The last 7 days proved turbulent for crypto, culminating in what some analysts have claimed to be the largest 24h liquidation event in the market’s history. While mainstream crypto media reports suggested total liquidations hit the $2B mark, this was disputed by insiders in the space, including Ben Zhou, founder of Bybit.
As a result of deep liquidations, market sectors were down sharply across the board, with few safe havens other than Bitcoin.
Sector Losers
AI Agents
The AI Agent index declined 29.12% this week, against a Bitcoin return of -5.80%. Whether this signals a buying opportunity or the unwinding of an overhyped narrative will depend on how investors view the sector’s long-term fundamentals.
Bucking the trend in AI Agents was SwarmNode.ai (SNAI), up 198.96% on the week, while popular token AI16Z (AI16Z) fell 50.25%.
DeFi Services
The DeFi Services sector fell 19.76%, reinforcing the broader trend of altcoins struggling to gain traction this cycle and continuing to lag Bitcoin across multiple time frames.
Sector leader Aave (AAVE) was down 28.30% on the week, with Aave now underperforming Bitcoin over 7, 30, and 90-day periods. Pendle (PENDLE) showed some relative strength against sector peers and the index, posting a weekly decline of 14.24%.
TON Network
TON Network tokens declined 40.77%, making it one of the week's worst-performing Layer 1s. The index has struggled to rebound from its lows, potentially signalling deeper structural weakness ahead. This week Telegram indicated it would force all crypto mini apps and third party wallets using its platform to integrate exclusively with the TON blockchain. How this decision shapes up for TON over the longer term could play into sentiment for the tokens in the ecosystem.
TON ecosystem small-cap Storm Trade (STORM) gained 7.47%, while mid-cap Notcoin (NOT) dropped 43.25%, weighing heavily on the index.
Sector Winners
Asset Tokenisation
In a week where winners were hard to come by, the Asset Tokenisation sector showed relative strength against others, declining 17.67% over the week.
Mantra (ONDO), a Real World Asset (RWA) focused Layer 1, posted a rare gain of 12.62%, standing out in an otherwise negative market. ONDO (ONDO), another RWA ecosystem also outperformed its index peers, declining only 6.33% against the index drop of 17.67%.
Reflections
This week’s market turmoil underscored the difficulty of navigating extreme volatility in crypto. While broad liquidations drove steep losses, sector performance diverged - AI Agent tokens saw heavy selling, DeFi continued to lag, while Asset Tokenisation showed relative resilience, reinforcing the appeal of real-world utility narratives. The key question now is whether this was a necessary reset following the post-Trump rally or the start of a more prolonged period of market stress. For investors, the coming weeks may present both challenges and opportunities as the market searches for its next equilibrium.
