A ‘Sustained’ Crypto Winter? Trading Volume Hits Lowest Levels Since 2023 – Report

A current report has urged that the digital belongings market has doubtless entered its “crypto winter” after the sector’s market capitalization and buying and selling quantity continued to say no for a second consecutive quarter.

Crypto Winter Arrives As Volumes Drop

On Thursday, CoinGecko affirmed that the market transitioned from a pointy correction to a “sustained” crypto winter in Q1 2026. This shift occurred because the late 2025 bearish momentum collided with the onset of worldwide geopolitical tensions within the first quarter of the yr.

According to its 2026 Q1 Crypto Industry Report, the entire crypto market capitalization dropped round 20.4%, roughly $622 billion, ending the primary quarter at $2.4 trillion and marking the second consecutive quarter of decline.

This contraction, which accelerated between mid-January and early February, left the market round 45% under its October peak of $4.27 trillion. During this era, each day buying and selling exercise additionally declined by 27.2% Quarter-over-Quarter (QoQ), with a mean each day buying and selling quantity of $117.8 billion.

Meanwhile, spot buying and selling quantity on the highest 10 centralized exchanges (CEXes), together with Binance, MEXC, KuCoin, and Bybit, decreased 39.1% QoQ to $2.7 trillion, seeing a notable decline by the tip of Q1.

Per CoinGecko information, volumes held above the $1 trillion mark in January, however fell all through the quarter. With solely $0.8 trillion in buying and selling quantity, March was the weakest month of Q1, recording the bottom ranges since November 2023.

While Binance maintained its dominance, with a 37% market share, MEXC was the one different change with a double-digit market share in Q1, at 10%.

“All prime 10 spot CEXes noticed buying and selling quantity decline in Q1, with drops starting from -23% to -55%. HTX noticed the most important stoop, with its quarterly buying and selling quantity dropping to $133.6 billion in 2026 Q1 from $294.4 billion in 2025 This autumn. Its market share fell to 4.9%, putting it in #10,” the report added.

Majors Decline, Stablecoins Remain Flat

Crypto market-wide declines continued in Q1, as majors pulled again for a second consecutive quarter. Bitcoin (BTC) fell 22% through the quarter however outperformed the opposite prime 5 crypto belongings by a slender margin. However, it continued to underperform different main belongings, together with Oil, Gold, and the S&P 500.

Ethereum (ETH), BNB, XRP, and Solana (SOL) recorded related drawdowns as Bitcoin, which “weighed closely on whole market capitalization.” Legacy tokens similar to Uniswap (UNI) and Chainlink (LINK) additionally confronted continued strain regardless of institutional adoption and gaining “digital commodity” standing underneath the SEC-CFTC Joint Interpretive Guidance issued final month.

The report famous that relative power emerged amongst some altcoins after the This autumn 2025 sell-off, together with Hyperliquid (HYPE) and Bittensor (TAO), which outperformed the broader sector.

Meanwhile, the entire stablecoin market capitalization stayed largely flat in Q1, seeing a marginal 0.5% enhance to finish the quarter at $309.9 billion. During this era, Tether’s USDT noticed its provide decline 1.6% to $184.1 billion, the primary significant drop since Q2 2022. Circle’s USDC grew 2.4% to hit $77.1 billion, whereas Sky’s USDS and WLFI’s USD1 recorded double-digit development.

Nonetheless, stablecoin’s stability regardless of the difficult panorama for the broader crypto market in Q1 highlighted “the sector’s position as a liquidity anchor,” CoinGecko emphasised.