Altcoin selling pressure reached $209B as BTC volumes led the market
As of January 2025, Altcoins excluding Ether (ETH) recorded a net sales volume of $209 billion, indicating a very significant decline in speculative demand for crypto assets during this cycle.
On Binance, the altcoin trading volume has decreased by 50% since November 2025, indicating a steady drop in activity. The discount also coincides with an increase in Bitcoin volume on the exchange.
Analysts say the decline in altcoin demand, along with the dominance of stablecoins, indicates that the broader market is shifting capital to BTC during the current downturn.
Altcoin spot rate volatility is deeper than Bitcoin.
Crypto analyst IT Tech estimates that the accumulated bid-ask spread for altcoins, excluding BTC and Ether (ETH), is $209 billion. The scale measures spot demand for altcoin trading pairs between centralized exchanges. A positive reading in January 2025 indicates an increase in short-term demand for space.
A negative cumulative delta on this scale indicates the absence of consistent position buyers. The analyst metric tracks net flow volatility, not price valuation, so it doesn't indicate market volatility. Over the past 13 months, capital has flown out of the altcoin markets without any reverse flows.
Volume data from Binance reinforces the shift. As BTC tested the $60,000 level at the beginning of February, the total trading volume was re-distributed. On February 7, Bitcoin volumes rose to 36.8% of the total activity. Altcoin volumes fell to 33.6% in mid-February, from a peak of 59.2% in November.
According to crypto analyst Darkfost, similar rotations were seen in April 2025, August 2024 and October 2022. During these correction phases, capital is merged into Bitcoin and altcoin volumes contract.
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Tether's dominance rises to a new high.
Tether USDt (USDT)'s market price dominance reached 8% on the one-week chart, matching the all-time high between June 2022 and October 2023. The increasing dominance of stablecoins coincides with capital flowing into dollar-pegged assets rather than investing in tokens like BTC (BTC) and Ether (ETH).
As seen in 2022 and 2023, USDT's dominance coincided with Bitcoin continuing to strengthen during bear market lows. A decline in dominance is often one of the first signs of a renewed bullish trend.
Previously, the USDT dominance chart produced lows of 3.80-4% in March 2024, December 2024 and October 2025. These periods coincided with Bitcoin setting new all-time highs of $72,000, $104,000 and $126,000 respectively.
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