The cryptocurrency market of 2025 has officially concluded. This year witnessed many heart-stopping events, from the U.S. President issuing a coin to epic liquidations, making 2025 destined to be extraordinary. Looking back, we gather those absurd and ridiculous moments of the year as Easter eggs marking the end of a certain phase, and as a testament that you and I are still “alive” and have made it to year-end in this “casino,” this amusement park, this experimental field. We hope you’ll read to the end—that’s the origin of all this year’s absurdity, something even more ridiculous than “hot weather turning a cold wallet into a hot wallet.”
Founder Goes Missing on TGE Day, Claims Lost Multi-Sig Master Key in Northern Myanmar
In February, the DIN team announced that they had been unable to contact project founder Harold for several hours and were seeking help from venture capital firms and media to confirm his whereabouts. Based on Harold’s previous social media posts, he was suspected to be in Myanmar and claimed to have lost his multi-signature wallet and laptop. Despite the founder’s temporary disappearance, the DIN team stated that the $DIN token issuance plan was unaffected. The TGE had already received approval from 2/3 of the multi-signature signatories and was expected to launch as scheduled. Some community members believed the incident brought unexpected attention to the project, while others questioned the plausibility of “founder missing, wallet lost, yet project launching normally,” suspecting it might be deliberate hype.
zkLend Hacker Clicks Phishing Site by Mistake, Leading to Stolen Funds Being Stolen Again; Hacker Requests Cooperation with zkLend to Recover Funds
In April, the zkLend hacker (original incident occurred in February) accidentally clicked a phishing site while attempting to use Tornado Cash, resulting in 2,930 ETH of stolen funds being taken by the phishing site. Subsequently, the hacker sent an on-chain message to zkLend stating, “Hello, I intended to transfer the funds to Tornado Cash but mistakenly used a phishing site, and all funds were lost. I am devastated. I deeply apologize for the chaos and losses caused. All 2,930 ETH have been taken by the operators of that site. I no longer have any coins. Please shift your focus to those site operators and see if you can recover some of the funds.”
On the same day, zkLend officially stated that the phishing site appeared to have been operational for over 5 years. At this stage, the security team had no conclusive evidence linking the phishing site to the attacker. As a precaution, zkLend had added these new wallet addresses from the phishing site to its fund tracking efforts for real-time monitoring, while contacting CEXs and authorities. The team would continue efforts to trace these funds.
Zerebro Founder Fakes Death, Releases Timed Suicide Note
In May, a clip of Zerebro co-founder Jeffy Yu shooting himself during a live stream circulated online. At the time, many viewed it as another sensational “scripted” act by a meme developer seeking attention, similar to previous bizarre live streams on Pump.Fun. On the afternoon of May 6, a screenshot of Jeffy Yu’s obituary spread on social media, leading people to connect it with the “suicide clip” from two days prior.
As attention grew, the associated meme token LLJEFFY’s market cap surged, briefly exceeding $30 million. However, on the evening of the 6th, multiple KOLs posted “debunking” messages. Jeffy Yu sent a detailed letter to an early investor revealing it was an elaborate “pseudocide exit” plan. Jeffy Yu cited ongoing harassment from an ex-partner, malicious exposure of personal information, and online hate as reasons for choosing to “permanently exit” by faking a death video. The letter admitted this was the “only way out” to avoid a crash in the project’s token price. This incident is considered the first “pseudocide exit strategy” in cryptocurrency history.
Clanker Partner, Who Previously Stole Project Funds, Exposed Offline at Conference
In May, Base-based AI token launcher Clanker announced the termination of its partnership with core developer proxystudio (@proxystudio.eth). Team member Jack Dishman stated in the announcement that the Clanker team had only recently become aware of proxystudio’s past misconduct record.
What adds a ridiculous twist to this news is the protagonist’s multiple identities—proxystudio is actually Gabagool.eth, who was active in the DeFi space earlier and known for on-chain investigations. In 2022, this on-chain detective was exposed for allegedly misusing his position to transfer approximately $350,000 from his team Velodrome’s wallet, only returning most of the funds under community and project pressure.
Even more surreal, Gabagool wasn’t exposed again through on-chain data but was recognized in person by an old colleague at the FarCon offline event—according to multiple media reports, Aerodrome founder Alex Cutler recognized proxystudio as the former Gabagool at the event. The old case was immediately dug up overnight, and the Clanker team swiftly issued an “already parted ways” announcement.
A Bitcoin Wallet Zeroes Out User Wallet Balances
In June, multiple community users reported that their balances in the Bitcoin Lightning Network wallet Alby appeared to have been deducted by the platform. Alby’s official documentation, updated in March 2025 in its terms of service, stated: “Users have been notified for over a year to withdraw excess funds from older Alby accounts created in 2023 and earlier that used a shared wallet architecture. To more effectively manage these long-inactive accounts, we reserve the right to deduct all remaining balances from an account after 12 consecutive months of no transaction activity (i.e., no completed transactions).”
Alby, redefining wallets.
Paxos Accidentally Mints 300 Trillion PYUSD, Then Urgently Burns It, Equivalent to Over Twice Global Debt
In October, stablecoin issuer Paxos minted 300 trillion PYUSD stablecoins pegged 1:1 to the US dollar. After discovering the error, it took 22 minutes to burn all the tokens.
Calculated at their dollar-pegged value, the total burned tokens amounted to approximately $300 trillion. For comparison, according to IMF data, this amount exceeds twice the combined GDP of all countries worldwide.
Blockchain solves global debt in just one minute.
A Painter Who Can’t Draw Candlesticks Isn’t a Good Market Maker
Rubbing quant trading in the dirt, when altcoin market makers can freely draw lines, the candlesticks you see be like:
Eclipse: We Have No Users
The Eclipse project has had multiple community-notable incidents since its inception, whether it’s the founder involved in a sexual assault scandal or multiple changes in leadership and CEO midway. Not long ago, Eclipse posted on social media claiming Eclipse was a 36-month sociological study conducted by Harvard University. “Our research is now complete. Thank you for your time and participation.” And now, stirring things up again, under a post introducing the new project ETHGAS, the official Eclipse account bluntly stated, we have no users.
Trump’s Wife Launches a Coin
All rise.
No words can describe how ridiculous it is that Trump’s wife launched her own namesake token MELANIA in the middle of the night after her husband issued a coin. If the cryptocurrency industry had a pillar of shame, MELANIA would be engraved at the very top, the shame of the pillar of shame itself.
