2025 in Review: How GAP600 Adapted to a Changing Crypto Reality

2025 was a busy year for crypto infrastructure. It was a year that witnessed protocol-level change, changing user behavior, and a growing gap between how blockchains work and how businesses actually need them to work.

For GAP600, it was a challenging, interesting, and ultimately formative year — one that forced deep changes to how instant deposit risk is understood, modeled, and mitigated.

GAP600 enables instant crypto deposit recognition by analyzing transactions in real-time and providing a financial guarantee on trx confirmed by our platform at 0-conf level.

A Protocol Shift That Changed the Rules

One of the most significant developments impacting the industry in 2025 was the continued integration and adoption of Full Replace-By-Fee (RBF) on Bitcoin.

Originally, Bitcoin followed a “first-seen” rule: once a transaction was seen on the network, it was often treated as “good enough” when applying certain propagation and risk-assessment tools to credit a user. Initially, Optin RBF and now Full RBF change that assumption. Today, transactions can be replaced minutes later (sometimes multiple times) with a higher-fee version — or disappear entirely — before they are confirmed.

The practical implication is simple: a Bitcoin transaction is much riskier for 0-conf use or instant crediting, finalizing only when it is mined into a block. And also before we have the lightning response we are referring the main net transactions in this case

What This Meant for GAP600’s Risk Engine

GAP600 had to reconsider how risk is measured in real time.

Instead of looking at a single transaction in isolation, the risk engine now evaluates behavior over time. For example:

• A user submits a transaction and then rebroadcasts a slightly modified version with a higher fee
• A wallet repeatedly replaces transactions under network congestion
• A deposit looks valid at first, but then shows patterns commonly associated with replacement activity

None of these signals alone point to fraud. But together, they help indicate whether a transaction is likely to survive until confirmation.

This required GAP600 to collect more contextual data, continuously refine scoring models, and redesign parts of the engine to react dynamically — adjusting confidence levels as network conditions and user behavior change.

The question is no longer “Did we see the transaction?” but rather “How likely is this transaction to still exist in ten minutes?”

That shift has defined how GAP600 approaches instant deposit risk going forward. This work is ongoing, and it has become a core area of innovation for GAP600.

Double Spends: A Growing Reality, Not Always a Malicious One

One of the clearest trends in 2025 was the sharp rise in double-spend-related transactions affecting the ecosystem.

It’s important to clarify: not all double spends are intentional fraud. In many cases, they result from user behavior, such as fee adjustments, wallet retries, or automated transaction replacement logic. On a protocol level, many of these transactions simply fail, even though the original transaction still pays out successfully.

However, the frequency of double-spend scenarios has increased dramatically, creating real operational and financial risk for payment processors and liquidity providers offering instant credit. 

Market Dynamics: Pressure, But Also Opportunity

Despite these challenges, GAP600 continues to actively serve — and grow within — this space.

We’re seeing renewed demand for instant deposit solutions, new players entering the market, and increased sophistication among buyers, particularly on the risk side.

Our primary clients remain payment processors and a selection of non-custodial liquidity providers who view customer experience as a competitive advantage.

Custodial exchanges, by contrast, continue to move more cautiously. Many still shy away from investing heavily in instant user experience, prioritizing operational simplicity over speed. 

Network Support and Service Expansion

From a service perspective, 2025 also marked continued expansion for our business.

Bitcoin remains the dominant demand driver, but GAP600 now supports Litecoin (LTC), which we launched in response to clear market demand. We also offer ongoing support for Ethereum (ETH), USDT, and Bitcoin Cash (BCH).

Each network behaves differently, with its own risks, confirmation speeds, and range of user habits. That’s why risk models need to adapt to the specific network they’re operating on.

Scale as a Signal of Demand

In 2025, GAP600 surpassed $1B USD in processed volume and millions of address queries, reinforcing what the market has been signaling for years: Instant deposits are a core infrastructure requirement. Even as protocol complexity increases, the demand for speed has not slowed. If anything, expectations continue to rise. 

Looking Ahead

If 2025 taught us anything, it’s that instant deposits can’t rely on old assumptions.

Blockchains are changing, user behavior is changing, and new risks are emerging. That means instant deposit systems have to keep evolving… constantly updating how risk is measured, monitored, and managed.

GAP600’s focus going forward is clear: adapt to protocol changes as they happen, respond to real-world user behavior, and help clients offer fast deposits without taking on unnecessary risk. The work we’ve done in 2025 has laid critical foundations for what comes next in 2026.