Bitcoin closed the week up 1.6 percent, masking sharp divergence across sector performance. DePIN and crypto gaming posted surprising end-of-week rebounds, reversing losses from 2025, while Layer 2 and real-world asset flows declined.
RWAs led 2025 with a 185.76 percent gain according to CoinGecko's year-end report, but the sector is now grinding lower. DePIN and gaming, by contrast, plunged over 75 percent in 2025 — gaming hit particularly hard by its reliance on speculative NFTs and unproven revenue models. Tariff announcements in early 2025 triggered broad crashes that disproportionately affected these sectors.
DePIN now shows signs of bottoming. The recovery is driven by increasing real-world adoption and demonstrable revenue generation — a structural shift from 2025's speculative cycles. On-chain capital is rotating into DePIN and gaming tokens, signaling market participants are re-evaluating both sectors after proving out measurable use cases.
