2025 will bring at least four distinct “cryptocurrency is dead” episodes. January’s AI-induced flash crash, October’s tariff liquidation that wiped out $19 billion in leveraged positions, months of altcoin carnage, and the fourth-quarter recession that wiped out this year’s price gains.
Each time, the mainstream media dismissed the term “crypto winter.” By mid-year, there were more Bitcoin deaths than in all of 2024, with more than 470 deaths on record since 2010.
But under violent funding cuts and Twitter glee, the infrastructure continued to be built.
Stablecoin bill passed. Spot ETFs have attracted tens of billions of dollars. Major jurisdictions have issued actual rulebooks rather than issuing enforcement threats.
The result was a year in which cryptocurrencies repeatedly “disappeared” on price charts, but quietly became more firmly entrenched in the world’s financial plumbing than ever before.
DeepSeek and the January Flash Crash
The first “Crypto is Dead” chant arrived in late January, courtesy of Chinese AI model DeepSeek. On January 27th, a general decline in assets hit tech stocks and spilled over into digital assets.
Approximately $269 billion was wiped from the total market capitalization of cryptocurrencies in a single session, and leveraged positions wiped out about $850 million. Bitcoin fell more than 10% in a matter of hours, from about $105,000 to less than $98,000.
AI-related tokens have fallen by up to 70% in a single day. Analysts suggested that deep-seeking had punctured not just the AI bubble, but the entire “risk-on” trade, with Bitcoin leading the rally, making its rally suddenly vulnerable.
The timing of the selloff, just one month into the year, made the selloff even more impactful.
This crash did not push Bitcoin into a bear market regime, only returning it to its late December levels. Prices then hit a new all-time high of more than $124,000 by July, and hit another all-time high in October.
Market microstructural analysis frames this as the first major stress test of a more institutionally plugged-in crypto market rather than an existential failure, as the crash was caused by macro and AI repricing.
January’s episode looked scary in real time, but in hindsight it unfolded like a violent shakeout on a still bullish tape.
“10/10” Tariff collapse and record liquidation
The biggest “cryptocurrency is dead” moment came on October 10th. Amid thin liquidity over the weekend, President Donald Trump’s sudden announcement to impose 100% tariffs on imports from China triggered what Coinglass calls the largest liquidation event in crypto history.
It is estimated that approximately $20 billion in leveraged positions were eliminated within 24 hours, and more than 1.6 million accounts were liquidated.
Bitcoin fell from $121,000 to nearly $107,000 within hours, Ethereum fell below $4,000, and many altcoins printed near zero cores as market makers pulled orders.
This episode proved that despite the new era of ETFs, the leverage and market structure of cryptocurrencies remains dangerously fragile. Policymakers used the incident to argue that the pending U.S. market structure bill underestimates the systemic risks posed by cryptocurrencies.
The size of the liquidation was easier to calculate because it was larger than what we have seen in previous cycles, such as Terra/Luna and FTX.
Still, prices did not fall to the levels of previous cycles. Even after the crash and subsequent Q4 decline, Bitcoin traded in the $80,000 to $100,000 range for most of the year, well above its 2022-23 lows.
The structure has changed, but it has not disappeared. Derivatives open interest fell by about 25% in one day, but spot ETFs, custodians, and on-chain markets continued to function.
Inflows into regulated products remained positive from the beginning of the year, even after October. According to data compiled by CoinShares, inflows into cryptocurrency ETFs will be approximately $46.2 billion in 2025, and BlackRock alone reported $74.8 billion in inflows into digital asset ETFs as of December 31st.
October’s liquidation was the largest on record, but institutional rails passed the stress test. The manager did not explode. The exchange remained online. The ETF continued to process basket creation and redemptions.
Despite the demolition of the speculative superstructure, the piping remained functional.
Altcoins, AI Tokens and Meme Coins Massacre
Another thread in the “crypto is dead” narrative is the destruction of high-beta sectors.
AI tokens and meme coins were subject to repeated uproar throughout 2025. During January’s DeepSeek episode, many AI-related coins fell more than 20% in 24 hours, with some recording intraday losses of up to 70%.
The report then moved on to the “2025 meme and AI altcoin crash,” explaining how the sectors that led the year’s euphoria have regained most of their gains and in some cases fallen to pre-cycle prices.
Trump-themed election-related meme tokens have seen a significant decline as the year has gone on.
The memecoin plight is real and brutal, with hundreds of tokens that soared more than 10x in early 2025 ending the year down more than 90% from their peak.
This is the eternal story of the speculative layer disappearing while the underlying rails consolidate.
Chainalysis noted that DeFi TVL has significantly recovered from its 2023 lows, even though hacking losses and protocol explosions have fallen below previous peak levels.
The altcoin carnage was a feature, not a bug, consisting of violent sorting mechanisms that punished purely speculative bets while leaving infrastructure plays relatively intact.
Q4 downturn and “Crypto Winter 2.0” headlines
From mid-November to December, mainstream media once again published obituaries for Bitcoin. By mid-November, Bitcoin had fallen about 30% from its October record, giving back some of its gains since the beginning of the year.
Mainstream financial publications framed it as if it canceled out 2025 gains and questioned whether Trump-led optimism was back on track.
Additionally, the term “crypto winter” has started to be used again. This is the richest context for the phrase “cryptocurrency is dead.”
According to data from 99Bitcoins, Bitcoin has already recorded more “deaths” in 2025 than in all of 2024, with at least 11 separate death declarations tracked by the summer.
A poor fourth quarter gave critics a boost. What’s the point if you start the year on a high note about President Trump’s strategic Bitcoin reserves and end the year with prices lower than they started?
Still, Counterpoint is powerful.
Bitcoin ETFs still saw $22 billion in inflows this year, and historically hostile Vanguard reversed course in December, allowing customers to trade third-party crypto ETFs, citing a maturing market.
Additionally, Wall Street has also moved on as common SEC listing standards open the door to multi-asset crypto ETFs with products including XRP, Solana, and even Dogecoin.
In terms of price, Bitcoin’s November-December 2025 sub-$90,000 issuance is still many times above the 2022-23 low and above the previous cycle high of around $69,000. So the label “dead” looks more like exhaustion after a heavy workout than a true breakdown.
Regulations, rails, and usage continued to move.
To understand why cryptocurrencies didn’t actually disappear, we need to zoom out from prices.
Elliptic’s Global Crypto Regulation Review 2025 states that governments have moved “from an enforcement-led approach” to a comprehensive framework that prioritizes innovation, highlighting moves such as the US GENIUS Act Stablecoin Act and broader global collaboration.
Yellow’s Crypto Regulation Heatmap tracks how Europe’s MiCA, Hong Kong’s licensing regime, the UK’s return to exchange-traded crypto products, and the US’s friendly attitude collectively made 2025 the first year in which major markets had an actual rulebook rather than pure uncertainty.
The SEC’s General Listing Standards, issued in September, streamlined the launch of new crypto ETFs across Nasdaq, Cboe, and NYSE Arca, and enabled faster liquidation of multi-asset products like Grayscale’s GLDC.
Despite poor year-end performance, 2025 saw billions of dollars of net inflows into crypto ETFs worldwide.
Off the rails of trade, payments and settlement, work continued to move forward. While Visa and other large processors have expanded their stablecoin trials on USDC rails for cross-border payments, stablecoins have captured the growth in cross-border flows, especially in emerging markets.
There was tension at the heart of 2025. The year saw more Bitcoin “deaths” on paper, record liquidations, and a sick Q4 tape.
But it also established the first truly global regulatory framework, turned crypto ETFs and stablecoins into mainstream plumbing, and pushed usage metrics far higher than in any previous cycle.
Cryptocurrencies disappeared four times in 2025, but each time they came back more integrated into the financial system than before.