Bitcoin Gains Ground as Altcoins Pull Back Fast
On Binance, nearly half of the altcoins fell back below the 200-day moving average, while Bitcoin is gaining dominance and the altcoin rally cools off.
Key Takeaways
- Nearly half of Binance altcoins slipped back below the 200-day moving average, compared with less than 10% in early October.
- Bitcoin is pulling further ahead in the crypto market, while the altcoin rally from the past few weeks is clearly losing steam.
- Bitcoin dominance is around 60.7%, which suggests Bitcoin is holding on to more value than the rest of the market.
Nearly half of the altcoins traded on Binance have slipped back below the 200-day moving average. On October 18, that figure stood at 48.4%, compared with less than 10% in early October. At the same time, Bitcoin is gaining more ground on the rest of the crypto market, while the altcoin rally from the past few weeks is clearly cooling off.
Altcoins Lose Ground
The shift follows a strong run that started in late August. Back then, 81% of Binance altcoins were still trading below their 200-day moving average, analyst Darkfost wrote. By early October, that share had dropped to less than 10%, meaning about 9 out of 10 coins were in a confirmed uptrend.
According to Darkfost, more than $814 billion (€723 billion) flowed into altcoins over those two months. Over the past 15 days, more than $134 billion (€119 billion) has reportedly been pulled out instead. He points to rapid profit-taking as a major reason for that outflow.
Bitcoin Takes the Lead Again
The cooling off is also visible against Bitcoin. Blockchaincenter measures how many of the top 50 coins outperform Bitcoin over a given period. The 30-day gauge was still above the altcoin season threshold at the end of September, but has since fallen back to 29. That is close to the level of 25 that counts as Bitcoin season.
The 90-day index remains neutral at 51, mainly because the strong months of August and September are still included. Over the past 90 days, Bitway (BTW) performed best with a gain of 2,993.3%. Quant (QNT) and NEAR Protocol (NEAR) followed with increases of 199.3% and 163.3%, compared with 25.9% for Bitcoin. Ethereum did slightly better than Bitcoin, but only by 1.5 percentage points.
Why This Matters for Investors
For European crypto investors, this shows how quickly the market can rotate between altcoins and Bitcoin. Rising Bitcoin dominance, now around 60.7%, suggests Bitcoin is holding on to more value than the rest of the market. At the same time, the exchange reserves of Ethereum-based stablecoins have fallen to $57.4 billion (€51 billion), down from nearly $78 billion (€69.3 billion) in November 2025, which means less buying power is immediately available on exchanges.
The broader altcoin market has also recently shown how fast capital can rotate. In an earlier phase, Quant, Bitway, and XDC were drawing attention as some coins surged sharply while Bitcoin and Ethereum pulled back.
