The 10 biggest crypto losers of 2025 (and what went wrong)

The year 2025 served as a harsh lesson in crypto, where hype collapsed under the weight of opaque practices. The biggest losers shared a common playbook: selling dreams to retail while securing better terms for insiders, leading to massive token devaluation once initial liquidity dried up. Examples include Movement Labs, whose token plummeted 97% following a scandal involving tokens given to a market maker; Berachain, which saw its TVL drop over 90% due to leaked two-tier investor terms contradicting its community-first ethos; and Mantra, whose OM token crashed over 90% amid price manipulation concerns. The GameFi narrative also failed spectacularly, declining 75.1% as user retention remained low. Furthermore, Pi Network's mainnet launch led to an 80% token price collapse due to massive token unlocks controlled by the core team. PolitiFi tokens like TRUMP and MELANIA saw near-total wipeouts following initial political spikes due to alleged insider dumping. The 'Internet Capital Markets' (ICM) concept, exemplified by LAUNCHCOIN/BELIEVE, delivered pump-and-dump cycles. AI tokens, despite high popularity, averaged a 50.2% loss as utility lagged hype, and Layer 2 tokens suffered as capital concentrated on only a few chains, leaving many L2s bleeding liquidity. Finally, KindlyMD's merger with a Bitcoin-holding entity resulted in a 99% equity crash, showing that BTC on the balance sheet doesn't guarantee equity returns.

(Source：CryptoSlate)