Most major altcoins trade well below their 2025 highs, with the late-year pullback affecting them more than Bitcoin and leaving Ethereum, XRP, and Solana far from peak levels. Lower prices do not necessarily indicate dead projects because many altcoin networks continue expanding. Ethereum trades around $2,126, down 57% from its August 2025 all-time high, while on-chain activity remains strong. Ethereum holds about $43 billion in Total Value Locked across DeFi protocols and leads DeFi capital, stablecoins, and trading infrastructure. Ethereum shows roughly $578.1 million in DEX volume over 24 hours and about $7.14 billion over seven days. Ethereum also hosts $165 billion in stablecoins and $8 billion in tokenized U.S. Treasury products as of May 2026. Institutions including JPMorgan, BlackRock, and Franklin Templeton build on Ethereum, and the Glamsterdam upgrade aims to reduce fees and increase throughput.
"Most major altcoins are still trading far below their 2025 highs. The market pullback that started late last year hit them more than Bitcoin ( ), and the recovery has been slow, leaving cryptos like Ethereum ( ), XRP ( ), and Solana ( ) well off their peaks. But a lower price doesn't always mean the coins are deadweight. A lot of these altcoins are genuinely undervalued. Their networks keep growing, adding developers, processing more transactions, and landing institutional deals even while their tokens trade nowhere near their all-time highs."
"Ethereum trades around $2,126, down 57% from its August 2025 all-time high of $4,946. But the on-chain numbers don't match the price action at all. Ethereum holds about $43 billion in Total Value Locked (TVL) across its DeFi protocols, more than any other blockchain. It still carries the largest pool of DeFi capital, the biggest stablecoin base, and some of the deepest trading infrastructure in crypto."
"You can see that dominance in the daily activity too. DefiLlama data shows roughly $578.1 million in Ethereum DEX volume over 24 hours and around $7.14 billion over seven days. No other DeFi chain comes close. Beyond DeFi, Ethereum hosts $165 billion in stablecoins, and tokenized U.S. Treasury products on the network hit $8 billion in May 2026, a new all-time high that doubled in just six months."
"Major institutions, including JPMorgan, BlackRock, and Franklin Templeton, are building products and infrastructure on Ethereum. The Glamsterdam upgrade , targeting mid-2026, promises cheaper fees and faster throughput. If it launches on time, it fixes the same complaints that have kept ETH 57% below its August 2025 peak despite record on-chain activity."
Read at 24/7 Wall St.
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]