12:17 pm - April 10, 2026The screens were all green six months ago. The price of Bitcoin was more than $126,000. Ethereum was moving in the direction of $5,000. XRP had surpassed $3.65, a target that its most ardent supporters had spent years defending. After the 2022 collapse that had momentarily damaged the network’s reputation, the price of Solana, which was close to $295, felt nearly unfathomable. Many investors believed that cryptocurrency had gone too far. Now that this asset class had been institutionalized through ETFs and approved by regulators, it was able to withstand macro pressure in ways that previous cycles had never been able to. The selling then began in late 2025. Really, it hasn’t stopped.
Bitcoin has dropped 47% since its October peak as of late March 2026. Ethereum has dropped by 60%. After its SEC settlement, XRP briefly appeared to be a regulatory victory lap, but it is now down 64%.
The hardest hit of all has been Solana, which has dropped 72%. Over the past month, on-chain activity has declined along with the price, network transactions have decreased by 3.2%, and active addresses have decreased by 11%. These are not small adjustments. Since the 2022 bear market, which many investors still refer to as truly traumatic, this is one of the biggest declines across all four assets. Anyone who purchased close to the cycle highs and held onto it is sitting on losses that are comparable to some of the worst bear markets in conventional finance in terms of percentage.
| Asset | Peak (2025) | Peak Price | Price (Late March 2026) | Decline from Peak |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bitcoin (BTC) | October 2025 | $126,080 | ~$70,000 | −47% |
| Ethereum (ETH) | August 2025 | $4,953 | ~$2,050 | −60% |
| XRP | July 2025 | $3.65 | ~$1.33 | −64% |
| Solana (SOL) | Late 2025 | $295 | ~$85 | −72% |
| Total Crypto Market Cap | — | ~$3.7T | ~$2.4T | ~−35% |
| Stablecoin Supply | — | — | $316 billion (record) | — |
| Fear & Greed Index | — | — | ~27 (Fear) | — |
Every rally since late 2025 has been sold into almost immediately because the causes are layered in a way that defies easy explanation. Due to the escalating Iran-US conflict in late February, oil prices surpassed $100 and inflation expectations increased to such an extent that the Federal Reserve revised its 2026 forecast upward, delaying rate cut expectations until December at the latest. That revision was detrimental to cryptocurrency, which had been quietly flourishing in a setting where institutional money was starting to price in rate cuts and looser liquidity. Then came the biggest quarterly options expiration of 2026: in late March, $14.16 billion was settled on Deribit, resulting in $451 million in market liquidations in a single session.
For the first time this year, spot ETFs for Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana all saw net outflows on the same day. During that session, the Bitcoin ETF lost $171 million. Ethereum experienced its seventh consecutive outflow session. It seemed that the institutional floor that had been sustaining prices through the beginning of 2026 had softened, at least momentarily.
It’s important to comprehend the particular mechanism underlying the persistent selling since it clarifies why rallies consistently fail. Every price recovery becomes a chance to minimize losses or return to breakeven when a significant portion of a token’s supply is held by buyers who made higher-priced purchases; these buyers are known as underwater holders. Into the rally, they sell. stalls at the rally. Another group of underwater sellers who wait for the next bounce is created when prices decline even more. XRP is a prime example: according to Glassnode’s on-chain data, only 43.4% of the XRP supply is profitable at the current prices—the lowest since July 2024—despite the fact that prices were significantly higher only a few weeks ago. According to Santiment, the average active wallet on the XRP Ledger has decreased by about 41% in the last year, which is the lowest number since the FTX crash in November 2022. Every attempt to recover is met with the weight of the top-heavy market structure.
However, there is information in the data that is not displayed in the price charts. The total supply of stablecoins has increased to a record $316 billion. Money that left Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP, and Solana but did not completely leave cryptocurrency is represented by that number. It is either waiting or earning yield in Tether, USDC, and other similar instruments. Large institutional investors are concentrating their holdings in Bitcoin and Ethereum rather than rotating out, according to BlackRock, whose Bitcoin ETF has been among the top 2% of all ETFs by year-to-date inflows. Despite daily price declines, Bitcoin ETFs saw $2.5 billion in net inflows during the past month. Even during weeks when the price action appeared to be steadily declining, net exchange outflows—investors removing coins from trading platforms into self-custody—indicate accumulation beneath the surface.
It is genuinely difficult to determine when it stops, and anyone who asserts certainty in either direction should be viewed with some skepticism. In the past, it has taken 12 to 15 months for Bitcoin to reach a significant bottom after its cycle peak; as of late March, the current correction was only five months old. The 2018 correction lasted for roughly a year. It took longer than most people anticipated to find the 2022 bottom, and when it did, it happened quietly. The realized profit across the Bitcoin network has dropped 96% from its July 2025 peak, indicating that the majority of sellers who could sell at a profit have already done so. This structural signal has preceded every significant recovery since 2015. Loss-sellers are what’s left, and historically, that’s when corrections begin to run out of steam.
Even though it’s not immediately apparent, there’s a sense that the market is constructing something as the charts flatten in late March. Ten days prior to the subsequent binary event, the Iran deadline was extended. There is a Fed meeting scheduled for May that will be closely monitored. There is the dry powder of stablecoin. It doesn’t imply that a recovery is on the horizon; there are many situations in which Bitcoin tests $60,000 or less before finding true support, and Solana, which is currently 72% below its peak, still has potential to decline further if sentiment worsens. However, compared to two months ago, when institutional money was still rotating out and selling was still widespread, the conditions for a stabilization are now present. Everyone in the market is currently attempting to determine whether those components come together to form a trend reversal in April, June, or later in the year.
No one can be certain. That’s the truthful response. However, the accumulation below the surface indicates that the patient money has a view, and this asset class is not finished.
