This article was first published on Deythere.
The altcoin market in 2025 has seen some of the weakest performance in its history. Newly launched tokens, once touted as high-growth opportunities, have instead plummeted well below their launch prices.
This pattern has been replicated across the range of large and small projects, revealing deep structural weakness in speculative cryptocurrencies this year.
As Bitcoin’s dominance grows and investor taste for risk shrinks, the majority of altcoin launches from 2025 are now trading below their Token Generation Event (TGE) prices.
Most 2025 Token Launches Are Now Trading Below Their TGE Prices
Recent data confirms that there is a steep downturn for 2025 token launches. More than 80 percent of cryptocurrencies that were sold in 2025 are now trading below their issue price and many have fallen far below their listing levels by December.
This has been supported by a separate market wrap from a chapter update only days ago, which shows that no less than 84.7% of the TGEs in 2025 now trade well below their listing price.
The situation is not limited only to the smallest projects available on exchanges. User-driven Reddit market monitoring indicates that 83% of tokens released on major centralized exchanges (CEXs) during 2025 are in the red compared to their listing price.
These numbers tell the story of how most recent coins have seriously struggled to keep investors’ attention post-launch, resulting in them entering sharp downward moves and proving that 2025’s altcoin markets are not welcoming of newcomers.
Wider Altcoin Sector Loses Show Weak Market Demand
The weakness of the 2025 token launches echoes more general downward pressure across altcoins as a whole. Recent crypto market information has shown that Bitcoin remains commanding, with altcoins only capturing a fraction of market share compared to previous cycles.
Analysts also point to the fact that altcoins are trading at a five-year low relative to Bitcoin, indicating how capital has shifted out of speculative assets into Bitcoin and more established coins.
Supply has tightened even more across the board. According to analysis, low-cap tokens suffered the most in 2025, having shed over 83% of their original market value as investor belief disappeared.
This weakness extends even to the top 100 cryptocurrencies. Among them, 88 altcoins failed to see any profitability over the past three months. Only 11 altcoins managed to stay above their three-month lows during this period.
Macro conditions have not helped. Bitcoin price volatility and periodic sell-offs pushed mid and small-cap altcoins deeper into declines, with many assets losing double-digit percentages in short time frames.
Collectively, these trends reveal that the altcoin market 2025 wilted under pressure with a lack of liquidity, risk-off attitude, and capital being poured into a few larger and more established assets.
Market Forces Behind 2025 Altcoin Underperformance
Two dominant forces drove the disastrous outcome for altcoins in 2025.
The first is Bitcoin Dominance and Rotation. Market data shows that Bitcoin has clawed back a lot of market cap this year by sucking in liquidity at the expense of smaller assets.
Altcoin prices corrected sharply as investors moved back into what they perceived to be safer bets, and subsequent rebounds were feeble at best. This flight to BTC crushed speculative assets.
The second force of Sparse Liquidity and Retail Exodus. Across crypto socials, traders acknowledged that fresh retail inflows have run dry in 2025 with little appetite for altcoins and much weaker trading volumes.
Equally, some sectors, particularly AI tokens, dropped up to 75% in market cap over the year, wiping out tens of billions from the total sector market cap .
Together, these factors led to a correction in valuations of new launches as well as legacy altcoins.
Selective Outliers Stand Out in a Weak Market
A handful of altcoins displayed relative strength in 2025 despite widespread weakness. As reported by CoinGecko insights, there were only three crypto narratives that saw positive performance for the year so far, and these were spurred by real-world asset tokens and select Layer-1 platforms that enjoyed substantial gains.
Over the last seven days; the most dominant narratives included privacy, social tokens, and staking services. These categories saw weighted average gains of 11.1%, 10.2%, and 7.1%, respectively.
Although assets like Ethereum performed behind Bitcoin through various parts of the year, select narrative-driven sectors and utility-focused altcoins saw slim positive performances, which means that not all altcoins necessarily went down but most still lost against launch price narratives.
Conclusion
The altcoin market in 2025 is marked by steep pullbacks, relentless selling pressure, and lackluster action in most new token debuts.
With over 80% of newly issued tokens trading below their launch prices and sector losses, the data confirms that 2025 was a year where speculative crypto assets struggled to maintain value.
New dominance cycles in Bitcoin and diminishing retail behavior generated new capital flows, causing the Altcoin ecosystem to fracture under anxiety.
As the year closes, industry observers are keen to see how these dynamics play out and if market sentiment in 2026 changes significantly to provide a better jumping off point for altcoins.
Glossary
Altcoin: Any cryptocurrency that is not Bitcoin.
TGE (Token Generation Event): The date and price for introduction of a new token into supply.
Market Dominance: The share of total crypto market that an asset or category owns.
Liquidity: The ease of buying or selling an asset at its price point.
Frequently Asked Questions About Altcoin Market 2025
What does “most new tokens (coins) trade below launch price” mean?
In other words, most cryptocurrencies that started trading in 2025 are currently priced down from where the market had listed them, a loss for investors.
Why did altcoins not perform as good as Bitcoin in 2025?
Bitcoin maintained better price stability amid market volatility; while smaller tokens suffered from low liquidity and risk-off sentiment.
Does this mean the altcoin market is dead?
No. Although there was underperformance in 2025, some of the altcoins that had a strong use case and/or narrative managed to outperform or consolidate during the period, indicating pockets of resilience.
References
CryptoRank
Bitget
Coin Edition
MEXC
Reddit
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