We recently compiled a list of the 10 Worst Performing Crypto Stocks to Buy Now. In this article, we are going to take a look at where MARA Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:MARA) stands against the other crypto stocks.

The enthusiasm surrounding the crypto market that followed Donald Trump’s return to the White House is starting to fade. David Hollerith, a senior reporter at Yahoo Finance, noted that Bitcoin hit a three-month low on February 25, briefly dropping below $87,000. This was the biggest drop in three weeks for the largest cryptocurrency in the world. On February 25, Ether, the second-largest cryptocurrency, fell 10% while Solana fell more than 12% to hit its lowest point in five months.

The recent sell-off in cryptocurrencies isn’t attributed to any single cause but industry watchers are pointing to a combination of negative factors contributing to the downturn. These include broader economic uncertainty, concerns about Trump tariffs, and the recent hack of the Bybit crypto exchange. Despite initial optimism about a pro-crypto stance from the Trump administration, it appears that the market rally that followed his election is losing momentum.

READ ALSO: 13 Best Performing Bank Stocks So Far In 2025 and 10 Unrivaled Stocks of the Next 5 Years.

Noelle Acheson, founder of Crypto Is Macro Now, told Yahoo Finance that the “Trump rally” could just be running out of steam. She believes that the pullback is happening because of concerns about economic growth as the new administration announces new tariffs and tax cuts. Crypto-related stocks have also been negatively affected by the downturn.

Bernstein’s analyst Gautam Chhugani told clients in a note that the Bitcoin market is closely tied to broader equity market sentiment driven by macroeconomic concerns. Bernstein believes that Bitcoin has not reached its peak in its current 4-year cycle and projects it could reach closer to $200,000 over the next 12 months. On a technical level, Chhugani thinks Bitcoin could drop as low as $70,000. However, Bernstein sees this potential drop could be an opportunity for investors to join the cycle, suggesting that any decline could be a buying opportunity.

Bitcoin’s price could bounce back if it gets more bullish announcements from the White House. President Trump has fulfilled some of the promises he made to the crypto industry, but other promises and regulatory developments are taking longer. While Bitcoin has fallen 6% since the start of 2025, it is still up 26% since Trump’s election victory.

Methodology

To compile our list of the 10 worst-performing crypto stocks to buy now, we looked for the largest crypto companies. We reviewed financial media reports, ETFs, our own rankings, and various online resources to compile a list of crypto stocks. To look for the worst-performing stocks, we looked for crypto stocks that have experienced negative returns year-to-date as of February 21, 2025. Next, we focused on the top 10 stocks most favored by institutional investors. Data for the hedge fund sentiment surrounding each stock was taken from Insider Monkey’s Q4 2024 database of more than 1,000 elite hedge funds. Finally, the 10 worst-performing crypto stocks to buy according to hedge funds were ranked in ascending order based on the number of hedge funds holding stakes in them as of Q4 2024.

Why do we care about what hedge funds do? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter’s strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 373.4% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 218 percentage points (see more details here).

MARA Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:MARA)

Year-to-Date Performance: -14.82%

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 21

MARA Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:MARA) is an American digital asset technology company that is primarily focused on energy generation and Bitcoin mining. The company develops and deploys advanced digital asset compute technology to improve the efficiency of the crypto mining process. MARA Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:MARA) is one of the worst-performing stocks in the crypto space.

The company is focused on expanding its mining capacity in 2025 as it aims to strengthen its position in the Bitcoin mining industry. MARA Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:MARA) has been actively expanding its mining capacity through acquisitions and site developments. Following the end of Q3 2024, the company added 372 megawatts of mining capacity in Ohio with an acquisition of a 222-megawatt site, in addition to securing greenfield site development of 150-megawatt. Additionally, on February 18, 2025, MARA Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:MARA) closed its acquisition of a wind farm in Hansford County, Texas. This acquisition adds 240 megawatts of interconnection capacity and 114 megawatts of nameplate wind capacity. MARA Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:MARA) plans to use this renewable energy to power its mining operations and reduce Bitcoin production costs by utilizing last-generation ASIC mining hardware that would otherwise be discarded.

Overall, MARA ranks 8th on our list of the worst-performing crypto stocks to buy now. While we acknowledge the potential of MARA as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and doing so within a shorter time frame. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than MARA but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.

READ NEXT: 20 Best AI Stocks To Buy Now and Complete List of 59 AI Companies Under $2 Billion in Market Cap.

Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.