When highs and lows are guaranteed in life and in investing, coaches and financial advisors would call for stoicism-never getting too high or too low on outcomes.
Investors in cryptocurrencies have been on a roller-coaster in 2025, experiencing the highest of highs and the lowest of lows, all packed in 12 short months.
Bitcoin, the premiere cryptocurrency touched an all time high of $124,752 (about Sh16 million) on October 6, 2025, but has since lost almost one third of its value, plunging to $87,338 (Sh11.2 million) as of December 23, 2025.
Despite their proposition as a hedge during periods of uncertainties, investor jitters have been the greatest undoing for the asset class as doubts on the path of US interest rates and lofty tech stocks valuations spill over into crypto.
For the nearly one million Kenyans invested in cryptocurrencies, 2025’s highs and lows have been a comparable test of faith in an asset class often qualified as high risk by critics.
According to data from Statista, the number of cryptocurrencies users in Kenya was projected to reach 733,300 this year, growing from just 10,000 users eight years ago in 2017.
Global cryptocurrency exchange Bybit ranked Kenya as the world’s fifth-largest market by cryptocurrency transaction volumes in its 2025 World Crypto Rankings.
Only Ukraine, the United States, Nigeria and Vietnam ranked higher, underlining the thriving cryptocurrencies ecosystem in the country.
Holders of the digital asset in Kenya are keeping the faith against market swings, avoiding a fire sale of the currencies which have delivered mega gains in the past.
Between 2015 and 2025, Bitcoin has risen by over 200-fold or 20,184 percent from its December 1, 2015, price-a mere $430.57 (Sh55,517).
The year 2017 delivered the largest upswing in the cryptocurrency, rallying 1,368 percent from $963.74 to $14,156.40 according to data compiled by Yahoo Finance. Investors in the asset class have known when to bundle up and avoid getting frostbite including the mega 2022 slump which was dubbed the crypto winter.
Bitcoin fell by 64.2 percent to $16,547.50 from $46,306.45 as Sam Bankman-Fried founded crypto exchange FTX went burst.
Theo Mwangi a techie based in Nairobi invested in cryptocurrencies for the first time in 2018 when he worked for a blockchain hub.
Today, he reckons that about 40 percent of his investments are held in cryptocurrencies with the figure rising further when stablecoins are added to the mix.
He takes the recent plunge by cryptocurrencies in stride bracing for further volatility in 2026 but expecting the market to turn at some point down the line.
Theo perfectly fits what can be termed in the cryptocurrency community as holders.
HODL is a popular term in the cryptocurrency community that began with the misspelling of the word ‘HOLD’ but has evolved into a rallying call and an investment strategy with HODL becoming an acronym for Hold On for Deal Life.
“I see a pump around March-April because of the US primaries, but after that I expect another year of sideways movement and possibly lower prices. I see a pickup happening towards 2028 from historical trends,” he says.
“Holding (holding in crypto terms) is a good strategy over a long-time frame, say four years where a minimum 2x (two-fold) gain is always achieved. The 2028 halving event will likely take Bitcoin above $500,000 (Sh64.4 billion).”
The supply of Bitcoin falls by half every four years (the halving) reducing the supply of the cryptocurrency which is usually expected to result in higher prices when demand for the digital asset is sustained.
Theo supports his view on cryptocurrencies based on his understanding of the value provided by the technology and its adoption by legacy institutions.
According to him, only a fraction of the global population is invested in cryptocurrencies now, but the number is set to rise.
Peter Mwangi, the country manager of YellowCard, a provider of stablecoins infrastructure is another crypto bull, having invested in the digital assets even earlier than Theo in 2016.
Having seen bouts of market downturn, Mwangi who only holds Bitcoin is sticking in as he foresees mega returns and value over the long-term.
“Bitcoin is an asset I have held for a long time. For the last five years, I have made at least a 20 percent annual return. It could fluctuate and I have experienced it before,” he says.
“I believe that Bitcoin will rally to $1 million (Sh128.9 million). I am holding onto the asset until it changes my life.”
The return of President Donald Trump to USA's White House was seen ushering a new era for digital assets with the administration being seen as more receptive to the industry.
Trump has come good on supporting the industry by legislating the Genius Act which paves way for the legalisation of stablecoins- a form of cryptocurrency that holds its value at a ratio 1:1 with fiat money like US dollars.
He has also made appointments of officials in regulatory agencies who are seen as pro-crypto, instilling confidence for the industry bulls.
Some of Trump’s policies have, however, done some damage on the asset class this year including the setting of tariffs which has added to geo-political tensions-a catalyst for the cryptocurrency rout in 2025.
Cryptocurrencies have also made waves in traditional finance with the world’s largest asset fund manager, BlackRock for instance creating a crypto exchange traded fund which owns about 780,000 bitcoins.
US lender JPMorgan Chase is on its part considering lending against clients’ crypto holdings.
The selloff of cryptocurrencies by institutional investors has rattled market participants as their exit is seen as weightier than the historical speculation of retail investors.
The Kenyan government has also made moves to embrace digital assets by passing the Virtual Assets Service Providers Act, which sets the ground for the regulation of cryptocurrencies including setting modalities for the issuance of local coins and stablecoins in the future.
Novice cryptocurrency investors have however found themselves with an even rockier 2025 as fraud perforates the industry.
Thousands of Kenyans have alleged foul play after a cryptocurrency platform promoted by a senior Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) pastor collapsed, wiping out investments estimated in the millions of shillings.
Earlier in December, users of the crypto and forex trading platform known as Optcoin woke up over the December 14 weekend to find that the platform had disappeared and were directed to a new one requiring at least Sh24,000 in registration fees per user to unlock lost funds.
This came about six months after another popular cryptocurrency and forex trading platform CBEX went bust with client accounts emptied.
“Today morning, I woke up with like $6,000 (Sh773,640) in my crypto wallet. But around 7pm, it had been cleared to zero,” an investor told the Business Daily in April.
The total wipeout of investor funds through some trading platforms has revealed the proliferation of fraud in the industry ahead of authorities including the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) and the Capital Markets Authority (CMA) swoop to drain the swamp and curb malpractices in the ecosystem.
