and export-oriented economy.”

The first day of the summit concluded under the theme “The Vision Day: Unlocking Africa’s Century, A Diaspora Mandate”, exploring through a series of plenary sessions the most pressing deal themes in US–Africa investment today.

Programme spotlights included: The Diaspora Return, a fireside chat with Boris Kodjoe, Beyond Remittances: Building Africa’s Sixth Region, diaspora capital beyond transfers, The New Gold Rush: Africa’s Seat at America’s Critical Minerals Table,  Ghana’s Gold Moment: From the Gold Coast to Global Market Power, The Diaspora Dollar: Fintech and the Next Remittance Corridor and Powering the Continent: Energy, Infrastructure and the US–Africa Partnership

The second and final day of the event will continue to explore investment opportunities across the continent through sector spotlights on the Creative Economy, Health & Pharma, Technology, and Digital Financial Services.

Following these plenaries, the event will conclude with bilateral investment meetings that will translate the vision outlined in the plenary hall into concrete investment decisions.

Review Day 1 Plenary Sessions: https://apo-opa.co/4cPkRRP

Watch Day 2 Live Stream: https://apo-opa.co/4gYIxFP

  • Day 2 to explore investment opportunities and conclude with bilateral investment meetings

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Millennium Excellence Foundation.

 

 




 

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