Z-Indexes Performance Report – December 2025 Returns & Drawdowns

Market Overview and Objective of this Update

December 2025 was quieter than the October–November stress window, but still far from a "risk-off" month. Bitcoin finished December with a modest loss of about -2.2%, extending the drawdown from its October peak and keeping sentiment in crypto cautious. StatMuse

Traditional markets, in contrast, held up well. The S&P 500, via the iShares S&P 500 ETF used inside our ecosystem, delivered roughly +1.4% for the month, while the Nasdaq 100 and related tech indices oscillated near record highs with low single-digit moves. BlackRock Gold continued to play a defensive role, adding around +2.5–3% over the last 30 days of the year. Gold Price

Against that backdrop, this report reviews how the three Z-Indexes behaved during December 2025, and how the new allocations to Abhi Private Credit and the RWA sleeve (FX Flow Swing, Suisse Quant Group, Volatility Pocket Grid) affected the risk/return profile.

Big Picture: Z-Indexes vs BTC and Equity Benchmarks (December 2025)

Using the marketplace data up to 31 December 2025, the indexes delivered approximately:

Z-Indexes – December Performance Summary

Benchmark Context (Same Period)

• Bitcoin: about -2.2%
• S&P 500 (iShares ETF): roughly +1.4% total return
  Gold: about +2.7% over the trailing days into year-end

December 2025 Takeaways

• All three Z-Indexes outperformed Bitcoin and did so with far smaller drawdowns.
• Conservative and Balanced delivered equity-like positive returns, with max DDs around -2%, versus a deeper and more volatile path in BTC.
• Advanced finished roughly flat, but again with drawdowns contained to ~-2%, despite higher exposure to alt-driven strategies.

In other words, the indices continued to behave as diversified portfolios rather than single-asset bets: they participated in upside where it was available (gold, ZIG rebound, alt strategies, RWA carry), while the downside remained capped inside their expected risk bands.

What Drove Performance Inside the Indexes in December 2025

Below is a directional overview of the main engines, using December 1–31 data from the marketplace plus the new RWA sleeves.

Income and Defensive Engines

Abhi Private Credit

• December return (since 1 Dec): ≈ +0.35%, with no meaningful drawdown in the dataset.
• Role: it became the core stabiliser of all three indices (60% / 58% / 43% in Conservative, Balanced, and Advanced in the current configuration) and behaved exactly as intended: slow, predictable carry, independent from crypto swings.
• Contribution: small in % terms but very important at the portfolio level – it provided a positive base carry month, helping to lift Conservative and Balanced while smoothing the experience in Advanced.

BlackRock iShares Physical Gold ETC

• December return: ≈ +2.1%, consistent with the move in spot gold during the month.
• Role: the defensive / hard-asset hedge against equity and crypto shocks.
• Contribution: added steady positive performance across all indices where it is present (25% in Conservative, 10% in Balanced). It helped push both indices above BTC's return while limiting correlation to pure crypto beta.

RWA Cluster – FX Flow Swing, Suisse Quant Group, Volatility Pocket Grid

• FX Flow Swing
  
  • Since inception (mid-November), the curve sits around +3–4%, with most of the gain built during December 2025.
  • Role: low-volatility FX carry and swing trading engine, uncorrelated to crypto.
• Suisse Quant Group
  
  • 1-month PnL on the chart: about +1.1%.
  • Role: conservative quant credit / bond-like sleeve, again focused on stable carry.
• Volatility Pocket Grid
  
  • 1-month PnL: around +4.8%.
  • Role: volatility harvesting product on major FX/indices, designed to monetize range-bound periods with managed risk.

Together, these three RWAs have small weights (Balanced: 2% each, Advanced: 4% each) but they all printed positive, low-volatility returns in December. At the index level they added only a few tens of basis points, but importantly, they did so without adding crypto drawdown risk, reinforcing the "multi-engine" nature of Balanced and Advanced.

ZIG and Platform-linked Exposure

The ZIG Vault

• December Return: Roughly +16.9%, off the lows; max intra-month drawdown ≈ -20% from the peak to the local trough.
• Role: long ZIG + staking yield. It is the purest expression of platform-token risk inside the indices.
• Contribution: Despite its moderate weight (10% in each index), the December rebound in ZIG turned the Vault into a meaningful positive driver. A 16–17% move at 10% weight translates into ≈ +1.5–1.7% at the portfolio level before rebalancing frictions.

Delta – Nexus Strategy (ZIG trend on Bybit Spot)

• December Return: About +12.3%, with a max drawdown around -16%.
• Role: Active ZIG trading that complements the passive Vault exposure. After suffering during the earlier ZIG drawdown, it benefited from the December recovery.
• Contribution: Within Balanced (3% weight), the strategy provided a noticeable positive but controlled contribution, reinforcing the "ZIG recovery" theme while staying sized small enough to not dominate risk.

Crypto Spot and Futures Trading

Crypto Dividend Engine (Spot Crypto)

• December Return: Around +3.2%, max DD ≈ -11.5%.
• Role: Diversified spot crypto basket that benefits from constructive or gently trending markets but suffers in flat/down environments.
• December context: After the heavy October–November correction, December delivered a mixed but slightly better environment: BTC down marginally, altcoins and rotation trades offered more room to generate carry and tactical gains.
• Contribution: modest but clearly positive across all three indices, especially in Advanced, where the weight is higher.

Delta – Anchor Strategy (Non-Leveraged Futures Trend)

• December Return: Roughly -8.6%, max DD about -12.5%.
• Role: Medium-horizon trend-following engine on crypto futures, designed to monetize sustained directional moves without leverage.
• December Context: After strong profits in October, November already showed how range-bound altcoins and falling BTC dominance can hurt a trend strategy (many small SL hits). December extended that pattern: no clean impulse trend, plenty of noise.
• Contribution: It was the main drag in December across all indices where it appears. However, its size is capped (2.5–7.5% depending on the index), so the negative impact stayed contained and was offset by gains from ZIG, RWA, and other engines.
  

Margin Syndicate

• December Return: ≈ +43.2%, despite a max DD around -15%.
• Role: High-octane crypto trading; it is deliberately sized small (3% in Balanced) given its volatility.
• Contribution: Even at 3% weight, the strategy was a key positive contributor to Balanced Growth in December, more than compensating for Delta Anchor's losses.

Equity-Linked Sleeve

The Magnificent Seven (US mega-cap tech)

• December Return: About +0.9%, max DD ≈ -2.2%.
• Benchmarks: This is naturally compared with the Nasdaq 100 / tech indices, which spent December oscillating near record highs with modest net change for the month. nasdaq.com
• Role: Equity growth engine inside Advanced (20% weight) and, previously, Balanced.
• Contribution: Small but positive. It helped Advanced hold the line in a month where crypto trend strategies were struggling, but the main action in December came from ZIG, Delta Anchor, and the RWA cluster rather than from US tech.

Index-by-Index View for December 2025

Conservative Growth

December Result: ≈ +1.6% with max DD around -2.3%.
Key Drivers:

• Abhi + defensive sleeves (gold + carry) acted as the core engine, delivering steady but unspectacular gains.
• ZIG Vault provided a strong kicker thanks to the ZIG rebound, while the small pockets of crypto beta (CDE, Delta Anchor) largely offset each other.

Behaviour vs Benchmarks:

• Outperformed Bitcoin by roughly 3.5–4 percentage points with far lower volatility.
• Delivered a return comparable to or slightly above US equities, but with a very different mix of underlying engines (private credit, gold, RWA, platform token).

Risk Profile: stayed squarely in the "capital-preservation-first" zone. Drawdowns were shallow and short-lived, and the index did not chase the riskier corners of crypto to earn its December return.

Balanced Growth

December Result: ≈ +2.0%, max DD ~-1.7%.

Key Drivers:

• ZIG Vault + ZIG trading (Delta Nexus) and Margin Syndicate were the big positives.
• Delta Anchor was the main detractor, as choppy altcoin trends kept hitting its stops, something normal for trending strategies.
• Abhi, gold, and the RWA trio (FX Flow, Suisse Quant, VPG) provided low-vol carry that smoothed the path and partially insulated the index from crypto noise.

Behaviour vs Benchmarks:

• Clearly ahead of BTC and ahead of gold on a risk-adjusted basis.
• Similar headline return to US equities, but with a different risk pattern, more crypto flavour, but anchored by private credit and RWAs to keep drawdowns small.

Takeaway: Balanced Growth delivered the best trade-off between return and volatility in December: a meaningful positive month and the shallowest peak-to-trough loss.

Advanced Growth

December Result: Flat (~+0.0–0.1%), max DD ~-1.9%

Key Drivers:

• On the positive side, ZIG Vault, CDE, Nexus, Magnificent Seven, and the RWA cluster all contributed gains.
• These were almost entirely offset by the drag from Delta Anchor, which naturally has a larger footprint in Advanced due to its higher-risk mandate.
• Abhi's growing weight helped to cap volatility and soften the impact of losing sleeves.

Behaviour vs Benchmarks:

• Relative to BTC (-2.2%), Advanced still did its job: it protected capital and avoided a negative month despite higher-beta components inside.
• Compared with equity indices, it lagged in headline return, which is expected in a month where crypto trend systems underperform while US stocks grind higher.

Takeaway: Advanced behaved like a higher-octane version of Balanced: more sensitive to the success or failure of trend engines, but still respecting tight drawdown limits thanks to Abhi, RWA, and structural risk caps.

Are the Indexes Behaving as Designed?

Across December 2025, three points stand out.

1. Risk Bands were Respected

All three indices kept drawdowns around -2% during the month, materially below Bitcoin's path and consistent with their respective mandates (Conservative < Balanced < Advanced in long-term risk, but all still "risk-managed crypto + multi-asset" rather than pure crypto beta).

2. Multi-Engine Design is Working

• When trend-following struggled (Delta Anchor), other engines — ZIG rebound, Margin Syndicate, Nexus, RWA carry, and gold — stepped in.
• The introduction of Abhi and the RWA trio further reduced dependence on any single narrative (Bitcoin, altseason, or tech equities).

3. Return Patterns are Converging to their Intended Roles

• Conservative Growth looks and feels like a yield-plus-defensive-gold portfolio with a controlled amount of crypto upside.
  
  
• Balanced Growth remains the "sweet spot": enough high-octane sleeves to matter, anchored by Abhi and RWAs so that shocks remain manageable.
  
  
• Advanced Growth plays the role of risk-seeking engine within the Z-Index family, but December shows that even here, the combination of risk caps and stable carry can turn a difficult environment into a flat month rather than a large loss.

Looking Ahead

The December data validates the direction of the last rebalance:

• Increasing Abhi and RWA exposure has provided a more stable floor without killing upside.
• Capping trend-following and high-beta sleeves at modest weights ensures that months like December, where signals whipsaw, do not dominate the outcome.
• Maintaining targeted exposure to ZIG and US tech keeps long-term growth optionality inside all three indices.

For users, the core message remains the same:

Z-Indexes are not a bet on a single coin, a single trader, or a single narrative. They are professionally constructed index portfolios that blend multiple, independent engines of return.

December 2025 is another example of that design in action: modest but positive results for Conservative and Balanced, flat but well-contained risk for Advanced, and all three significantly smoother than simply holding Bitcoin through the same month.

Prepared by Zignaly Research

Author: David Rodríguez Coronado

Data sources: internal marketplace data and public benchmarks

Disclosure: For informational purposes only. Capital at risk.

Disclaimer: Investing involves risk, including the possible loss of principal. Past performance is not indicative of future results. This does not constitute investment advice or a solicitation to invest. Availability of Z-Indexes may be subject to local laws and regulations. Users are responsible for ensuring compliance with their jurisdiction's requirements.