Crypto beyond the hype: Global momentum, local impact, and Lebanon at the center

When the conversation about crypto stopped sounding like hype and became routine small talk, something important had shifted. 

The topic that once lived at the margins of finance now sits at the intersection of policy, technology, and ordinary survival. 

Bitcoin’s surprise rebounds, and the growth of stablecoins, have moved crypto from an experiment into the daily calculus of traders, regulators, and, in some places, people trying to keep food on the table. 

The reasons are global and technical, but the effects are often deeply local. And for many Lebanese households, the debate is not academic: it is practical, immediate, and sometimes lifesaving.

How the cycle started

Bitcoin’s price history reads like a slow-motion stress test of faith. 

After years of volatility, from its early surge to $20,000 in 2017, to the jump above $60,000 in 2021, and its crash during the 2022 market downturn, the asset entered a new phase shaped less by hype and more by institutional money.

The real turning point came after the approval of spot-Bitcoin ETFs in 2024, which opened the door to major investment funds and pensions. By late 2024, Bitcoin broke the $100,000 barrier for the first time. In 2025, it continued climbing, hitting the $110,000-$120,000 range before reaching a new all-time high of roughly $126,000 on major exchanges.

These milestones weren’t speculative flukes; they reflected a broader shift. Crypto began moving from a retail-driven phenomenon into a financial instrument that institutions, analysts, and policymakers could no longer dismiss. Bitcoin is not called digital gold for no reason.

From resistance to reinvention

The market’s numerical footprint has expanded dramatically over the past two years. Global crypto market capitalization has climbed into the $3.1 trillion to $3.2 trillion range, with periodic spikes above $3-4 trillion during major market events. However, what makes this cycle different is the dramatic shift in global regulators' stance. 

For years, central banks and financial institutions treated crypto and blockchain as threats, warning the public against them, limiting access through the banking system, and framing digital assets as destabilizing experiments. 

Part of that resistance came from a genuine lack of understanding: regulators were confronting a technology that moved faster than policy could keep up with. 

Another part came from the darker side of the industry. High-profile scams, opaque projects, and catastrophic failures, most notably the collapse of FTX and LUNA, which wiped out billions of dollars and affected thousands of users worldwide, reinforced the perception that crypto was a dangerous frontier.

Yet despite that early resistance, the same institutions that once fought crypto are now racing into the very space they dismissed.

In 2020, only about 35 countries were exploring digital currency projects. Today, more than 130 central banks are researching, piloting or preparing to launch their own central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), which are digital versions of national currencies built on blockchain, a technology often compared to a shared Google Doc: everyone can see the updates happening in real time, every change is recorded transparently, and once something is written, no one can secretly edit or delete it.

The shift is not subtle; it represents a global acknowledgement that the future of money is digital, whether powered by decentralized networks or state-backed systems.

Lebanon’s reality: A tool born out of collapse

Undoubtedly, these global movements matter to Lebanon because Lebanese financial life has been defined by collapse and improvisation for the last 6 years.

Here, money is not an abstract concept or a long-term planning tool. It is immediate, fragile, and deeply tied to survival. When the banking system collapsed, and deposits became inaccessible, trust in financial institutions not only weakened; it evaporated. Suddenly, the idea of money that could be self-custodied, transferred freely, and accessed without institutional permission gained urgent relevance.

Only then did crypto emerge as a workaround.

For many Lebanese residents, it became a way to receive payments from abroad, preserve value outside a collapsing currency (stablecoins), or maintain a degree of financial autonomy when traditional channels failed. For the diaspora, crypto was rarely

ideological. It was practical. A means of supporting family members, moving funds quickly, and staying financially connected to a country whose banking system had become unreliable.

The numbers behind the narrative and what they tell us

When you look at the latest figures, it’s clear that digital money is no longer a niche tactic; it has become part of the global financial system. The sheer size of the overall crypto market and the rapid growth of stablecoins, long considered the practical plumbing of the ecosystem, illustrate just how far this transformation has gone.

Stablecoins, for instance, tokens usually pegged to fiat currencies like the U.S. dollar, reached around $300 billion in total market cap by late 2025, up dramatically from previous years. Their explosive rise reflects not just trading activity but their growing use in payments, remittances, and global transfers; areas where traditional rails are slow, costly, or unavailable. 

A recent analysis also found stablecoins recorded over $4 trillion in transaction volume between January and July 2025, an 83 % increase compared with the same period in the previous year. This also represented about 30 % of all crypto transaction volume in that timeframe, showing how integral stablecoins have become to global crypto flows

These numbers matter because they show a shift from crypto as a speculative asset class to crypto as functional infrastructure. Institutional research even projects that the stablecoin ecosystem could expand far beyond its current size as use cases such as real-time cross-border settlement gain traction.

This year’s market behavior also highlights how closely crypto is now tied to broader macroeconomic and political developments, particularly in the United States. As debates over federal funding continue, analysts have noted a rise in uncertainty surrounding a potential U.S. government shutdown. In recent weeks, political prediction markets have priced the probability of a shutdown as high as 80%, which has influenced risk sentiment across global markets, including crypto.

In late January, Bitcoin temporarily fell below $90,000, a movement consistent with broader market caution as investors waited for clarity on fiscal policy and economic data releases. At the same time, traditional safe-haven assets like gold saw increased demand, suggesting that the shifts were driven by macroeconomic positioning rather than sector-specific concerns. 

These fluctuations demonstrate that crypto now reacts to the same policy signals, geopolitical events, and economic expectations that shape traditional markets. Rather than being driven solely by internal cycles, the industry is becoming part of the wider economic conversation that moves markets around the world.

What’s next?

Crypto is neither miracle nor menace. It has become another layer of the world’s fast-evolving monetary infrastructure.

For Lebanon, and for many economies caught between uncertainty and opportunity, crypto functions as a bridge: sometimes risky, but undeniably useful.

What comes next depends on choices made now. Policymakers must protect without suffocating innovation, platforms must prioritize transparency, and users must stay informed because, in the end, crypto’s impact is not determined by the technology itself, but by the world that uses it.