AI, Gaming and other crypto sectors crash worse than Bitcoin in 2025

All other crypto sectors underperformed Bitcoin this year, with average decline ranging from nearly 50% to as high as 85%.

According to data available on Delphi Digital, various crypto sectors such as AI frameworks, Agent-based projects, meme coins and others have crashed this year. The performances of these key sectors have done worse compared to the benchmark assets of the industry, which are Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), and Solana (SOL).

Based on the data, AI frameworks and platforms have seen the worst decline out of all the sectors, falling by 84.05% on average. Meanwhile, Agent-based projects are down 70.27% on average compared to last year. The meme coin sector also saw a major decline, as it plummeted by 51.74% this year, much to the dismay of meme coin traders.

These results come as a surprise, considering many traders were confident that AI-based projects and the meme coin sector would be the ones leading the crypto market in 2025. A Binance survey conducted last December showed that nearly 45% of users believed that AI projects and meme coins would emerge as strong players in the coming year.

Dashboard showing the performance decline of various crypto industry sectors, February 26, 2025 | Source: Delphi Digital

Moreover, the gaming infrastructure sector also saw a similar loss of 51.54% this year, followed by the modular solutions sector which is down 47%. The AI and DePIN sector also suffered this year, with a loss of 42.41%. The Layer 1 sector seems to be doing better with only a decline of 26% in performance.

On the other hand, despite having suffered a major drop in price and falling below the $90,000 threshold, Bitcoin’s performance has managed to sustain minimal damage. At press time, Bitcoin’s performance by return percentage has seen a 5.23% decline.

Compared to other benchmark assets, like Ethereum and Solana, Bitcoin’s performance has sustained the least damage. Meanwhile, Ethereum has seen a 25.5% decline in returns and Solana has suffered a similar loss of 24.8% in performance. On average, the benchmark assets have gone down by 18.53% in returns. Although this is still not a good sign for the crypto market, the benchmark assets seem to be doing much better than all the other crypto sectors.

On Feb. 25, the crypto market suffered a major crash after Bitcoin slipped below $90,000 for the first time since November 2024. Crypto liquidations have broken over $1 billion, with long positions making up the majority of liquidations.