2025 Scoreboard: Year’s Top Winners and Biggest LosersIn 2025, money flowed to safety and profits (metals, stocks) 🚀 and away from high risk (altcoins, most crypto) 📉.
Scoreboard: who won 2025? 📊
- 🥈 Silver: +160%
- 🥇 Gold: +65%
- 🧱 Copper: +43%
- 💻 Nasdaq: +20%
- 📈 S&P 500: +16%
- 🧬 Russell 2000: +13%
- ₿ Bitcoin: −6%
- Ξ Ethereum: −12%
- 🪙 Altcoins: −42%
So: metals and stocks = strong green ✅, crypto = mostly red ❌, especially altcoins.
Why metals pumped so hard 🪙🚀
- People wanted safety, not lottery tickets.
When there is fear about inflation, wars, or central banks, investors rush into gold and silver as “real” money that existed for centuries.
- Metals have real‑world demand.
Silver and copper are needed for solar, EVs, electronics etc., so there is constant buying from industry, not just traders.
Result: a huge wall of money moved into metals, pushing them up far more than Bitcoin.
Why stocks did well 📈💼
- Big Tech keeps making real profits.
AI, cloud, chips and software companies are printing earnings, so investors feel comfortable paying higher prices for their shares.
- Easy to access, easy to trust.
Anyone can buy an S&P 500 ETF in their pension account; rules are clear, liquidity is huge. That means constant passive inflows, even when crypto looks scary.
So stocks became the “default” risk trade, while crypto was left aside.
Why BTC and ETH only dipped a bit
- They are the “blue chips” of crypto.
When crypto is out of favor, funds usually sell altcoins first and keep more BTC and ETH, because they are the most liquid and most trusted.
- Still seen as long‑term bets.
Even in a bad year, many investors believe Bitcoin and Ethereum can recover, so they don’t panic‑dump as hard as they do with small caps.
That is why BTC −6% and ETH −12% look “ok” compared with altcoins −42%.
Why altcoins were destroyed 🧨🪙
- Highest risk, so they get sold first.
When people de‑risk, the order is usually: sell altcoins ➝ then BTC/ETH ➝ maybe later reduce stocks. Altcoins sit at the very end of the risk curve.
- Bad tokenomics + unlocks.
Many altcoins still release new supply to VCs, teams, or farmers. In a weak market, those extra tokens just crush price.
- Old narratives, no real users.
A lot of 2021 themes (random L1s, dead metaverse projects, copy‑paste DeFi) lost momentum. With little real usage, there were more sellers than buyers all year.
End result: altcoins became the worst‑performing major asset class of 2025.
The simple lesson for traders 🧠
- In “fear” years, money runs to real assets and profitable companies (metals, strong stocks) 🛡️.
- In those phases, crypto – especially alts – behaves like leverage on risk and gets hit the hardest 💣.
So for the next cycle, think in levels of risk:
cash → metals → big stocks → BTC/ETH → altcoins.
When the macro mood turns defensive again, rotate up this ladder instead of holding the riskiest coins and hoping.
