Theft-Hit NEM Nosedived, But It Wasn't February's Big Crypto Loser

While bitcoin ended February with marginal gains, and the likes of litecoin and lesser-known DigixDao shined, names like ICON, NEM and cardano took a beating as the market turned south, CoinDesk data shows.

A majority of the top 25 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization suffered losses.

Quite clearly, these tokens may have been struggling to win back traders, a fact made clear by the broad-based crypto market recovery from Feb. 6 lows, which appears to have encouraged the crypto faithful to reinvest.

While ICON aims to create a network of blockchain communities that can freely interact, its markets could have arguably used more interaction in February.

The blockchain's ICX token fell 53.78 percent in February and declined Friday to a two-month low of BTC 0.0003280 on exchange provider Binance.

Still, the broad-based crypto market sell-off pushed ICX to a low of $2.40 on Feb 6, and in the subsequent days, the token failed to regain poise.

NEM's XEM token has retraced close to 80 percent of the record rally it saw from July to January.

The token was involved in a huge cryptocurrency heist in January, when hackers stole around $530 million worth of the digital asset from Japanese crypto exchange Coincheck.

Rumors have been doing the rounds that NEM will serve as an underlying platform for Venezuela's PTR. It is widely believed that will be a game changer for NEM, but so far, Venezuela's decision to put its faith in NEM has not been able to put a floor under XEM. Cardano.

Cardano, designed to provide a new decentralized economy and to democratize financial markets in emerging markets, has seen solid gains since launch last year, winning favor with traders and developers.