The easiest way to understand crypto used to be to look at bitcoin. When the world's largest cryptocurrency rose, money flooded into startups, venture funds, exchanges and thousands of speculative tokens. When it crashed, businesses disappeared, funding dried up and activity slowed across the industry. Bitcoin wasn't merely the biggest digital asset; it was the centre of gravity for the entire crypto economy.
Now, some of the industry's fastest-growing businesses are moving according to a different logic. The coin is down sharply. On Friday, it fell below US$60,000, extending a decline that has erased around half its value from last year's peak. The selloff has been fuelled by money leaving exchange-traded funds, the AI boom competing for retail attention and growing questions about whether the large corporate buyers that helped drive the previous rally can continue accumulating.
Altcoin Market Suffers Deeper Downturn
Much of the altcoin market is suffering an even deeper downturn that predates bitcoin's latest slide. The market value of altcoins, tokens other than bitcoin, peaked at US$431 billion in November of 2021, and is currently languishing around US$170 billion, according to TradingView. Entire ecosystems that once promised to reshape finance are shrinking, consolidating or quietly disappearing. Yet at the same time, some of the industry's most commercially important businesses are growing faster than ever.
Stablecoins and Tokenization on the Rise
Stablecoins are becoming part of the global payments system, adding up to about US$390 billion in annual transactions, per McKinsey & Co. and Artemis Analytics. Wall Street firms are racing to tokenize stocks, bonds and money-market funds. Banks that once dismissed blockchain technology are experimenting with it. Payment companies are integrating digital dollars. Prediction markets are attracting mainstream users. The digital infrastructure is spreading even as many of the assets built on top of it struggle.
“The bitcoin price chart used to be the entire crypto story. It isn’t anymore,” said Eric Jackson, founder and CIO of EMJ Capital, a tech-focused hedge fund. “Price and adoption are not the same metric for crypto, and they shouldn’t be.”
Bitcoin steadied in Monday trading to hit nearly US$64,200 as Strategy Inc. resumed purchases of the token. The largest digital currency shed around US$235 billion of market value during the seven days ended June 7, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Today, crypto is becoming harder to summarize with a price chart. The industry's original promise was never simply bitcoin. It was the idea that money, assets and financial activity would eventually move across internet-native networks. The irony is that parts of that vision are beginning to materialize just as investors lose faith in many of the tokens that were supposed to capture its value.
Launched in 2024, BlackRock's tokenized money-market fund BUIDL has become one of the largest tokenization products, with US$2.4 billion in asset value, per tracker RWA.xyz. Among other examples, Nasdaq recently partnered with crypto exchange Kraken to offer tokenized stocks. All in all, more than US$30 billion in various assets — from stocks to real estate — has already gotten tokenized, according to RWA.xyz.
