Under renewed selling pressure, XLM may retrace toward the $0.220 support. A breakdown below this level would invalidate the bullish thesis and could push the price further down to $0.206. In line with the same, BeInCrypto has analysed three altcoins that investors should watch in the first week of January. Stablecoin “dry powder” isn’t expanding as it did before, reaching an all-time high above $310 billion in mid-January, before contracting to $308 billion.

What are the altcoin trading hours?

Founder Vitalik Buterin introduced visionary ideas that established Ethereum as a leading platform for smart contracts and decentralised applications. The transition to Ethereum 2.0 and the introduction of sharding and proof-of-stake  has been instrumental in Ethereum’s long-term success and scalability. The Polygon (Matic) network significantly boosts scalability and efficiency using Layer 2 protocols. By offloading tasks to separate blockchains, Polygon can process up to 65,000 transactions per second and rivals systems like Visa in speed. Another example is the altcoin Ethereum (ETH), which increases its processing capacity through sharding. By splitting the database into smaller, more manageable segments, Ethereum can handle more transactions simultaneously.

This new regulatory clarity has opened all sorts of new possibilities for Ripple (XRP). Historically, these seasons can last anywhere from weeks to several months, but predicting their length is challenging due to the volatile nature of crypto markets. As the altcoin market evolves, regulators worldwide are assessing how to oversee it.

• The altcoin has rallied steadily for two weeks, adding nearly 30% over the past seven days.
• Therefore, 21Shares cannot guarantee that any capital invested will maintain its value or increase in value.
• Over the past two years, the barriers to creating and issuing tokens have decreased significantly, resulting in a surge of new projects entering the market.
• Traders may also choose to trade altcoins via a derivative, a financial product that takes (or ‘derives’) its value from the price of the underlying asset.
• Adaptability ensures the project can withstand future challenges and developments in the crypto market.
• Tether is one of the largest and most widely-traded stablecoin, functioning as a centralized digital asset designed to maintain a 1-to-1 peg with the U.S. dollar, backed 100 percent by its reserves.

Market cap charts

Majors absorb what liquidity remains, the tail bleeds via unlocks and emissions, and random pumps get even shorter. Recoveries no longer function as a “rising tide lifts all boats” effect because liquidity enters crypto through channels that don’t naturally spill into microcaps. Even though the Fed’s decision to hold interest rates was widely expected, geopolitical tensions and a rotation into haven assets left crypto traders facing a sea of red. That might sound improbable, until you consider just how fast the Solana blockchain ecosystem is growing. In the 12-month period ending September 2025, Solana’s blockchain ecosystem generated a staggering $2.85 billion in revenue, according to a research report from 21Shares. That’s because the long-running SEC case against Ripple, the company behind the XRP token, finally wrapped up in August.

The network is based on the Litecoin protocol and was originally created as a humorous project. The cryptocurrency aimed to build on Bitcoin’s success and attract a broader audience through its playful reference to the internet meme “Doge”. To everyone’s surprise, Dogecoin became very popular and reached a market capitalisation of USD $353 million by August 2019. Bitcoin Cash (BCH) is positioned as “peer-to-peer electronic cash,” aiming to fulfill Bitcoin’s original vision by providing fast, reliable and low-fee transactions globally. To prevent inflation, the Bitcoin Cash network ensures a 21 million coin supply.

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These events could restrict trading, cause delistings, or reduce market liquidity. Compliance costs related to legal requirements might strain development budgets, deterring innovation and limiting market participation. Tokenomics and supply models – Cryptocurrencies have economic structures called tokenomics that influence their value and utility over time. ETH has a dynamic supply mechanism with both inflationary and deflationary components, while many stablecoins peg their value to fiat currencies, commodities or algorithms to ensure price stability. As of December 2024, there are over 10,000 active cryptocurrencies worldwide, each designed with a specific purpose or function in mind.

SUI is the native asset of the Sui platform and serves as the required gas token for all network operations. SUI owners use the token for delegated proof-of-stake, allowing them to stake to network authorities that operate Sui within epochs and are periodically reconfigured based on this delegated stake. The collected gas fees are then distributed back to the authorities and their delegates based on their staked amount and contribution to the network’s operation. Altcoins are created to fulfill demands and market gaps that Bitcoin does not address. Since the creation of Bitcoin, thousands of altcoins have spawned in the wake of the blockchain breakthrough.

For instance, the biggest memecoin by market cap and the first one to ever exist is Dogecoin, and we believe it has evolved to calvenridge trust become a payment system. One example is Starknet’s token (STRK), launched in February 2024 with an initial circulating supply of 719 million tokens (7.2% of the total supply). This rapidly expanded to 1.6 billion tokens (16%) within just 14 months, resulting in an inflation rate of 122%.

Given blockchain’s open-source nature, altcoins (along with their respective platforms) can be created by anyone with an internet connection and come in a growing variety. In this article, we’ll introduce you to altcoins and look at some of the most popular projects. Although most weekends are typically sluggish, with little to no price actions from the larger caps, there are some exceptions. However, even those are prompted by events that transpire during those non-trading days for the legacy markets, such as Maduro’s capture or some of Trump’s latest tariff threats. You can learn more about trading cryptocurrencies with Capital.com in our comprehensive guide to cryptocurrency trading. You can use CFDs to trade on whether you think ETH/USD will rise (called ‘going long’) or fall (‘going short’).

Altcoins I’ve Got My Eye On in 2026

Prices & market data are aggregated from millions of individual markets across thousands of centralized & decentralized exchanges, including popular ones such as CoinBase, Binance, Uniswap, and more. As a result, Ethereum has established itself as one of the strongest cryptocurrencies after Bitcoin and reached an all-time high of around USD $4,900 in 2021. As of June 2025, its market capitalisation stands at approximately USD $331,000,000,000. Thanks to its strong development team and active community, Ethereum ranks second in the list of top cryptocurrencies by market capitalisation. The open development approach builds trust in altcoins and encourages active community participation to advance blockchain technology. Through close collaboration within these open-source projects, the entire altcoin ecosystem moves forward, laying the foundation for the next generation of blockchain innovation.