As bitcoin continues to set new cycle lows, altcoins are revisiting levels not seen in several years. Over the past 24 hours:
* XRP has dropped nearly 19% to trade at $1.24, its lowest mark since November 2024;
* Solana is down 7% to trade under $84, returning to a price point last recorded in January 2024;
* Dogecoin has slid 10% to $0.09, a price last seen in September 2024;
* Chainlink is down below $8.40, erasing all gains made since October 2023.
It’s hitting the crypto ecosystem hard: 305,791 traders have been liquidated in the past 24 hours, with total liquidations standing at $1.46 billion, CoinGlass data shows. The market capitalization of the entire crypto space is now at $2.35 trillion, a drawdown of 7.5% in the last 24 hours and a stunning 46.6% plunge from the all-time high of $4.4 trillion set in October 2025.
The altcoin market is correlated with bitcoin, with both undergoing a steep decline, according to Devin Ryan, director of financial technology research at investment bank Citizens Capital Markets & Advisory.
As to what is driving the downswing, Ryan pointed to the October sell-off that triggered the massive initial wave of liquidations as well as a number of macro headwinds, such as ongoing geopolitical conflicts, concerns of another government shutdown, and uncertainty surrounding a new Fed chair.
There’s volatility in the asset class because of market structure issues and concerns around where bitcoin goes from here from a price perspective, Ryan said.
Ryan expects the correlation between bitcoin and the rest of the crypto ecosystem to break down over the next year to two years.
The recent volatility highlights that cryptocurrency’s blockchain technology is still in an early phase, Ryan said. “We are still in the early days of even getting the clarity around regulation and the legislation that’s needed to progress from this world of pilot phase — what might happen on the blockchain to here’s what’s happening on the blockchain and on which blockchains,” Ryan told Sherwood News.
