After a 12 months of regulatory change and uneven market efficiency, crypto traders are reassessing the place worth accrued in 2025.
In a latest podcast, Pantera Capital associate Mason Nystrom, Hash3 co-founder Hootie Rashidifard and Variant associate Alana Levin recognized incumbents, resembling Robinhood, alongside stablecoin firms and prediction markets as this 12 months’s high performers.
In line with Nystrom, incumbents benefited from appearing as soon as the regulatory atmosphere turned clearer. He pointed to Robinhood, which he stated had taken a cautious stance towards crypto in recent times earlier than shifting extra aggressively in 2025, including that incumbents “have achieved a wonderful job getting forward of the place the puck is skating” as readability emerged.
Stablecoins had been one other clear winner, based on Rashidifard, who pointed to speedy development in transaction volumes and issuer profitability, noting that “Tether is essentially the most worthwhile firm on the planet per worker.” He stated:
“In 2022-2023, nobody was touting their stablecoin-founded venture because the cool factor of their portfolio, and now individuals are like, ‘oh wow, that’s a extremely sticky fascinating enterprise,’ and never simply because it generates income, however as a result of it truly offers worth to some finish buyer.”
Variant’s Levin highlighted prediction markets as one of many fastest-growing classes of 2025, saying platforms resembling Kalshi and Polymarket have moved previous earlier doubts about wash buying and selling and election-only exercise. She stated:
“I believe a 12 months in the past each Kalshi and Polymarket had been underneath a billion greenback valuations, after which to see the Intercontinental Change make investments $2 billion into Polymarket this 12 months, that’s like mind-blowing.”
Associated: Polymarket bets surge on Lighter airdrop as Hyperliquid lists LIT
Losers within the area in 2025
The enterprise capital executives additionally pointed to clear losers, citing each people and establishments that weighed on the crypto trade this 12 months.
Levin singled out Do Kwon, the co-founder of Terraform Labs, as a defining particular person loser. Do Kwon was sentenced to fifteen years in jail On Dec. 11 after pleading responsible to wire fraud and conspiracy expenses tied to the Terra collapse, which erased roughly $40 billion from the crypto market in 2022.
Rashidifard pointed to the “Biden-era” US Securities and Change Fee as a broader institutional loser, arguing that years of aggressive enforcement produced little lasting profit.
He described the interval as “hostile for politicized causes that made no sense,” saying it drove founders abroad earlier than coverage shifted in 2025 following the departure of former SEC Chair Gary Gensler. He added that the passage of the GENIUS Act and a crypto market construction invoice signaled a broader change within the authorities’s method.
The GENIUS Act, handed in July, established a federal framework for stablecoin issuance, reserves and regulatory oversight in the USA, whereas the market construction invoice has been delayed after the Senate Banking Committee postponed markup hearings till 2026.
Journal: Do Kwon sentenced to fifteen years, Bitcoin’s ‘uneven dance’: Hodler’s Digest, Dec. 7 – 13
