Crypto Still Sees Massive Returns On Par With Stocks

Crypto's reputation for underperformance relative to stocks is challenged by a direct comparison of returns. Sandisk, spun out of Western Digital in February 2025 on AI data center demand for NAND flash storage, returned approximately 4600 percent over the past year, topping the one-year stock cohort. Zcash returned roughly 900 percent over the same period, VVV Venice approximately 500 percent, and Hyperliquid's HYPE token approximately doubled. On a year-to-date basis, VVV Venice returned around 1000 percent, Hyperliquid HYPE approximately 190 percent, outperforming both Intel and AMD, and Stellar roughly 21 percent, outperforming both Google and Nvidia. Total crypto market capitalization sits at approximately 2.4 trillion dollars, about 1.6 percent of the global stock market's 151 trillion dollars, yet certain coins are massively outperforming hundreds or thousands of individual stocks. Smaller asset size relative to a company like Nvidia may partly explain why a coin such as Stellar can outperform on a percentage basis.

Bitcoin spot ETFs in the United States experienced approximately 12 to 13 consecutive trading days of negative flows, amounting to nearly 4 billion dollars pulled from those products. Single-day outflows included approximately 520 million dollars on one day, 483 million dollars the day before, and a peak of 733 million dollars on May 27th, though these individual figures would likely not rank in the top ten worst single days on record. Despite this, cumulative net flows into Bitcoin ETFs have held relatively strong and have not yet reached even a six-month low. Bitcoin price and cumulative net ETF flows were positively correlated from the ETF launch in 2024 through Bitcoin's all-time high at the end of that year, after which price corrected but ETF holders did not fully unwind their positions.

Mike Ippolito argued that crypto's broader underperformance is not caused by regulators or access problems but by a weak value proposition across most crypto assets. He attributed this to what he called the everything-is-a-meme crowd, which produced ideas like ultrasound money, meme coins, and DAOs, and contended that 99 percent of crypto assets will ultimately be valued on cash flows, making it essential to maximize those cash flows rather than rely on narrative-driven metrics. The broader view expressed is that crypto is in a recalibration phase as the novelty of trading cryptocurrencies has worn off, and that stocks have delivered enormous returns that have removed crypto's status as the only avenue for outsized gains, though some coins have still outperformed.

Institutional and newer investors entering the space are expected to use revenue and cash flow analysis rather than crypto-native metrics to value tokens. The 2021 mass adoption moment for crypto occurred before cash flow frameworks were prevalent, meaning the investor base has since shifted in ways that change how assets are evaluated. Several factors cited by outsiders for viewing crypto as old hat include its failure to serve as a hedge during a period of dollar instability, the fact that institutional adoption has already occurred removing a future tailwind, a regulatory environment already as favorable as it can get, AI crowding out electricity access that crypto miners depend on, and growing concern about quantum computing breaking Bitcoin's security model.

Microsoft announced its Majorana 2 quantum chip, claiming it is a thousand times more reliable than prior generations with a mean qubit lifetime of 20 seconds and instances lasting as long as one minute, and the company now expects to achieve a scalable quantum computer by 2029, cutting its original timeline in half. Henry Legge, an assistant professor at the University of St Andrews focused on quantum research, called Microsoft's claims massive PR bullshit and noted that the apparent difference between Majorana 1 and 2 is the use of lead rather than aluminum as a superconductor. Microsoft's performance claims are not publicly reproducible, with the company citing trade secrets and stating it shared data privately with DARPA instead. A further distinction raised is that Microsoft appears to be demonstrating its chip can maintain a classical position of one or zero for the stated duration rather than a true quantum superposition, which is a meaningful technical difference.

Public perception of quantum computing news was treated as more consequential than the actual state of the technology, given that most non-technical people read only headlines and cannot evaluate quantum computing or cryptography claims. The view expressed is that major companies and crypto protocols need to communicate a clear and aligned plan for becoming quantum resistant before attempting to clarify the underlying technology, and that damage to public understanding of the crypto space's response to quantum computing has already been done.