The altcoin market is $800 billion smaller than past cycles would suggest — and retail traders may have killed it.
A new estimate from 10x Research argues that the complex of non-Bitcoin tokens has been starved of capital this cycle, largely because retail investors, especially in South Korea, have turned to crypto-linked equities instead, while Bitcoin boomed on institutional flows. The estimate lands just weeks after a record liquidation wiped out swathes of the altcoin market, amplifying fears that the speculative playground for digital tokens beyond Bitcoin and Ether may never recover.