The past year hasn’t exactly been a spectacular one for the digital assets market – particularly for cryptocurrencies not named Bitcoin. The top altcoin by reported market cap – Ether – is down 22.8% over the past year, while other major altcoins like SOL and ADA are down 50.7% and 64.5%, respectively.
Altcoins take a major beating
The total altcoin market capitalization has fallen from as high as $293 billion as of February 2025, to $180 billion at the time of writing, recording a fall of approximately 38% over the past year. Even the leading cryptocurrency, Bitcoin (BTC), is down 21.6% since February 2025, indicating the overall weakness in the market.
According to a recent X post by crypto research firm Delphi Digital, only 6% of altcoins in their sector dashboard are in green over the past year. Notably, the average pullback is close to 70%, making 2025 a “difficult year for alts.”
Layer-1 blockchains like Aptos, Avalanche, Solana, Near, Sui, and others recorded an average drawdown of 54.6%. Modular and Layer-2 blockchains like Arbitrum, Manta, and Optimism saw an average of 83.7% decline in value. Avail saw a 95% price pullback.
In the same vein, the memecoin craze fizzled out in 2025, as the sector saw an average decline of 70.3%. Artificial intelligence and decentralized physical infrastructure network projects found it hard to reverse the trend as well, as they recorded an average decline of 78.8% over the past year.
That being said, the decentralized finance vertical in both the Ethereum and Solana ecosystems performed relatively well. While the ETH DeFi recorded an average decline of 49.4%, the SOL DeFi ecosystem saw an average fall of 57.9% over the past year. Speaking to AltCoinDesk, DeFi developer and researcher JAFFY JEE, remarked:
While the broader crypto market has been in a drawdown this year, DeFi has shown relative resilience compared to Layer-1s, memecoins, and AI/DePIN narratives, suggesting this outperformance is driven by fundamentals rather than coincidence.
JAFFY JEE, DeFi developer and researcher
These altcoins emerged unscathed
According to the dashboard snapshot shared by Delphi Digital, only five coins and tokens among major altcoins are currently in the green on a year-on-year basis. Among the Layer-1 blockchains, there is Binance Coin (BNB) and decentralized perpetual exchange Hyperliquid’s native coin, HYPE.
Similarly, the governance token of DeFi platform Maker, MKR, is currently up almost 25% compared to its January 2025 price. Another DeFi token, Maple Finance’s SYRUP token, is up 136%, emerging as the best-performing token in the dashboard by far.
Finally, Solana DeFi ecosystem token ORE is the fifth digital asset that ended the past year in green territory. According to Delphi Digital, ORE token is up 101.5% over the last year.
