As 2025 draws to a close, financial markets have delivered another year of extreme volatility, characterized by high-conviction bets and sudden, painful reversals. From Tokyo bond desks to New York credit committees, investors experienced both spectacular windfalls and severe whiplash. Bloomberg News highlights the year's most eye-catching wagers that captured the era's speculative frenzy and underlying fragility.
The Crypto Political Gamble That Fizzled
One of the year's most prominent momentum plays centered on the Trump brand's deep foray into digital assets. Following his return to the White House, President Donald Trump pushed sweeping crypto reforms and installed industry allies in key regulatory agencies. His family actively championed related coins and firms, which traders treated as political rocket fuel.
The franchise expanded rapidly. Just hours before the January inauguration, Trump launched his own memecoin, promoting it on social media. First Lady Melania Trump soon followed with a token of her own. Later in the year, the Trump family-affiliated World Liberty Financial made its WLFI token available to retail investors. Eric Trump co-founded American Bitcoin, a publicly traded mining company that went public via a merger in September.
Each debut ignited a furious rally, but each proved ephemeral. As of December 23, 2025, Trump's memecoin had plummeted more than 80% from its January peak. Melania's token had crashed nearly 99%. American Bitcoin's stock had sunk approximately 80% from its September high. While politics provided the initial momentum, these assets could not escape crypto's core cycle of leveraged speculation and evaporating liquidity. Even with a friend in the White House, there was no ultimate protection from the crash.
A Legendary Investor Bets Against the AI Boom
In a move that sent ripples through the tech investment community, Scion Asset Management disclosed a significant bearish position on November 3. The firm, run by Michael Burry—the investor famously portrayed in The Big Short for predicting the 2008 mortgage crisis—revealed it held protective put options in Nvidia Corp. and Palantir Technologies Inc.
These stocks have been cornerstones of the artificial intelligence trade that powered the market's multi-year rally. Burry's bet, revealed in a routine filing, is seen as a direct challenge to the sustainability of AI stock valuations. While Scion is not a whale-sized fund, Burry's reputation as a market prophet ensures this wager against the year's most beloved trade commands widespread attention and sparks debate about a potential bubble.
A Year of Manias and Reversals
The broader market narrative of 2025 was defined by investors betting heavily on shifting politics, bloated balance sheets, and fragile narratives. This fueled everything from outsized stock rallies and crowded yield trades to crypto strategies built more on leverage and hope than fundamentals. Trump's policies initially sank, then revived, global financial markets, lit a fire under European defence stocks, and emboldened speculators across asset classes.
Gold soared to record highs, while traditionally staid mortgage giants gyrated with the volatility of meme stocks. A textbook carry trade blew up in a flash, demonstrating the speed at which fortunes could reverse. Some positions paid off spectacularly, with one notable trade delivering a 367% jump. Others misfired catastrophically when momentum reversed, financing dried up, or leverage amplified losses.
As investors look toward 2026, many of 2025's biggest bets leave them fretting over familiar fault lines: shaky corporate finances, stretched valuations, and the perennial danger of trend-chasing trades that work brilliantly until they don't. The year served as a potent reminder that in markets driven by conviction and narrative, the whiplash can be as dramatic as the windfall.
