The capital city of Slovenia — Ljubljana — has been named the world’s most crypto-friendly city by migration advisory firm Multipolitan.

The city outranked runners-up Hong Kong and Switzerland’s economic powerhouse Züric, which scored the same in the Crypto-Friendly Cities Index, found in its 2025 Crypto Report.

The index featured 20 cities and ranked their crypto-friendliness based on their regulations, tax environment, lifestyle factors and digital and crypto infrastructure.

Multipolitan said its evaluation included weighing areas such as a city’s licensing frameworks, capital gains tax rates, GDP per capita, housing affordability and internet speeds.

“The presence of crypto ATMs and retail adoption rates were analysed to reflect each city’s embedded cryptocurrency culture,” it explained. “High concentrations of these assets earned the top scores.”

The city-state of Singapore and the United Arab Emirates’ capital of Abu Dhabi were respectively ranked fourth and fifth after the second-place tie. Both cities were already attractive to businesses due to offering low or no taxes, but they’ve also worked to attract crypto companies with industry-specific licensing and regulatory regimes.

Sydney, Australia’s most populous city, ranked in the middle of the pack in 10th spot, with the report noting it was home to the most crypto ATMs of the group. Source: Multipolitan

Madison, the capital city of the US state of Wisconsin, was the only city in the Americas to rank on the index, hitting the same 11th place score as Latvia’s capital of Riga, Qatar’s capital of Doha, and Saudi Arabia’s capital of Riyadh.

Slovenia’s crypto embrace

Slovenia also topped Multipolitan’s Crypto Wealth Concentration Index, combining crypto ownership rates and trading volumes, which reported that the average Slovenian crypto owner held around $240,500 worth of assets.

The figure outranked second-place Cyprus by over $65,000, with the average crypto-holding Cypriot hanging onto around $175,000. Hong Kong came in third with holdings averaging $97,500.

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The US ranked at the bottom of the 20-strong list, coming in 17th spot with average crypto holdings of around $23,300, just above Malaysia’s nearly $21,000 average holdings.

Slovenia, being part of the EU, regulates crypto under the bloc’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA), which the industry received as mostly positive.

The advocacy group Blockchain Alliance Europe is based in Ljubljana. The city also houses the blockchain real estate platform Blocksquare, which teamed up with Vera Capital on April 18 to tokenize $1 billion worth of US real estate.

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Billion-dollar asset manager ARK Invest has raised its “bull case” Bitcoin price target from $1.5 million to $2.4 million by the end of 2030, driven largely by institutional investors and Bitcoin’s increasing acceptance as “digital gold.”

ARK’s “bear” and “base” case scenarios for the price of Bitcoin (BTC) were also bumped up to $500,000 and $1.2 million, ARK research analyst David Puell said in an April 24 report.

The new bear and base targets were bumped up from ARK’s $300,000 and $710,000 Bitcoin price predictions on Feb. 11.

ARK’s price projections were modeled on Bitcoin’s total addressable market (TAM), penetration rate — the percentage of Bitcoin’s TAM that it could capture in certain cases — and Bitcoin’s supply schedule.

ARK’s bear, base and bull case price targets for Bitcoin by Dec. 31, 2030. Source: ARK Invest

“Institutional investment contributes the most to our bull case,” said Puell, who estimated that Bitcoin would achieve a 6.5% penetration rate into the $200 trillion financial market in a best-case scenario (that figure excludes gold).

Bitcoin’s acceptance as “digital gold” was also a major contributor to the lofty estimate, with Puell estimating that it could capture up to 60% of gold’s $18 trillion market cap (2024 figures) by the end of 2030 in a bull scenario.

Bitcoin becoming a “safe haven” in emerging markets was the third-largest contributor to ARK’s $2.4 million bull case prediction at 13.5%.

“This Bitcoin use case has the greatest potential for capital accrual,” Puell said, pointing to Bitcoin’s ability to protect wealth from inflation and devaluation in developing countries.

Nation-state and corporate Bitcoin treasury strategies and Bitcoin financial services were also factored into ARK’s Bitcoin price projections.

Bitcoin use cases contributing to ARK’s Bitcoin price targets. Source: ARK Invest

ARK’s Bitcoin predictions are bold

A $2.4 million Bitcoin price tag would send Bitcoin’s market cap to $49.2 trillion, assuming that Bitcoin’s total supply will have reached 20.5 million by the end of 2030.

A $49.2 trillion valuation would be almost larger than the current gross domestic products of the US and China combined.

It would also put Bitcoin in a good position to overtake gold as the world’s largest asset, which currently boasts a market cap of $22.5 trillion.

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Even ARK’s bear and base targets of $500,000 and $1.2 million would mean Bitcoin needs to increase at a compounded annual growth rate of 32% and 53% by the end of 2030 — a return that isn’t achieved too often for assets that have already notched trillion-dollar valuations.

Since then, Bitcoin has recovered from a 2025 low of $75,160, soaring back up to the $94,000 range, while the Trump administration established a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve.

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Regulatory changes could be the catalyst to spark significant adoption of stablecoins and blockchain tech in 2025, according to investment banking giant Citigroup.

“2025 has the potential to be blockchain’s ‘ChatGPT’ moment for adoption in the financial and public sector, driven by regulatory change,” a team of Citigroup financial analysts said in an April 23 report. 

A combination of growing regulatory support and adoption by financial institutions has set the stage for the stablecoin market cap to fly as high as $3.7 trillion by 2030, or in a base case, $1.6 trillion.

“The main catalyst for their greater acceptance may be regulatory clarity in the US, which could enable greater integration of stablecoins specifically, and blockchain more widely, into the existing financial system,” Citi said in its report. 

“The tailwinds of regulatory support and the increased integration of digital assets into incumbent financial institutions are setting the scene for increased usage of stablecoins.”

On the heels of US President Donald Trump’s crypto-friendly administration assuming power earlier this year, lawmakers are weighing stablecoin legislation, such as the GENIUS Act, which seeks to regulate US stablecoins, ensuring their legal use for payments. 

A US regulatory framework for stablecoin would also support demand for dollar risk-free assets inside and outside the US, according to the report. 

“The stablecoin issuers will have to buy US Treasuries, or comparable low risk assets, against each stablecoin as a measure of having safe underlying collateral,” Citi said. 

“Stablecoin issuers could hold more US Treasuries by 2030 than any single jurisdiction today.” 

Stablecoin issuers could have significant holdings of US Treasuries by 2030. Source: Citigroup 

US will continue to dominate stablecoins 

In the future, Citi predicts the stablecoin supply will remain US dollar-denominated, with non-US countries promoting national currency or a central bank digital currency.

In April, the stablecoin market cap had crossed $230 billion, an increase of 54% since last year, with Tether (USDT) and USDC (USDC) dominating 90% of the market. 

“While the dollar’s dominance may evolve over time, with the euro or other currencies being promoted by national regulations, stablecoins may be viewed by many non-US policy makers as an instrument of dollar hegemony,” Citi said. 

“Geopolitics remain fluid. Should the world continue to drift into a multi-polar system it is likely that policymakers in China and Europe will be keen to promote central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) or stablecoins issued in their own currency.” 

Related: Russia finance ministry official floats country making own stablecoins: Report

However, there are still some challenges ahead for the market. The stablecoin market cap could settle around $500 billion if “adoption and integration challenges persist.” 

Depegging has also been flagged as a potential issue, with 1,900 instances in 2023, according to Citi, including the major USDC depeg following the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank.

“A major depegging event would likely dampen crypto market liquidity, trigger automated liquidations, impair trading platforms’ ability to meet redemptions, and potentially have broader contagion effects for the financial system,” the firm said. 

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