Table of Contents
Welcome to 2026. The dust has finally settled on a tumultuous year for the crypto industry. Looking back at 2025, the landscape shifted in ways few predicted—from the dismantling of regulatory regimes to the surprising resilience of specific sectors like prediction markets and stablecoins.
In this retrospective, The Chopping Block crew—Haseeb Qureshi, Tom Schmidt, Robert Leshner, and Tarun Chitra—break down the absolute winners, the devastating flops, and the structural mechanisms that defined the last 12 months. Whether you are an investor looking for a fresh cost basis or a builder analyzing the pivot to AI, here is the insider’s perspective on the year that was.
Key Takeaways
- Consolidation is King: The biggest winners of 2025 weren't necessarily tokens, but equity-based infrastructure companies benefiting from M&A and regulatory clarity.
- The Death of "Web3": The thesis surrounding NFTs and generic Web3 social applications took a massive reputational hit, with insiders ready to write the epitaph for the 2021-era narrative.
- The AI Pivot Paid Off: Companies like Galaxy Digital and CoreWeave successfully transitioned from pure crypto plays to AI infrastructure powerhouses.
- Prediction Markets Mainstreamed: Aided by "federal preemption," platforms like Polymarket cemented their place in the cultural zeitgeist, surviving legal challenges to operate across the U.S.
- 2026 Outlook: The panel predicts a year of "temperance" and institutional integration, with major bets on stablecoin adoption in AI capex and further industry consolidation.
The Biggest Winners of 2025
While retail investors spent much of the year hoping for an "alt season" that never fully materialized, the real value accrual happened in infrastructure and equity.
Equity and Consolidation
Robert Leshner points to equity-based crypto companies as the runaway winners. 2025 became the year of M&A, driven by a friendlier administration and institutional interest. We witnessed massive consolidation with firms like Bridge, Privy, and Deribit forming alliances or being acquired. The "boring" answer proved to be the profitable one: companies sizing up and solidifying their moats won the year.
Prediction Markets and Derivatives
Tom Schmidt highlights prediction markets as the breakout category. Once a fringe interest, platforms like Polymarket became culturally ubiquitous in 2025, cited everywhere from financial news to South Park. This sector grew from a niche curiosity to a primary source of truth for global events.
Similarly, Tarun Chitra notes that crypto derivatives platforms—specifically perpetual DEXs (decentralized exchanges)—finally succeeded in moving volume on-chain. Despite the friction of self-custody, users migrated from centralized exchanges to on-chain solutions like Hyperliquid, validating the long-held thesis of decentralized trading infrastructure.
"I just can't remember the last time something got this big so quickly... Prediction markets were so fringe two years ago and now they are constantly written about."
Losers, Flops, and Disappointments
Not every narrative survived the year. 2025 saw the dismantling of former idols and the collapse of high-conviction theses.
The End of the Web3 Thesis
Perhaps the most damning indictment came from Tarun Chitra regarding "Web3" as a consumer narrative. The NFT market faced total capitulation, and the reputation of Web3 among artists and creators hit rock bottom. The consensus is that while the technology persists, the branding and the 2021-style "Web3" thesis are effectively dead.
The Strategic Bitcoin Reserve That Wasn't
Despite high hopes at the start of the year for a sovereign Bitcoin strategy, the US government's "Strategic Bitcoin Reserve" was widely considered a flop. Instead of accumulation, we saw the sale of seized assets (such as the Samurai Wallet funds) and a lack of genuine progress, leaving geopolitical Bitcoin ambitions unfulfilled.
Altcoins Left in the Dust
Tom Schmidt notes that 2025 was a brutal year for altcoins. The industry saw a divergence where Bitcoin and stablecoins succeeded, but the broader tail of assets failed to gain traction. New launches struggled to break into the top 100, and the long-awaited liquidity rotation into alts never arrived.
Structural Shifts: Best New Mechanisms
Amidst the price action, 2025 introduced (or popularized) mechanisms that fundamentally changed market structure.
Federal Preemption
Haseeb Qureshi identifies Federal Preemption as the critical legal mechanism of the year. This legal doctrine allowed prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket to operate in all 50 states by overriding state-level gambling restrictions with federal law. This legal unlock was the primary driver behind the explosion in prediction market volume.
Prop AMMs on Solana
On the technical side, "Prop AMMs" (Proprietary Automated Market Makers) emerged as a dominant force on Solana. These systems act as a hybrid between Request-for-Quote (RFQ) systems and traditional AMMs. By allowing sophisticated market makers to quote wider spreads via temporary order books, Solana DEXs achieved massive efficiency gains, compressing spreads and capturing market share.
The Great Pivot: From Crypto to AI
If there was one corporate strategy that defined success in 2025, it was the pivot to Artificial Intelligence infrastructure.
Galaxy Digital and CoreWeave serve as the prime examples. CoreWeave completed its transformation from an Ethereum GPU mining operation into a $40 billion AI data center giant. Similarly, Galaxy’s acquisition of Helios turned a Bitcoin mining site into a high-performance computing asset, securing billions in revenue contracts. These moves highlighted a stark reality: for many hardware-heavy crypto firms, the most profitable hash rate was actually compute power for AI training.
Predictions for 2026
After reviewing their largely missed predictions for 2025 (Bitcoin did not hit $180k, and sovereign uptake was slower than anticipated), the hosts offered a fresh set of forecasts for the year ahead.
1. Security and AI
Tarun predicts an AI-generated hack causing over $100 million in damage. As coding agents become more sophisticated, they will likely be weaponized to find zero-day exploits in smart contracts. Furthermore, he anticipates that up to 3% of global AI capital expenditure (Capex) will be funded using stablecoins, signaling a merger between crypto rails and AI financing.
2. Market Structure & M&A
Robert predicts a massive year for consolidation, forecasting at least $15 billion in crypto M&A activity. He also believes 2026 will finally be the year that comprehensive market structure legislation passes in the United States, providing the regulatory clarity the industry has sought for a decade.
3. Equity Perps and Insider Trading
Haseeb believes equity perpetuals will grow to 20% of DeFi perp volume, signaling a shift where crypto rails are increasingly used to trade traditional assets. Conversely, Tom predicts a major insider trading scandal will rock a non-sports prediction market, potentially drawing regulatory heat to the burgeoning sector.
Conclusion: The Year of Temperance
If 2024 was the party and 2025 was the volatile hangover mixed with experimental remedies, the forecast for 2026 is temperance. The industry has sobered up. The tourists have left, the "Web3" grift has evaporated, and what remains is a focus on infrastructure, institutional integration, and clear regulatory frameworks.
The sentiment is cautiously optimistic. With prices reset and the "religious wars" of Ethereum vs. Solana cooling into pragmatic competition, 2026 is poised to be a year of building on solid ground rather than chasing ephemeral hype.
