There are fewer than 48 hours left in 2025, but it’s not too late to speedrun your New Year’s resolutions. Unless that resolution is making mad gainz in crypto, in which case, you’ll have to take that up with The Almighty.
Bitcoin’s flaccid performance this year neutered the fervor Bitcoiners felt entering 2025. But there were still plenty of exciting developments for those paying attention. Some of those wins are the subject of our first-ever Hashies, Blockspace’s annual award show.
And to be sure, the losses — particularly, those perpetuated by Bitcoin’s own loss on the year — made for just as much fertile discussion as the wins.
Without further adieu, here are the winners of the inaugural 2025 Hashies.
Most ascendant CEO
WINNER FOR MINING: Daniel Roberts
IREN was one of the most exciting bitcoin mining stocks to watch this year, earning it a top spot alongside TeraWulf, Hut 8, and Cipher as one of the leaders in the AI-expansion race among miners. Unlike its peers, IREN is going full-bore into a neocloud model, while peers have opted for a powershell approach. For this trailblazing, we’re awarding Daniel Roberts with the most ascendant CEO.
RUNNERS UP: Tyler Page, Paul Prager, Asher Genoot
WINNER FOR CRYPTO: Shayne Coplan
One year ago, in the wake of the 2024 elections in which Polymarket traders embarrassed pollsters once again, the FBI raided Shayne Coplan’s apartment. The FBI alleged that Polymarket – which was not registered with the CFTC at the time – knowingly admitted U.S.-users onto its platform. But the raid really seemed like thinly-veiled intimidation theatre. Fast forward to 2025, and now Polymarket is registered with the CFTC for U.S. users. One of the better comeback stories in crypto, so Polymarket’s comeback-kid CEO, Shayne Coplan, takes this award.
RUNNER UP: Jeff Yan
Best crashout
WINNER: Luke Dashjr
It could never be any other way. Bitcoiners love to parrot the phrase, “Slay your heroes,” but that’s easier said than done when that hero is one of the most prolific and respected developers in Bitcoin history. Until this year, that is. Luke Dashjr entered 2025 crusading against ordinals/inscriptions, until, going one too many times unto the breach, he fell on his sword. For all his past contributions, Luke Dashjr’s 2025 track record will be tarnished by his pushing for a filter softfork that few want (and is technically unsound), all while libeling anyone who disagreed with him as – well, we’ll use the euphemism Epstein affiliate. For this spiral into mudslinging and substituting technical arguments for moral ones, Luke Dashjr takes this Hashy.
RUNNER UP: Mike Brock
Best/worst investor cult
BEST: IREN
Not too much to say here, other than the fact that many of IREN’s most faithful bulls had been screaming “BUY!” for months before 2025’s runup. Luck or not, you gotta hand it to them, they were right.
WORST: MARA
You can lead a MARA pig to a 10-Q, but you can’t force them to read it. Despite all evidence showing MARA has one of the highest operating costs of its peers and is more of a cash incinerator than a bitcoin miner, loyal MARA investors are still holding their bags, hoping for a bid. Lacking that, maybe this consolation prize will lift their spirits.
Deal of the year
BEST: CoreWeave <> Core Scientific
Ok, hear us out on this one. Yes, we know the deal didn’t go through, but that’s the point. Core Scientific pioneered the AI-expansion model that has swept the war rooms of public bitcoin miners, and when CoreWeave offered to buy out its partner, it seemed like a decent option. But that was before Cipher, TeraWulf, IREN, and others started inking AI deals that showed the upside for Core Scientific is much greater than CoreWeave’s price. For showing us the moment we’re in and the potential for these AI expansions, the failure of CoreWeave’s acquisition attempt takes the cake for best deal of 2025.
WORST: Riot’s attempted takeover of Bitfarms
Riot made a daring move earlier this year, snatching up $204 million in BITF stock in an attempt to win board seats and to steer Bitfarms’ direction and, allegedly, take over the company. Bitfarms’ parried this attempt with a poison pill strategy, which ended in the two companies settling the dispute by swapping some board seats around. If Riot pulled this off, this would have indisputably been the deal of the year. But it failed, Riot has liquidated most (if not all by this point) of its Bitfarms’ position, and so here we are.
Most rekt investment
MOST REKT CRYPTO: Celebrity Memecoins
This could have easily been “all memecoins,” but the celebrity ones in particular had a terrible year. Beginning as it did with TRUMP and MELANIA coin (on Trump’s inauguration, nonetheless), these coins burned whitehot in January, and were quickly snuffed out. Everyone from Iggy Azalea to Kanye West either launched or promised to launch a memecoin – a sure sign of the top for crypto’s most honest – if absurd – investment thesis.
MOST REKT EQUITY: Bitcoin treasuries / DATs
This was an easy one. Bitcoin treasury companies were l’investissement de l’année entering the year. Now, their stock charts look like ICO pump-and-dumps. Turns out that selling equity, accumulating debt, and buying bitcoin isn’t really a great business model.
Best / worst prediction
BEST: Val Rousseau’s hashrate projection for Blockspace
Ok, ok, so this is a little like the Obama Medal meme, since we published this research ourselves. But the analysis was a one-man show from Hashlabs analyst Valentine Rousseau. His hashrate projection target for 2025 is scary close to what the actual figure will likely be, and for this dead-eye divination, he takes the best prediction of 2025.
WORST: Pick literally any gigabull BTC maxi price prediction
Maybe a cheap shot, but no bitcoin-maxi-coded gigabulls were even in the same solar system with their year-end targets. Our favorite comes from former Blockstream CSO Samson Mow, who called for $1,000,000 BTC (and $2,000 MSTR…).
