February 2025 in returns

February 2025 delivered the worst crypto month in this entire record, and it is not close. Two coins out of 83 finished green — 2% participation. Bitcoin fell 17.7%, Ethereum 32.2% and Solana 36.1%, and the list of losers reads like a catalogue of the previous quarter's enthusiasm: Raydium -65.2%, Arweave -47.6%, Trump -46.3%, Bonk -45.0%, Lido -44.9%, dogwifhat -44.6%. Only Tether Gold (+2.0%) and a single microcap avoided the decline. When 98% of an asset class falls together, nothing is being selected — the whole thing is simply being sold.

Equities were untroubled at the index level and merely mediocre underneath, with 440 of 866 stocks (51%) green and the S&P 500 off 1.4%. What did work was striking for how little it had to do with America's technology story: Rheinmetall gained 33.2%, Banco Santander 25.3%, Alibaba 34.1% and Super Micro rebounded 45.4%, while European and defence exposure broadly outperformed and the DAX rose 3.8%. The American names that fell were the expensive ones — The Trade Desk -40.8%, Rocket Lab -29.5%, Tesla -27.6%, Astera Labs -26.7%, Coinbase -26.0%. Two very different markets, both saying the same thing: the trades that had worked since November were being unwound, and capital was looking abroad for somewhere else to stand.