Nearly 70% of 2025’s Most Promising Cryptocurrencies Suffered Double-Digit Losses YTD

Despite a massive 1,000 coin cut over the past ten months, the crypto space still counts a whopping 9,450 coins and tokens as of this week, so finding the right pick to grow your investment can feel like searching for a needle in a haystack. To help investors avoid deep-dive analysis and decoding endless social media and community buzz, mainstream investment and crypto media outlets like Forbes and CoinMarketCap compile yearly lists of the most promising cryptos.

These usually include blue-chip assets, altcoins with the biggest breakout potential, and the fastest-growing new cryptos. The list of 2025’s most promising cryptos featured around 13 names that repeated, and, shockingly, most of them underperformed, showing just how unpredictable the crypto space can be.

According to data presented by BestWallet.com, nearly 70% of 2025’s most promising cryptocurrencies have suffered double-digit losses year-to-date. Here are the ones that took the hardest hit and the ones that managed to emerge as winners.

As the search for the next breakout crypto continues, one thing stays the same – security comes first, so check out our best Bitcoin wallet guide for secure storage options.

Only Four Most Promising Cryptos Posted YTD Gains

To make a list of the most promising cryptocurrencies for 2025, experts and analysts looked at a mix of key factors, like market cap, price performance, trading volume, innovation, community support, and how well each project adapts to market trends and challenges.

Thanks to this balanced approach they came up with a list of around 13 repeating names, marked as the most promising cryptocurrencies of 2025: Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, XRP, Chainlink, Avalanche, Cardano, Hyperliquid, Sei, Aptos, Kapa, Patriot, and Hedera. Shockingly, only four of them posted year-to-date gains, and actually proved as top investment picks for 2025.

Hyperliquid, now the world’s eleventh-largest crypto by market cap, convincingly leads this group. Its price surged after the Hypurr NFT launch drew huge trading volumes and sparked fresh buzz among investors. Between January and October, Hyperliquid’s price more than doubled, reaching over $49. Although its price dropped by roughly 22% since then, reflecting the broader market decline, Hyperliquid’s YTD gain is still an impressive 61%, way above the other three most-promising cryptos that remained in the green.  

Bitcoin, still widely considered the foundation of any crypto portfolio, and one of the most promising crypto investment picks for 2025, saw a three times smaller gain, with its price rising by only 20% since January 1. Ethereum, featured in many “top picks for 2025” lists, thanks to its smart contract infrastructure, DeFi role, and ongoing upgrades, ranked very close, posting a 21% price increase in the same period. Statistics show that XRP (Ripple) was the only other crypto on this list to see gains, with its price rising by a relatively modest 15% year-to-date.

Patriot and Aptos Took the Worst Hit, Losing 96% and 63% in Value YTD

Unlike these four coins and tokens, which ended the first ten months with double-digit gains, all other 2025’s most promising cryptos didn`t meet the expectations, with some performing much worse than others.

Of the nine underperformers, Patriot and Aptos took the hardest hit, losing 96% and 63% of their value, respectively. Aptos plunged after a $60 million token unlock triggered heavy selling and investor fear, made worse by weak inflows and the overall market slump. Patriot crashed even harder due to low adoption, poor visibility, and bearish sentiment that hit smaller, high-risk tokens the most.

However, other underperformers weren’t that far behind in price losses. Kapa lost 53% of its value year-to-date, Sei and Avalanche fell 49% and 41%, while Hedera and Cardano followed with 39% and 23% drops, respectively. Statistics show that Chainlink and Solana held up best among underperformers, each losing only 4.7% year-to-date.