The crypto altcoin market is in turmoil as investor sentiment plummets and digital asset prices fail to recover from the October 2025 crash.
An estimated 38% of altcoins are now hovering near all-time lows, which is worse than the post-FTX market crash, according to CryptoQuant analyst Darkfost.
The current market is “unfavorable” for risk-on assets, and the crypto markets are the first to absorb this risk-off posturing, he said, adding:
“For comparison, this metric reached 35% in April 2025 and 37.8% just after the FTX crash. This chart perfectly illustrates the current situation for altcoins. Investors remain cautious and continue to lose interest in altcoins.”
Examples of altcoins, cryptocurrency that typically serves as an alternative to Bitcoin (BTC), include Cardano’s ADA (ADA), which is hovering at about $0.10 above its all-time low of $0.17. Polkadot (DOT) reached an all-time low of $1.13 in February, but is now up 33% from there, and Polygon (POL) is trading at about $0.02 off its all-time low of $0.08.
Liquidity is being siphoned from altcoins and into equities and commodities, Darkfost said. Daily trading volume reached a high of over $417 billion on Oct. 10, the day of the historic crypto market crash, according to data from CoinMarketCap.
For comparison, daily trading volumes ranged from $49.4 billion to $268 billion in February and March 2026.
The altcoin drawdown represents the “largest regression” recorded during the current market cycle, he said, and could present a buying opportunity for investors, he concluded.
Related: $209B exited altcoins over the last 13 months: Did traders rotate into Bitcoin?
The analysis comes as mentions of altcoins on social media platforms dropped to two-year lows, according to crypto market sentiment analysis platform Santiment.
Google worldwide search volume for altcoins also dropped to the yearly low of 4 out of 100, according to data from Google Trends.
“Altcoins are suffering from a ‘liquidity drain,’ where even minor shifts in sentiment trigger outsized sell-offs,” Jimmy Xue, co-founder of liquidity platform Axis, said in a message shared with Cointelegraph.
This is because altcoins lack the same institutional support and the “digital gold” narrative enjoyed by Bitcoin, he added.
Analysts have cited several reasons for the decline in altcoins, including too many tokens competing for limited investor capital, and the launch of BTC exchange-traded funds (ETFs), altering market dynamics by trapping liquidity in traditional financial vehicles.
There are more than 36.8 million different crypto tokens listed on CoinMarketCap at the time of this writing.
