In 2025, meme coins and artificial intelligence (AI) were two of the most talked-about topics in the cryptocurrency world. Many investors were excited about their potential, but a new report suggests they didn’t perform as well as expected. This might show that people are becoming more careful with speculative (risky) cryptocurrencies as the market remains unstable towards the end of the year.
How Meme Coins and AI Performed
According to a recent CoinGecko report, meme coins and AI tokens did not bring good financial returns this year, even though they were very popular. Meme coins, which are cryptocurrencies based on internet jokes or memes, showed an average loss of 31.6% since the start of the year. The biggest meme coins suffered losses between 44.6% and 82.5%, except for one called Ribbita by Virtuals.
AI tokens didn’t do well either. AI stands for Artificial Intelligence, which means creating smart machines that can perform tasks like humans. Most AI crypto tokens had losses of 49.8% to 84.3%. Only two tokens, Alchemist AI and Kite, avoided huge declines.
Other Crypto Trends in 2025
The struggles weren’t limited to meme coins and AI. Other important sectors in the crypto market also faced challenges. Decentralized finance (DeFi), which focuses on peer-to-peer financial services using blockchain, saw average losses of 34.8%, similar to meme coins. Decentralized exchange (DEX) tokens, which allow users to trade cryptocurrencies directly without a central authority, dropped 55.5%.
Layer 2 networks, which are designed to make transactions faster and cheaper on leading blockchains like Ethereum (Layer 2 explanation), also had a tough time. They lost about 40.6% on average, marking the second year in a row of poor performance.
Bright Spots: RWA and Layer 1
While many sectors struggled, there were success stories. Real-world assets (RWA), which represent physical or digital assets outside the blockchain, were the most profitable crypto trend in 2025. RWA tokens gained 185.8% on average, mainly due to a massive 1,794.9% increase in the Keeta Network. Other tokens like Zebec Network and Maple Finance also did well.
Layer 1 blockchains, which are the base networks for cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin or Ethereum, ranked second in performance. They had average gains of 80.3%. Privacy-focused Layer 1 coins like Zcash and Monero performed strongly, as did popular coins such as Bitcoin Cash, BNB, and Tron. Both RWA tokens and Layer 1 networks managed to have profitable years for the second year in a row.
Mixed Results for Other Narratives
Some narratives saw smaller successes. For example, the “Made in USA” trend, which focuses on U.S.-based projects, had modest growth of 30.6%. This was largely thanks to Zcash’s strong performance.
On the other hand, gaming-related cryptocurrencies, which are used for gaming platforms and in-game economies, had the worst performance with a 75.2% drop. The “DePIN” (Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks) sector also had steep losses of 76.7%. Another major ecosystem, Solana, known for its fast and affordable transactions, fell 64.2% despite being a favorite in terms of interest and discussion.