Between talks of National Bitcoin Reserves, presidential-endorsed meme coins, and tariff-fueled market swings, 2025 has been a wild ride for both traditional and decentralized finance alike.
While crypto veterans are no strangers to volatility, new investors tempted to dip their toes into digital assets by recent headlines may be left questioning their decision.
So, after a tumultuous start to the year, who’s feeling confident about their investment and who’s losing sleep over red candles?
To find out, CCN analyzed more than 190K comments from crypto communities on Reddit.
What We Did
We analyzed comments from subreddits dedicated to the top 100 cryptocurrencies by market cap, covering the period from January to April 2025.
Using a Natural Language Processing (NLP) machine learning model from HuggingFace, we scored comments across Ekman’s 6 basic emotions: anger, disgust, fear, joy, sadness, surprise, or neutral.
We then tracked each coin’s price from the start to the end of Q1, and using a min-max normalization formula, assigned a score on their relative performance in each category.
Scores were totaled to create an overall Confidence Score. The higher the score, the more positive the emotions displayed by commenters and/or the price movement for the quarter.
Up nearly 300%, $XCN gave holders plenty to cheer about in Q1.
However, despite the impressive performance overall, $XCN closed significantly below its high for the period. In late January, prices surged as high as $0.036 before ending the quarter at $0.009.
Despite the steep correction, Onyxcoin achieved a Confidence Score of 73.36 on the CCN Crypto Confidence Index.
Movement ($MOVE) – Confidence Score: 67.12
When $MOVE went live in December, prices quickly topped $1. In addition, the announcement of a liquidity plan and the launch of its mainnet made 2025 look like a huge year for Movement Labs.
But things took a turn in March when Binance delisted the token, citing suspicious trading activity.
To restore trust, Movement Labs initiated a third-party audit and a buyback program, using the recovered funds to establish a strategic reserve.
While Movement finished the first quarter of 2025 with a Confidence Score of 67.12, its Q2 performance could prove a cautionary tale of how quickly fortunes can change for crypto developers and investors.
Aptos ($APT) – Confidence Score: 66.04
Despite the price falling almost 40% between January and April, Aptos had the third highest score in our Crypto Confidence Index with 66.04.
Less than 2% of comments left on Reddit posts about $APT displayed fear, sadness, or anger, presumably overshadowed by positive sentiment around Bitwise filing for an Aptos ETF.
Despite a 35% gain in Q1, including hitting an all-time high of $25.95, GateToken holders were among the least confident investors, with a confidence score of just 10.1.
More than a third (33.58%) of comments were considered fearful, sad, or angry, likely driven by disappointment when the rally from late 2024 into mid-January slowed.
Avalanche ($AVAX) – Confidence Score: 16.52
With a confidence score of 16.52, Avalanche investors were the second least confident during Q1 2025.
By the end of the quarter, $AVAX was down 47.41% after hitting more than $54 in December, and more than a quarter (26%) of comments expressed negative emotions.
Helium (HNT) – Confidence Score: 26.59
Over a fifth (22%) of $HNT-related Reddit comments expressed negative emotions, and prices fell by almost half (48%) during Q1, so Helium scored just 26.59 in CNN’s Crypto Confidence Index.
However, despite obvious disappointment and frustration about price movement, recent partnerships with telecoms providers like AT&T could boost investor enthusiasm in Q2 and beyond.
Six years after its beta launch, Pi coin finally became available for trade on exchanges in February 2025.
As one of the most eagerly awaited crypto projects, with the app reportedly having as many as 60 million users, Pi’s price hit an all-time high of $2.98 within its first week of trading before falling to $0.72 by the end of the quarter.
Despite more than 2 million Binance users voting in favour of listing, Pi is still unavailable to trade on some larger platforms. However, convincing exchanges that Pi meets their requirements could drive significant demand, delivering upside for early adopters.
Official Trump ($TRUMP) – Confidence Score: 33.27
On the 18th January, just two days before his inauguration, President Donald Trump launched a memecoin via social media, and within 24 hours the price rocketed to as high as $75.35.
However, by the end of the quarter, it had fallen to $10.02, a reduction of roughly 86%.
While the price may never return to its all-time high, future events like the president’s crypto dinner will likely keep $TRUMP in the headlines and could drive similar rallies.
The Crypto Confidence Index Q1 2025
(Qualifying cryptocurrencies from the top 100 by market cap)
“That’s why we created the Crypto Confidence Index, a tool to help people cut through the noise and get to the root of how communities and markets really feel about large-cap cryptocurrencies.
So, whether your portfolio is up or down in 2025, this index offers a pulse check on investor confidence, because belief in a project, or the lack thereof, can affect markets just as much as fundamentals.”
Whether diving into the latest crypto news and analysis, tracking real-world adoption, or exploring the evolving crypto lifestyle — from decentralized apps and Web3 gaming to bitcoin casinos and crypto sports betting — CCN is your go-to source for living and thriving on-chain.
Methodology
An analysis of active Reddit communities for the top 100 cryptocurrencies by market cap according to CoinMarketCap (April 2025)
Subreddits with at least 50 new posts between January and April 2025 that received at least 1 comment were considered “Active.” 60 of the top 100 cryptocurrencies by market cap met this criterion.
Posts and comments were analyzed using a pretrained NLP machine learning model that scores the emotional tone of text across Ekman’s 6 basic emotions (anger, disgust, fear, joy, sadness, surprise, and neutral).
Comments classified as Fearful, Sad, and Angry were deemed a show of a lack of confidence, while those with a Joyous or Neutral tone were considered a show of confidence.
Comments assigned “disgust” or “surprise” were not considered.
The price of each cryptocurrency at the beginning and end of Q1, according to CoinMarketCap.
Where price data for the entire quarter wasn’t available (e.g., Pi coin), we used the closing price for the first day of trading.
Cryptocurrencies were scored on their relative performance in each category using a min-max normalization formula. Scores were totaled to create an overall “Confidence Score.”
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