A New Turning Point in the Blockchain Market by 2025: Industry Maturity Driven by Accelerated Corporate Adoption and Regulatory Clarity
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Reaching the Critical Point of Corporate Blockchain Adoption
As of the fourth quarter of 2025, the global blockchain market is showing clear signs of entering a maturity phase. According to Deloitte’s latest ‘2025 Global Blockchain Survey’, 86% of executives worldwide classify blockchain as a “strategic priority,” a 23 percentage point increase from 2024. Notably, there is a significant rise in companies recognizing blockchain not just as a “future technology” but as an “essential infrastructure to be adopted now.” The global blockchain market size reached $163 billion in 2025, a 73.2% increase from 2024, significantly exceeding the growth rates predicted by market forecasting agencies.
The backdrop of this rapid growth is the tangible results of enterprise blockchain solutions. Walmart announced that its food tracking system reduced the response time to food safety incidents from 7 days to 2.2 seconds, achieving an annual cost-saving effect of approximately $120 million. Such concrete success stories are decisively influencing other companies’ decisions to adopt blockchain. According to McKinsey’s analysis, by the second half of 2025, 47% of Fortune 500 companies were operating at least one blockchain-based system, a sharp increase from 18% in 2023.
This trend is also evident in the Korean market. Samsung SDS reported a 127% year-on-year growth in its blockchain business segment, recording sales of 234 billion won in the third quarter of 2025. The company is particularly strong in logistics tracking, financial payments, and medical data management, currently conducting blockchain projects with 186 companies across 23 countries. Similarly, LG CNS achieved a cumulative transaction volume of 12 million tons of CO2 through its blockchain-based carbon credit trading platform ‘Monachain’ in 2025, establishing itself as a core infrastructure for achieving carbon neutrality.
Another driving force behind the acceleration of corporate adoption is the improvement in blockchain technology performance and usability. With the complete implementation of Ethereum 2.0, the transaction processing capability (TPS) has surpassed 100,000 transactions per second, showing competitive performance compared to traditional database systems. Additionally, major cloud service providers like AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud have commercialized ‘Blockchain as a Service (BaaS)’, creating an environment where companies can adopt blockchain technology without complex infrastructure setup. Microsoft announced that its blockchain-related cloud service revenue is expected to reach $3.4 billion in 2025, accounting for about 8.7% of total Azure revenue.
Clarification of Regulatory Environment and Institutional Framework Establishment
One of the most notable changes in the blockchain industry in 2025 is the global clarification of regulatory frameworks. Following the full implementation of the EU’s ‘Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA)’ regulation on December 30, 2024, the U.S. also passed the ‘Digital Asset Market Structure Act (DAMS Act)’ in July 2025, establishing a comprehensive legal foundation for the blockchain industry. This regulatory clarity is significantly promoting institutional investors’ investments in the blockchain sector. According to Bloomberg Intelligence data, institutional investors’ blockchain-related investments totaled $89 billion in 2025, a 156% increase from 2024.
The Korean government is also actively fostering the blockchain industry through the enactment of the ‘Basic Digital Asset Act’. The Financial Services Commission announced the ‘Blockchain Financial Innovation Roadmap’ in October 2025, aiming to develop Korea into Asia’s largest blockchain hub by 2030. According to this plan, the government will invest a total of 2.3 trillion won in blockchain R&D and infrastructure development over the next five years. Specifically, 560 billion won is allocated for Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) development, and 420 billion won for building a blockchain-based digital government, leading the public sector’s blockchain adoption.
The direct beneficiaries of regulatory clarity are cryptocurrency exchanges and blockchain service companies. Coinbase reported a 340% year-on-year increase in institutional client trading volume, reaching $234 billion in the third quarter of 2025. The company emphasized that compliance costs decreased from 12% to 7.8% of revenue, significantly improving profitability. This demonstrates that companies can operate more efficiently under a clear regulatory framework. Additionally, the increased participation of institutional investors has significantly reduced cryptocurrency market volatility, with Bitcoin’s 30-day volatility decreasing from an average of 68% in 2024 to 41% in 2025.
In China, while cryptocurrency trading remains banned, the government is actively supporting blockchain technology itself. The Chinese Communist Party designated blockchain as one of the seven strategic emerging technologies in its 14th Five-Year Plan for 2025, aiming to expand the blockchain industry to 1 trillion yuan (approximately 195 trillion won) by 2030. Particularly, policies are being pursued to mandate blockchain adoption in supply chain management, digital identity verification, and government services, which is expected to further expand China’s influence in the global blockchain ecosystem.
Japan is also accelerating the development of the blockchain industry through its ‘Web3 National Strategy’. The Japanese government launched a ‘Digital Yen’ pilot program in April 2025, with mega banks such as Mitsubishi UFJ Bank and Mizuho Bank participating to verify the practicality of CBDC in real transaction environments. Initial results show that processing speed is 15 times faster and fees are reduced by 80% compared to existing payment systems. Based on these achievements, the Japanese government aims to officially launch CBDC by 2027, which is expected to secure Japan’s leading position in the global CBDC competition.
New Value Created by the Convergence of AI and Blockchain
The most innovative trend in the blockchain industry in 2025 is its convergence with artificial intelligence (AI). The so-called ‘AI-Blockchain Hybrid’ systems have begun to be implemented across various industries, serving as a catalyst to overcome the limitations of existing blockchains and create new business models. The ‘AI Oracle Network’, jointly developed by OpenAI and Chainlink, enables smart contracts on blockchain to utilize real-time AI analysis results, showing innovative results in areas such as automated insurance claims processing, investment portfolio rebalancing, and supply chain optimization.
NVIDIA officially entered the AI-blockchain convergence market by launching the ‘Omniverse Blockchain’ platform in November 2025. This platform distributes GPU computing power across the blockchain network to perform AI model training and inference while storing the process and results as immutable records on the blockchain. NVIDIA recorded $1.2 billion in revenue from this service in the fourth quarter of 2025 alone, projecting growth to $5 billion annually by 2026. Demand for AI-blockchain convergence solutions is exploding, particularly in autonomous vehicles, medical diagnostics, and financial risk analysis.
This convergence trend is also becoming visible in Korea. SK Telecom commercialized its ‘Intelligent Blockchain Service’, which combines its AI platform ‘A.’ with blockchain technology, in August 2025. This service automates network optimization, security threat detection, and personalized customer service by analyzing communication data with AI while transparently recording all processes on the blockchain. SK Telecom announced that it reduced network operating costs by 23% and security incidents by 87%. The company is currently expanding this technology to its overseas subsidiaries in Vietnam, Mongolia, and aims to achieve related revenue of 2 trillion won by 2026.
Another innovative example of AI-blockchain convergence is the emergence of decentralized AI marketplaces. The platform jointly developed by SingularityNET and Ocean Protocol allows developers worldwide to register their AI models on a blockchain-based marketplace, where other users can pay tokens to utilize them. Currently, over 12,000 AI models are registered on this platform, with a monthly transaction volume exceeding $230 million. This significantly contributes to AI democratization, enabling small and medium-sized enterprises and startups to leverage cutting-edge AI technology without building costly AI infrastructure.
This AI-blockchain convergence trend is also bringing changes to the existing cloud computing market. Amazon Web Services launched the ‘Blockchain AI Computing Service’ in October 2025, allowing customers to utilize distributed AI computing resources through the blockchain network. This approach is entirely different from the traditional centralized cloud model, enabling users to access AI services at lower costs while enhancing data privacy and security. AWS announced plans to expand its cloud AI market share from the current 32% to 45% by 2026 through this service.
However, there are still challenges to be addressed in AI-blockchain convergence. The biggest issue is energy consumption. As AI model training and blockchain consensus processes occur simultaneously, power consumption is found to increase by 2.3 times compared to existing systems. In response, major companies are actively investing in expanding renewable energy use and improving energy efficiency. Tesla is expanding solar power facilities at its Texas Gigafactory to supply 100% renewable energy to its AI-blockchain data center, aiming to provide carbon-neutral AI-blockchain services.
Industry experts predict that the AI-blockchain convergence market will grow at an annual average rate of 89.2% to reach $452 billion by 2030. Innovative applications are expected to continue emerging in healthcare, financial services, supply chain management, and digital content, which are analyzed to be key drivers of growth for the entire blockchain industry. Investment bank Goldman Sachs recently stated in a report that “AI-blockchain convergence is creating an entirely new digital economy paradigm beyond mere technological combination,” presenting a positive outlook on related investment opportunities.
As of the end of 2025, the blockchain industry stands at a clear turning point. The speculative growth phase is transitioning to real value creation and corporate adoption, with regulatory clarity and convergence with AI technology providing new growth drivers. Blockchain technology is expected to establish itself as a core foundational technology of the digital economy beyond mere cryptocurrency infrastructure, presenting new opportunities and challenges for investors and companies alike. Particularly for Korean companies, the government’s proactive support policies and strong IT infrastructure present a golden opportunity to secure competitiveness in the global blockchain market, making strategic investment and technology development increasingly important.
*This analysis is provided for informational purposes only and is not an investment solicitation or advice. Investment decisions should be made at one’s own discretion and responsibility.*
