More than a third of tracked altcoins are now near cycle lows despite broader market stabilization.
On-chain analytics firm CryptoQuant reports that 38% of altcoins are currently trading near their all-time lows, marking a more severe retracement than the period following FTX’s collapse. The metric, highlighted by analyst Darkfost, is designed to capture how many alternative tokens remain under sustained selling pressure, even if the market as a whole shows signs of stabilization.
In a summary note on social media, Darkfost describes this as the largest altcoin regression seen so far in the current cycle, highlighting how uneven the recovery has been between blue-chip assets and the long tail of speculative tokens.
Market participants commenting on the data pointed out that, unlike the post-FTX phase, where forced liquidations and distressed sales drove down prices, the current environment has relatively fewer obvious forced sellers. Instead, the altcoin’s weakness appears to be due to a combination of low liquidity, tighter risk budgets, and a rotation toward more established names such as BTC and ETH, which have captured the bulk of flows into spot markets and regulated products. One observer noted that following FTX, once the major overhang resolved, many assets saw at least one reflexive bounce, whereas today a significant portion of altcoins remain stuck near their lows despite occasional rallies in the majors.
Dispersion and liquidity tensions
The divergence described by CryptoQuant has important implications for portfolio construction and risk management for digital assets. Increasing dispersion – where some market segments trend upward while others decline – tends to increase both opportunities and risks, particularly for funds attempting to alternate between themes or capture relative value. With a significant portion of altcoins near ATL, liquidity in many order books has dwindled, increasing the impact cost of entering or exiting positions and increasing the potential for sharp “Bart-style” intraday moves noted by traders.
At the same time, data suggests a growing focus of market interest on a smaller set of higher quality or more narrative-focused assets, including BTC, ETH, and ecosystems such as SOL, which continue to see comparatively stronger developer and user activity. Centralized platforms like Coinbase have also funneled more volume into a limited basket of listed tokens, further amplifying the relative underperformance of small caps that lack deep markets or institutional access. In Europe, evolving regulatory frameworks such as MiCA could strengthen this focus by encouraging platforms to prioritize assets with clearer compliance and disclosure profiles, which could leave many fringe altcoins structurally disadvantaged, even as broader crypto sentiment improves.