- Altcoins suffered a deep structural reset in 2025, with market cap excluding the top 10 down over 50%.
- Trading activity remains high, but it is increasingly dominated by whales rather than retail investors.
- Without a reclaim of key levels on the OTHERS index, the market appears stuck in consolidation, not recovery.
Altcoin season was supposed to define 2025. Instead, it quietly unraveled. Rather than a broad rally lifting the long tail of the market, most altcoins slid into deep drawdowns, in many cases wiping out years of progress and forcing a wave of exhausted investors to the sidelines. By the time the year wrapped up, optimism had thinned out fast.
Heading into 2026, sentiment around altcoins feels fragile at best. Some analysts now argue the damage isn’t done yet, pointing to weak structure, thinning liquidity, and a clear drop in retail participation. The fear is simple, really. Without fresh demand, the sector could see another leg lower before anything resembling recovery shows up.
Capital Has Left, and the Numbers Show It
Market data backs up that caution. The OTHERS index, which tracks crypto market cap excluding the top 10 assets, has collapsed by more than 50% since December 2024. What was once roughly a $451 billion segment is now hovering closer to $182 billion. That’s not a routine correction, it’s a reset.
This kind of contraction reflects aggressive de-risking across mid and small caps. Demand faded, sellers stayed active, and liquidity dried up at the edges. For many projects, price discovery moved downward and didn’t look back. Still, not everyone believes this marks the end of the altcoin cycle.
A smaller but vocal group of analysts points to history. In past cycles, extreme underperformance and broad capitulation often came right before sharp altcoin recoveries. From that angle, 2026 could still host a delayed altcoin season, but only if liquidity improves and capital rotation restarts in a meaningful way.
Trading Activity Tells a More Complicated Story
One of the more confusing signals comes from trading volume. A CryptoQuant report shows that centralized exchange volume for altcoins, excluding the top five assets, is actually higher than in previous cycles. That sounds bullish on the surface, but price hasn’t followed.
This gap between activity and valuation explains a lot of the current uncertainty. Altcoins are still being traded heavily, just not rewarded with higher prices. What’s changed is who’s doing the trading. Retail participation has largely faded after months of losses, with many smaller investors giving up and closing positions.
Their absence hasn’t reduced volume. Instead, that activity has become more concentrated. Whales and professional traders now make up a growing share of altcoin flow, using low-liquidity conditions and weak sentiment to accumulate selectively or rotate capital with precision. It’s not quiet, it’s just different.
OTHERS Chart Signals Compression, Not Recovery
The OTHERS chart paints a clear picture of how deep this correction has gone. After peaking near $450 billion in late 2024, the market has stabilized closer to the $200–210 billion zone. That kind of drop suggests a full structural reset rather than a shallow pullback.
Technically, price is hovering around the 200-week moving average, a level that has historically acted as a long-term balance point during transitions. The failure to reclaim the 100-week and 50-week averages shows that upside conviction remains weak. Buyers are cautious, and rallies fade quickly.
Volume behavior reinforces this. Spikes appear during sell-offs or short relief moves, but there’s no sustained expansion that would signal broad accumulation. The market isn’t collapsing anymore, but it’s also not breaking higher. Forced selling seems mostly exhausted, yet the absence of higher highs keeps the structure neutral to bearish.
For a real altcoin recovery to take shape, OTHERS would need to reclaim the $260–280 billion range and hold above key moving averages. Until that happens, the data points to consolidation, whale-dominated positioning, and a market still searching for a durable bottom rather than the start of a classic altcoin season.
