Crypto Winter Arrives In Q1 As Market Sheds $622B, CoinGecko Says

The global crypto market slipped into a sustained downturn in the first quarter of 2026, according to a new report from CoinGecko.

CoinGecko Report Signals Crypto Winter

The analytics firm said the sector moved from a sharp correction into a full crypto winter, as late-2025 bearish momentum met fresh geopolitical strain.

Total market capitalization dropped 20.4% during the quarter, shedding roughly $622 billion to close at $2.4 trillion. That marked the second straight quarterly decline.

The contraction accelerated between mid-January and early February. By the end of March, the market sat about 45% below its October peak of $4.27 trillion, CoinGecko data showed. Average daily trading volume also fell 27.2% quarter-over-quarter to $117.8 billion.

Spot volume across the top 10 centralized exchanges, including Binance, MEXC, KuCoin and Bybit, fell 39.1% to $2.7 trillion.

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Majors Slide, Stablecoins Hold Firm

Bitcoin(BTC) fell 22% in the quarter but narrowly outperformed the other top five assets. It still lagged oil, gold and the S&P 500.

Ethereum(ETH), BNB(BNB), XRP(XRP) and Solana(SOL) posted similar drawdowns, weighing on the broader market, the report said. Uniswap(UNI) and Chainlink(LINK) also stayed under pressure despite their new "digital commodity" status under last month's SEC-CFTC joint guidance.

Total stablecoin supply rose just 0.5% to $309.9 billion. Tether's USDT fell 1.6% to $184.1 billion, its first meaningful drop since the second quarter of 2022.

Beyond the crypto slide, the report flagged a broader market rotation.

Crude oil surged 76.9% in Q1, fueled by supply shocks from the US-Iran war, while gold added 8.1% on safe-haven demand. The Nasdaq and S&P 500 logged their worst quarterly returns since 2022, down 7.1% and 4.8%. CoinGecko also tied the mid-January acceleration of the sell-off to the nomination of Kevin Warsh as the next Federal Reserve Chair, a signal of a potentially hawkish US monetary shift.

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