Remember that sick feeling when you watched your favorite altcoin drop 70% in a single month? Yeah, November 2025 delivered that punch to pretty much everyone who wasn’t hiding in stables or Bitcoin. Over a trillion dollars – gone. Just evaporated from the altcoin space like it never existed.
I’ve been through enough cycles to know that when the pain feels this universal, something interesting is usually brewing underneath the surface. And right now, the data is painting a picture that’s making a lot of veteran traders sit up and pay attention.
The Great November Bleed: What Actually Happened
Let’s not sugarcoat it – November was brutal. The TOTAL3 index, which tracks the combined market cap of everything except Bitcoin and stablecoins, got absolutely crushed. We’re talking about a drawdown that wiped out most of the gains altcoins had clawed back since the beginning of the year.
What made this move particularly painful was the speed. One minute people were still talking about “altseason starting any day now,” and the next minute every chart looked like it had been put through a wood chipper. Meme coins, layer-1s, DeFi tokens – nothing was spared.
But here’s where it gets fascinating: while altcoins were hemorrhaging, stablecoin supply was exploding. Billions upon billions flowing into USDT, USDC, and friends. This isn’t random retail panic. This feels coordinated. This feels like smart money parking on the sidelines and waiting.
The Capital Rotation Everyone Can See
If you’ve been around crypto long enough, you’ve seen this movie before. Bitcoin starts looking heavy → people rotate to stables → altcoins get destroyed → and then, when literally no one wants to touch alts with a ten-foot pole, the money starts flowing back in.
Right now we’re deep in that third act. The part where social media is filled with people swearing they’ll never buy another altcoin again. The part where “I’m just going to hold Bitcoin and stables from now on” becomes the most common sentence in every group chat.
When literally everyone has given up on altcoins completely, that’s usually when the best opportunities present themselves.
I’m not saying we’re at the absolute bottom tick – timing markets perfectly is a fantasy. But the setup we’re looking at right now shares eerie similarities with previous cycle lows that preceded some of the most explosive altcoin rallies in history.
Why This Cycle Feels Different (But Actually Isn’t)
A lot of people keep saying “this time is different” because we didn’t follow the clean four-year cycle pattern everyone expected. The halving came and went, Bitcoin made new highs, but altcoins never got their moment in the sun. At least not yet.
Here’s the thing though – markets rarely follow our neat little scripts. What we’re experiencing isn’t a broken cycle. It’s just a longer, more mature version of what we’ve seen before. The principles haven’t changed: capital flows from Bitcoin → to stables → and eventually back into altcoins when valuations become absurdly attractive.
And let’s be honest – valuations are starting to look pretty absurd right now.
The Charts Are Screaming “Oversold”
Take a step back and look at the TOTAL3/BTC chart. It’s not just down – it’s at levels that have historically marked major turning points. We’re talking about territory that only gets visited during the most extreme fear phases of the market.
- Relative Strength Index on weekly timeframes hitting decade lows
- Altcoin market cap outside top 10 down over 80% from highs
- Stablecoin balances at all-time highs while risk assets get abandoned
- Sentiment indicators showing extreme fear not seen since 2022 bottoms
This isn’t just “normal correction” territory anymore. This is the kind of washing out that cleanses the market of weak hands and sets the stage for the next leg up.
Not All Altcoins Are Dying (Some Are Quietly Thriving)
One of the most interesting parts of this drawdown? The leaders are still holding up remarkably well. While everything else got crushed, certain projects have either held their ground or actually put in significant gains.
Binance’s BNB token has been one of the strongest performers through this mess. Hyperliquid’s HYPE token has been on an absolute tear. Avalanche has shown remarkable resilience. These aren’t random pumps – these are projects with real volume, real utility, and real accumulation happening behind the scenes.
In my experience, when you see this kind of divergence – where the absolute cream of the crop holds strong while everything else gets destroyed – it’s usually a sign that sophisticated money is positioning for what comes next.
The Psychology of Market Bottoms
Here’s something I’ve learned after watching too many cycles: the bottom isn’t when the charts look prettiest. The bottom is when hope dies.
Right now, hope is on life support in altcoin land. People aren’t just selling – they’re giving up. They’re deleting price alerts. They’re making solemn vows to never touch another shitcoin again. They’re writing long Twitter threads about how this time really is different and altcoins are dead forever.
This is exactly what capitulation looks like.
The market tends to do whatever will cause the maximum amount of emotional damage to the largest number of people.
Old trading wisdom that never gets old
What Should You Actually Do Right Now?
First, breathe. Panicking at the bottom is how most people guarantee they’ll miss the recovery.
Second, zoom out. These drawdowns feel eternal when you’re in them, but they’re actually remarkably short in the grand scheme. The pain is front-loaded. The gains tend to come fast and furious when they finally arrive.
Third, start paying attention to where the real money is positioning. The fact that stablecoin balances are at all-time highs isn’t a bearish signal – it’s dry powder. And dry powder doesn’t sit idle forever.
I’m not telling you to go all-in tomorrow. But I am saying that dismissing the entire altcoin market because of one brutal month is exactly how people miss life-changing opportunities.
The trillion dollars that left didn’t disappear. It’s sitting in stablecoins, waiting for the moment when fear is absolute and valuations are irresistible.
That moment might be closer than most people think.
The market has a way of healing when nobody believes it possibly can. And right now, belief is in critically short supply.
Which, if history is any guide, means we might just be setting up for something extraordinary.
