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The price of Bitcoin has been cut in half since hitting its all-time high. That much is hard to ignore. But according to a new report from financial services firm River, the price chart is telling only part of the story.
Underneath the surface, Bitcoin adoption across institutions, governments, banks, and ordinary merchants has been growing at a pace that the firm describes as historic — and one that has yet to fully show up in the price, River said.
Governments are no longer just watching from the sidelines. Based on reports from River, five new nation-states became Bitcoin holders in 2025, including sovereign wealth funds in Luxembourg and Saudi Arabia, a central bank in the Czech Republic, and purchases by Brazil and Taiwan.
River estimates that 23 nation-states now hold Bitcoin in some form, whether through state-backed mining operations, asset seizures, or direct central bank exposure. That is a category of ownership that did not meaningfully exist just a few years ago.
On the banking side, 60% of the top US banks are now actively building Bitcoin-related products for their customers. A more favorable regulatory climate in the US has made it possible for banks to hold Bitcoin in custody and offer related services — something that was effectively off the table for most regulated financial institutions not long ago.
Institutional investors have been piling in as well. Reports say registered investment advisors have been net buyers of Bitcoin for eight consecutive quarters, putting roughly $1.5 billion into Bitcoin exchange-traded funds every quarter over the past two years.
In total, institutions accumulated 829,000 BTC throughout 2025 — a figure that includes purchases made by businesses, governments, investment funds, and ETF vehicles. River pointed out that behind those institutional numbers are millions of individual people gaining their first exposure to Bitcoin through retirement accounts, brokerage platforms, and corporate balance sheets.
Businesses were the single largest category of buyers in 2025, according to the study. Crypto treasury companies — firms that hold Bitcoin as a core part of their financial strategy — drove the majority of those purchases, with adoption among that group growing 2.5 times compared to the year before.
