List of Key Events of 2025

[internetional]

Before the start of 2025, I had a feeling that this year would be a breakthrough year for Bitcoin. One by one, promising projects that could push Bitcoin's development forward were announcing ambitious plans for the year: Babylon, Stacks, BitcoinOS, BitVM, and others.

But what has actually been delivered? What key Bitcoin-related events can we highlight in 2025? With the help of the forum, I'd like to compile a list of such events.

For me, the most important developments in 2025 are:

1. Spark launch.
2. Ark launch.
Both significantly improve UX. Previously, to make fast and cheap transfers, users had to open channels and monitor liquidity, and channels could close at the worst possible moment. Few people liked that. Now, channel management is handled by Ark and Spark operators, while users only have two buttons: "Send" and "Receive" - and nothing else is required.

3. RGB launch.   
For a long time, Bitcoin was criticized for not supporting complex smart contracts. Now it can. Personally, I don't need it, and I'm not even sure if anyone does. Smart contracts feel like a feature mostly relevant to altcoin communities. Still, the tool now exists, and that's a notable step forward for Bitcoin. Maybe smart contracts will bring something new and useful to the Bitcoin ecosystem.

4. Discontinuation of USDT support on Omni Layer.
5. USDT launch on Taproot Assets.
6. USDT launch on RGB.
I consider all three events important for one key reason.
USDT has become a sort of crypto benchmark. When people say "crypto," they often mean USDT. Tether clearly tries to associate itself with Bitcoin in its marketing. The Omni Layer approach didn't work - there was no real demand. Tether turned the page and attempted to enter through two new doors.
Yet, the removal of USDT from the original Bitcoin protocol where it was first issued went completely unnoticed by users, and the issuance of USDT on the other two protocols also looks like a failure. According to the official Tether website, no USDT tokens have been minted on these protocols. In other words, not a single Tether client paid the issuer to receive USDT specifically on Bitcoin, whether through Taproot Assets or RGB.
These three events clearly demonstrate that Bitcoin and USDT exist in parallel universes. They intersect only on exchanges where BTC/USDT trading pairs exist. Tether users have no real need for the Bitcoin ecosystem, and interest in USDT inside Bitcoin's native ecosystem is close to zero, too.
Now we have real-world examples to explain that USDT and Bitcoin are not connected in any meaningful way. This means there is a chance that a potential collapse of USDT won't undermine trust in Bitcoin.

What other important events happened in 2025?

[melinoe]

Only fools (in my book) would consider the fall of USDT as something that's also about BTC and trust toward it.. Two different coins, one is pegged, one is not, and they have completely different ways of how they are valued, issued, and so on.

However, I see why people would think if USDT is in a bad shape or "fell", so to speak, - because they are afraid of the news and never dig deeper to know better.

[hmbdofficial]

Only fools (in my book) would consider the fall of USDT as something that's also about BTC and trust toward it.. Two different coins, one is pegged, one is not, and they have completely different ways of how they are valued, issued, and so on.

However, I see why people would think if USDT is in a bad shape or "fell", so to speak, - because they are afraid of the news and never dig deeper to know better.

Why I think most people fear is because they also convert the bitcoin to usdt before they spend them, so technically if anything happens to usdt it’s also affecting the exchange and the price of their asset also.
Only few person send bitcoin to others when having day to day transaction.

[348Judah]

A lot of activities and remarkable evens happened in this year and we can right about them, the one that mostly concern me is the bullrun that made us into all time high with bitcoin price, this is an interesting experience to see that almost everyone benefited from this unique and amazing opportunity, which we also hope it see more subsequently even at the few days left for this year to round up, there are others that have led to the market reaction seen as a result of the economic news and developments, both within and in the political circle.

[5W-KILO]

The amount of FUD that always come for USDT makes me want to call for investigation if possible, unfortunately I don't have the power, it seems like whenever the market price action is done that's when some FUD will occur on USDT, I don't understand why this keeps happening all the time.

Many things have happened in 2025, but the key event I will never forget is what happened on October 2025, where liquidity got drained and some people still sided with the exchanges that are culprit of the event,  simply because they claimed to have reimbursed all affected users and many only got small percentage of the most they lost.

Everything died down like it never happened and no one is questioning them, I will never forget when happened on that month of October, never.

[joniboini]

The amount of FUD that always come for USDT makes me want to call for investigation if possible, unfortunately I don't have the power, it seems like whenever the market price action is done that's when some FUD will occur on USDT, I don't understand why this keeps happening all the time.

Are you referring to how people call USDT an untransparent, shady company, etc? I mean, it isn't surprising when your guarantee that each token represents 1 dollar is ambiguous. People still think whenever USDT prints billions of tokens, that's when the market will pump Bitcoin, so it's no surprise that they think we need to investigate them more.

[Dunamisx]

I could remember of the US China Tariff plan some months back here https://edition.cnn.com/2025/10/10/economy/trump-china-tariff-threats-economy while the second one on tariff plans which involves Canada, Mexico and China from this source  https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/25/business/economy/trump-tariffs-canada-mexico-china.html which we can recall on how these major events led to the market reactions we had then and i think they only contributed to a fall before the rising and how we found the impact of these breaking news on bitcoin price even though on a short time reaction.

Another major event to point at is that of the Israel Iran War, which after the launch of the attacks, it caused the market to also react and we see the impact on bitcoin, same applies to when any sudden event or activities happened and were being released, they often make a shift in the market and these few major events could be part of what made the 2025 a year of much to write about with the bitcoin market volatility till what led us to where we are today.