The global crypto market slipped into a sustained downturn in the first quarter of 2026, according to a new report from CoinGecko.
CoinGecko Report Signals Crypto Winter
The analytics firm said the sector moved from a sharp correction into a full crypto winter, as late-2025 bearish momentum met fresh geopolitical strain.
Total market capitalization dropped 20.4% during the quarter, shedding roughly $622 billion to close at $2.4 trillion. That marked the second straight quarterly decline.
The contraction accelerated between mid-January and early February. By the end of March, the market sat about 45% below its October peak of $4.27 trillion, CoinGecko data showed. Average daily trading volume also fell 27.2% quarter-over-quarter to $117.8 billion.
Spot volume across the top 10 centralized exchanges, including Binance, MEXC, KuCoin and Bybit, fell 39.1% to $2.7 trillion.
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Majors Slide, Stablecoins Hold Firm
Bitcoin (BTC) fell 22% in the quarter but narrowly outperformed the other top five assets. It still lagged oil, gold and the S&P 500.
Ethereum (ETH), BNB (BNB), XRP (XRP) and Solana (SOL) posted similar drawdowns, weighing on the broader market, the report said. Uniswap (UNI) and Chainlink (LINK) also stayed under pressure despite their new "digital commodity" status under last month's SEC-CFTC joint guidance.
Total stablecoin supply rose just 0.5% to $309.9 billion. Tether's USDT fell 1.6% to $184.1 billion, its first meaningful drop since the second quarter of 2022.
Beyond the crypto slide, the report flagged a broader market rotation.
Crude oil surged 76.9% in Q1, fueled by supply shocks from the US-Iran war, while gold added 8.1% on safe-haven demand. The Nasdaq and S&P 500 logged their worst quarterly returns since 2022, down 7.1% and 4.8%. CoinGecko also tied the mid-January acceleration of the sell-off to the nomination of Kevin Warsh as the next Federal Reserve Chair, a signal of a potentially hawkish US monetary shift.
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