Altcoins are still inviting risky traders to take strong directional bets. According to Alphractal data, there are clear-cut categories of altcoins with minimal long/short ratios and a predominance of short positions. The content on this site is for informational purposes only and should not be considered investment advice.
- Altcoins still have under 20% market cap dominance, as the market shifted to BTC.
- The downdraft was spearheaded by ethereum (ETH), which suffered a 4% intraday slide.
- This level of open interest is the lowest since the summer of 2025, though not the lowest in history.
- This level even exceeds the peak observed during the previous bear market, which was around 38%.
- The consensus is that some tokens may never return, due to a loss of liquidity.
Altcoins are taking widely diverging paths, with OI around $14 billion
This is where Matt Hougan’s analysis, Chief Investment Officer at Bitwise, makes perfect sense. For him, the old scenario where money flowed from Bitcoin to Ethereum then broadly poured into altcoins no longer works as before. Speaking at the Digital Asset Summit in New York on March 24, Mitchnick described a market that has moved sharply away from broad exposure to smaller assets. Bucking the trend, bitcoin cash ( BCH) managed a modest 1.3% climb, joined by minor green candles from LEO (0.3%) and Canton (3.2%). However, the true anomaly was the micro-cap Trillions, which posted an eye-popping, albeit likely illiquid, 7,700% surge within 24 hours.
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They are listed with the largest coin by market capitalization first and then in descending order. To reorder the list, just click on one of the column headers, for example, 7d, and the list will be reordered to show the highest or lowest coins first. However, SIREN was one of the few tokens to post a sharp gain during the latest market drop.
The consensus is that some tokens may never return, due to a loss of liquidity. Despite this, altcoin open interest is still not down to all-time lows, retaining a relatively high baseline. The most shorted token is BNX, followed by EDGE, NIGHT, OPN, ESP, BERA, and others. Those tokens belong to almost inactive projects and are down more than 99% from their peak, with illiquid trading. This page lists the top 100 cryptocurrency coins by market cap.
According to data shared around analyst Darkfost, the share of altcoins near their historical floors exceeded 40% in March 2026. This reflects exceptional pressure on the most speculative assets in the sector. The weakness in major tokens added pressure to the overall market. Total crypto market value fell by about $60 billion from Friday’s peak and stood near $2.37 trillion, showing that risk appetite remained weak across the sector. Trader behavior with altcoins shows the crypto market is still chosen for risky directional bets, though most are happening in the background, and the main focus is on Bitcoin. As of March 26, the altcoin season index moved up to 51 points, with almost a perfect balance between BTC and other assets.
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At the time of reporting, the asset had recovered slightly and traded above $66,000, but it still showed a weekly loss of around 6%. Its market capitalization dropped to about $1.325 trillion, while its market share slipped below 56%. Just like the shorted tokens, those assets were trading near https://bramridge-trust.com/ all-time lows, expecting an eventual breakout. Long positions may face smaller risks, as the assets have mostly traded sideways over the past months. Geopolitical tensions and macroeconomic volatility weigh on all risky assets, but altcoins bear the brunt more violently than Bitcoin or large caps. This retracement phase of altcoins is harsher than that of the last crypto bear market.
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Most of the altcoin long liquidations are happening on Binance, which has listed the latest wave of assets. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this article belong solely to the author, and should not be taken as investment advice. Bitcoin Cash and CC posted gains of more than 3%, making them rare movers higher as most of the market stayed under pressure.
Most of the shorted tokens show overall bearish signals, making traders confident in shorting. Behind the price fall, there is a deeper problem in the crypto universe. The total number of cryptocurrencies has exceeded 47 million, with about 22 million tokens on Solana, over 18 million on Base, and nearly 4 million on BNB Smart Chain.
