The Crypto Bear Market: A Longer History of Decline

Many people might have assumed that the crypto bear market started in February. However, a review of the charts reveals a longer history of sobering statistics.

In fact, altcoins have been on the decline since December 8.

Evidence of a bear market is abundant this week. CoinMarketCap’s Fear and Greed index is at a decisively bearish 26, while crypto market sentiment and “Altcoin Season” indices sit at dismal levels of 27 and 24, respectively.

Additionally, on Tuesday, spot bitcoin (BTC) ETFs experienced their worst single day of outflows in history.

Looking back to January, barely anyone predicted such a downturn. The market capitalization of crypto assets generally remained within 3% of its all-time high around Donald Trump’s January 20, 2025, inauguration.

However, this apparent resilience is misleading as BTC did most of the lifting, marking its own all-time high near $108,800 on that day. In contrast, other crypto assets had already been in a bear market for six weeks by Trump’s inauguration date. The market cap of altcoins peaked at $1.9 trillion on December 8, 2024, and has yet to regain that level.

By early Wednesday morning, altcoins had declined more than one-third, now valued at less than $1.2 trillion.

Three Months of Decline in Altcoins

The roots of this latest bear market stretch much further than February 2025, almost reaching three months in duration. By Wednesday, altcoins had declined more than one-third to under $1.2 trillion.

Although bitcoin’s outperformance temporarily obscured the downturn in early December, January 20 clearly marked when investors had fully priced in bullish expectations through BTC. With few additional catalysts on the horizon, along with a flood of negative news—including the world’s largest exchange hack and a halving of Michael Saylor’s company’s share price—the near three-month bear market emphasizes crypto’s cyclical volatility.