Crypto Wallet Usage Moves Beyond Trading as Spending Grows

The company’s 2025 report shows a noticeable shift in how users interact with self-custody wallets, with spending and payments gaining momentum alongside and, in some cases, faster than traditional trading activity.

The data reflects wallet activity throughout 2025 and suggests that users are increasingly turning to on-chain tools to manage day-to-day finances rather than relying on wallets solely for speculative trading. Bitget Wallet positions itself as an all-in-one crypto finance app, offering self-custody, on-chain swaps, payments, and fiat on- and off-ramps within a single interface.

Trading activity remains a significant part of wallet usage, but the report suggests it is no longer the sole driver of growth. Monthly on-chain swap volumes processed through Bitget Wallet exceeded $900 million in 2025, representing a year-on-year increase of more than 230%. On-chain perpetual futures trading through the wallet climbed even faster, approaching nearly $5 billion per month, up roughly 291% compared with the previous year. Over the same period, the share of decentralized perpetual trading relative to centralized venues grew to 18.7%, indicating that more users are choosing to execute derivatives trades directly on-chain rather than through centralized exchanges.

While those figures point to continued demand for decentralized trading tools, the more striking change appears in how users are spending and earning with crypto. Since the launch of the Bitget Wallet crypto card in July, monthly spending volumes have risen more than six-fold, according to the company. The wallet now supports multiple payment options, including card payments, QR-code payments in selected markets, bank transfers, and in-app crypto purchases, making it easier for users to spend digital assets without moving funds to external platforms.

This growth in payments activity suggests that when crypto wallets reduce friction and offer familiar payment experiences, users are more willing to treat them as practical financial tools rather than niche products. Instead of holding assets purely for trading or long-term speculation, users appear increasingly comfortable using crypto for everyday transactions, particularly when stablecoins are involved.

According to Jamie Elkaleh, CMO of Bitget Wallet, usage patterns in 2025 reflect a noticeable change in how crypto wallets are being adopted. “The data from 2025 points to a clear shift in how wallets are used,” he said. “They are increasingly functioning as everyday finance apps, where users trade, spend, and manage money directly onchain.”

The shift has broader implications for how crypto adoption is measured. For years, wallet growth and trading volumes were often treated as proxies for user engagement. The growing importance of payment activity as a driver of usage points to a more mature phase of adoption, where utility matters as much as speculation.

At the same time, this evolution raises questions around regulation and oversight. As wallets expand further into payments and broader financial services, they may increasingly fall within regulatory discussions traditionally associated with payment processors and financial service providers. While the Bitget report does not address regulatory considerations directly, the growing role of wallets in everyday finance is likely to attract closer attention from policymakers across multiple jurisdictions.

Bitget Wallet says it plans to continue expanding payment functionality and on-chain integrations, with the aim of making crypto-native finance more accessible to a broader user base. Whether this trend extends beyond early adopters will depend on factors such as user experience, regulatory clarity, and the stability of on-chain financial products.

The data offers a snapshot of a wallet ecosystem in transition, one where trading remains important but no longer fully defines how users engage with crypto. As spending and everyday financial use cases take on a larger role, wallets may increasingly resemble digital finance hubs rather than gateways to trading alone.