The post 2025 Crypto Bear Market “Repricing” Institutional Capital: Analyst appeared on BitcoinEthereumNews.com.

The steep decline in altcoins over the past year may reflect a broader reassessment of which blockchain networks are likely to attract long-term capital, as institutional investors begin a gradual, multiyear entry into the market, analysts say. Excluding Bitcoin (BTC), 2025 turned out to be a bear market for the wider cryptocurrency market. Decentralized finance (DeFi) tokens fell 67% while cryptocurrencies associated with smart contract blockchains delivered a negative average return of 66%, according to blockchain data shared by Jamie Coutts, the chief crypto analyst at Real Vision. The past year’s poor performance was a “repricing” of the leading crypto projects as institutional capital was seeking to gain more exposure, Coutts wrote in a Wednesday X post. “Repricing the highest quality (network adoption, fundamentally sound) protocols/L1s, just as the multi-year onboarding of institutional capital commences,” he said. Smart contract platforms and defi tokens, historical annual performance. Source: Jamie Coutts Related: Strategy kickstarts 2026 with $116M Bitcoin buy as Q4 paper loss hits $17B Coutts is the latest analyst to highlight an ongoing repricing in how cryptocurrencies are valued as maturing digital asset investors seek exposure to tokens powering protocols with organic usage and revenue, not just general altcoins. Looking at the past year, Solana was the leading blockchain by fees, with $585 million generated, while second was Tron with $576 million in revenue, according to crypto intelligence platform Nansen. Blockchain networks by key metrics, including active addresses and fees, one-year chart. Source: Nansen Institutional and large investors tend to gravitate to the five leading cryptocurrencies, according to Nicolai Sondergaard, research analyst at Nansen. “Solana ETFs are still seeing inflows, but the same can’t fully be said onchain. ETH, on the other hand, has seen some players rotate from BTC,” the analyst told Cointelegraph, adding: “Many expect that with liquidity coming…

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Filed under: News - @ January 7, 2026 10:27 pm