According to the latest report from Binance Research, the cryptocurrency market experienced a staggering 20.2% decline in February, marking one of the worst Februaries on record. Millions of investors were wiped out, and billions of dollars vanished due to a series of unfortunate events including President Donald Trump’s imposition of a 25% tariff on imports from Mexico and Canada, the largest hack attack in history targeting Bybit, and a severe drop in the memecoin market. Traditional financial markets also faced negative repercussions, with technology stocks, including giants like Amazon, Google, and NVIDIA, suffering significant losses.
Bybit Hack Attack
On February 21, 2025, Bybit fell victim to the largest hack attack in history, resulting in the theft of $1.46 billion in cryptocurrency from its wallets. The hack was attributed to the North Korea-based hacker group, Lazarus. The attackers gained access to Bybit’s Ethereum 
$2,482 cold wallet through a phishing attack targeting the Safe (Wallet) developer.
After the incident, over 350,000 withdrawal requests were processed by the exchange within 12 hours, and it was reported that $42.89 million of the hacked funds were frozen.
As a result, many investors shifted toward stablecoins and Bitcoin 
$82,774, leading to a significant decrease in Ethereum’s market value. Ethereum’s price dropped by 20% in February, while Bitcoin’s market dominance increased to 59.6%, a rise of 1%.
U.S. Tariff Decisions
President Trump’s announcement of a 25% tariff on imports from Mexico and Canada negatively impacted financial markets. Investors fled risky assets amid concerns over trade wars, triggering a massive sell-off in the cryptocurrency market. February’s total market capitalization plummeted from $3.6 trillion to $2.8 trillion.
Among the hardest hit cryptocurrencies was Solana 
$106 (SOL), which saw an outflow of $485 million from its network, primarily transferring to Ethereum, Arbitrum, and BNB Chain. Additionally, trading volumes for meme coin projects operating on Solana decreased by 90%.
The uncertainty in the cryptocurrency market spurred increased interest in stablecoins and Real World Asset (RWA) projects. The total market value of stablecoins rose by 10% to $224 billion, while the market capitalization of RWAs increased by 17% to $17 billion. This growth was fueled by newfound regulatory clarity from new U.S. stablecoin laws and the demand for stable-return financial products.
Conversely, the Ethereum-based NFT market witnessed a volume drop of 38.2%, with the number of unique users trading NFTs reaching its lowest level since April 2021. Nonetheless, OpenSea’s market share increased to 71.5%.
