Forget 'Digital Gold': Traders are fleeing to stablecoins as bitcoin's $75,000 crash creates a market-wide bloodbath
Despite thousands of alternative tokens and institutional adoption, crypto markets in 2026 still largely move in lockstep with bitcoin, offering little real diversification.
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Despite thousands of alternative tokens and institutional adoption, crypto markets in 2026 still largely move in lockstep with bitcoin, offering little real diversification.
Revenue-generating DeFi and protocol tokens, which resemble traditional defensive sectors, have mostly fallen alongside bitcoin, with Hyperliquid's HYPE a rare outperformer amid broad declines.
The dominance of bitcoin, the rise of stablecoins as a defensive allocation, and growing institutional focus via spot ETFs suggest crypto will remain concentrated around BTC, limiting prospects for meaningful decoupling.
$BTC A decade ago, the crypto market was straightforward: When bitcoin BTC$79,186.82 surged, some 500 or more alternative cryptocurrencies followed suit; when it plunged, the entire market crashed. Portfolios spread across "diverse tokens" with unique use cases looked diversified on paper, but cratered during the bitcoin slides.
Fast forward to 2026, and very little has changed, even though the number of altcoins has increased to several thousand.
Despite institutions supposedly painting crypto as a multifaceted asset class akin to stocks, with each project boasting distinct investment appeal, the reality is grim. The market's still a one-trick pony, following BTC up and down, offering no real diversification.
The year-to-date price action underlines that fact. Bitcoin's price has tanked 14% to $75,000, the lowest since April last year, with almost all major and minor tokens bleeding by a similar amount, if not more.