RWA tokens come out on top as most crypto sectors endure down year

The slow altcoin market in 2025 meant most of the usual crypto narratives also showed weakness. RWA tokenization emerged as one of the few thriving sectors. 

Crypto narratives showed weakness in all of 2025, with most of the dependable categories posting deep losses. Only a handful of narratives saw net gains and sustainable structure. 

Overall, returns remained low in 2025, with most tokens outperforming the market only in the short term. RWA tokens emerged as the most profitable class in 2025 on average, with over 185% net growth. 

The strongest narratives offset losses in other crypto trends. In 2025, the bull cycle achieved much lower returns, with fewer opportunities for 100X growth compared to previous cycles. This time, investors were seeking infrastructure and sustainability, rather than outsized gain potential. 

According to Coingecko research, RWA tokens returned 185.8% on average, based on the performance of top tokens. The smaller assets still underperformed. Tokenization appeared as one of the major trends in late 2025, based on demand for on-chain stock exposure. 

Chainlink (LINK) emerged as a proxy for tokenized stocks, while smaller platforms retained relatively low valuations. ONDO had a market cap of just $1.2B, despite being one of the major hubs for tokenization. 

L1 crypto narrative struggled in the past year

L1 chains were considered blue chips, but most of the assets also slowed down in the past year. ETH is down a net 10% for the past 12 months, despite the growing activity. Ethereum emerged as a utility chain with growth in stablecoins, lending, and other activities, but ETH failed to break out to a higher range. 

SOL is down over 34% in the past month, at $123.52. Despite becoming a trading hub and a strong meme season, SOL did not manage to retain significant earnings. 

The only exceptions among L1 tokens were BNB, up by 22% net in the past year, and TRX, rising by 9.9% net. Both tokens are down from their all-time peak, but are among the few major L1 chains in the green. 

Smaller L1 chains fared the worst, as they lost traffic to L2 networks. AVAX was down by 66.5% for the year, despite expectations of emerging as a key liquidity hub and reinventing itself as a DeFi chain. 

Telegram’s TON token is down by 73.4% in the past year, down to $1.52. The network failed to capture sufficient liquidity, despite the inflow of users from Telegram. 

Memes and AI agents track losses despite popularity

Memes and AI agents helped build new types of on-chain and consumer structures. Briefly, those narratives offset the lack of an altcoin market. 

Memes lost 31.6% on average, while AI agent tokens are down by 50.2% for the year to date. The slowdown of memes and AI agents affected DEX activity, leading to a 55.5% slump in DEX-based tokens. 

L2 chains, some of which were used for memes and AI agents, are down by 40.6% on average. Again, token performance does not always reflect on-chain activity, as some of the networks retained their liquidity and some of the trading volumes. 

The Solana ecosystem as a whole was down more than 64%, based on the slower meme market. 

The worst performers in 2025 were GameFi and DePIN tokens. The AI narrative was not sufficient to reawaken older DePIN tokens, which are down by over 95% on average. 

In 2025, tokens and altcoins also showed the market rarely returned to old assets, instead seeking new trends and use cases.

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