In 2025, the winners of the crypto market were not those we expected, but those who could tell the right story at the right time. CoinGecko reveals the major winners: did you manage to take advantage of it?
3 crypto trends hit the jackpot
In 2025, the crypto market made a decision: the most profitable sectors did not come from meme coins or artificial intelligence projects, but from real-world assets. RWA (Real World Assets) dominated the year with an average increase of +185.8%, driven by the excitement around projects like Keeta Network (+1,794.9%), Zebec Network (+217.3%) or Maple Finance (+123%). According to CoinGecko's report on this matter, their growth, although less explosive than in 2024 (+819.5%), confirms a solid trend: the tokenization of traditional finance appeals to both institutions and retail investors.
Just behind, layer-1 projects regained strength thanks to seasoned market players: Zcash (ZEC), up +691.3%, and Monero (XMR) with +143.6%, followed by Bitcoin Cash, BNB, and Tron. This rebound in historic blockchains enabled USA-made cryptocurrencies to rank third with +30.6%, driven by Zcash’s performance—a symbol of privacy coins making a comeback on the global stage.
The losers are equally revealing. Despite their visibility, AI cryptocurrencies and meme coins failed to sustain momentum, posting losses of 50% and 31% respectively. The same trend holds for DeFi, DEX, and layer-2 projects, which saw sharp declines ranging from -34.8% to -55.5%.
The most dramatic declines hit GameFi (-75.2%) and DePIN (-76.7%), two sectors heavily hyped in 2024 but unable to convert popularity into lasting adoption. The Solana ecosystem, despite being highly active, suffered the same fate (-64.2%).
The year 2026 is expected to confirm the growing momentum of certain trends. Two phenomena could already be on the verge of transforming the industry and reshaping the entire landscape by 2026, but according to DeFi Warhol analyst, next year’s trends are unlikely to differ significantly.
According to him, four sectors could become the drivers of growth: RWA, with real-world asset tokenization now surpassing $20 billion, stablecoins poised to become the reference financial infrastructure, while on-chain prediction markets and perpetuals are experiencing explosive volume growth.
On the other hand, GameFi, NFTs, and meme coins should remain the major losers over the next 12 months, while AI cryptocurrencies, despite OpenAI's current disillusionment phase, still need to prove themselves.
The takeaway: blockchains come and go, but strong narratives endure.
