- Only 6% of altcoins gained value; Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana also dropped sharply.
- Risky sectors like memecoins, DeFi, and AI tokens lost up to 90%, hitting speculative investors hardest.
- Gold and silver tumbled fast, while Bitcoin stayed stable, showing investors favor crypto and stocks over metals.
Over the past year, altcoins have had a really tough time, and interest in them has dropped sharply. According to Delphi Digital, only about 6% of the altcoins they track actually went up in value, while most lost around 70% of their worth.
As per the post, this was also a bad week for all the smaller coins as well as the major ones that people tend to monitor. Bitcoin and Ethereum both fell by over 20%, and even worse was seen with Solana, as it fell by over 50%. It was a bad week overall because even the major coins were performing poorly. Because of this, many people began to invest in safer assets like stocks and precious metals.
Layer 1 blockchain tokens were hit the hardest by this market downturn. All Layer 1 blockchain tokens fell significantly, losing anywhere from 60-80%, with BNB being a rare winner by rising by a small amount.
In addition to that, even the newly released modular blockchain tokens and memecoins fell by even larger percentages, with some losing over 90% of their value. Ethereum DeFi and Solana DeFi also fell hard, with Ethereum losing half and Solana losing a bit more.
Speculative Sectors Hit Hardest
New narrative-driven themes like AI, DePIN, and platform tokens experienced the biggest drawdowns. In fact, these assets have seen declines of over three-quarters of their value. Their average decline is around 80-90%. In this context, it is interesting to note that narrative-driven sectors are those which are usually most affected when there is a change in the market.
Traditional safe-haven assets have also experienced unprecedented fluctuations. According to a report by Santiment, gold prices have declined by more than 12.5% in just two days. Silver prices have declined by around 25%. In contrast, Bitcoin prices have been relatively stable and have declined by just 4.3% while staying above the $80,000 midpoint.
S&P 500 prices have experienced relatively smoother fluctuations. This indicates a smoother absorption of shocks by the stock market. This also indicates a change in the overall macroeconomic scenario.
