VCs name Robinhood, stablecoins as 2025's top crypto winners

Several venture capitalists have identified the crypto market's biggest winners and losers for 2025. In a recent podcast, Pantera Capital partner Mason Nystrom, Hash3 co-founder Hootie Rashidifard, and Variant partner Alana Levin named the year's top performers and those who negatively impacted the industry. Among the winners, the VCs cited Robinhood for rapidly capturing market share once regulatory clarity was established. Stablecoins were also highlighted for their surging trade volumes and issuer profitability, with Tether being noted for having one of the highest productivity rates per employee in the world. Prediction markets were named the fastest-growing category of the year, with Polymarket securing a $2 billion investment from Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the parent company of the NYSE. A year ago, both Polymarket and its competitor Kalshi were valued at under $1 billion. The list of losers included Do Kwon, the co-founder of Terraform Labs. He was identified as the central figure in the $40 billion collapse of the Terra-Luna ecosystem and was recently sentenced to 15 years in prison in the U.S. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) under the previous administration was also criticized for its years of hostile enforcement actions, which the VCs said were politically motivated and caused many crypto founders to move overseas.