Recently, I was reviewing how this market actually moves in 2026, and honestly, it's depressing. While everyone talks about diversification and thousands of altcoins with supposed revolutionary use cases, the reality is that we are still seeing exactly the same as a decade ago: when Bitcoin breathes, the entire market breathes with it.

BTC just hit $71.72K (after falling more earlier), and look what happened: almost all major and minor tokens fell proportionally. The indexes tracking DeFi, smart contracts, computing tokens... all in the red between 15% and 25% this year. It’s as if we have thousands of projects but only one market.

What surprises me most is what’s happening with the most profitable cryptocurrencies. Projects that truly generate income, protocols that work, not just promises. Aave, Jupiter, Aerodrome, blockchains like Tron that literally produce real profits every month. And still, their native tokens are falling along with everything else. AAVE dropped 26% (now at -2.28% in 24h). It’s as if the market completely ignores that these protocols generate real money.

The only interesting exception is HYPE from Hyperliquid. While everything is collapsing, this token rose 20% at one point, driven by the boom in tokenized gold and silver trading. Now it’s at $40.95 (with -2.09% in 24h), but it remains the rare one moving differently. That tells me something: when there is a real use case and genuine demand, decoupling is possible.

But here’s the problem. Stablecoins became the easy exit. When Bitcoin drops, traders simply move to USDC or USDT. It’s like having a panic button in every wallet. Ten years ago, capital had to stay somewhere in the ecosystem. Now? Investors can switch from being long to holding digital cash in seconds. That kills any chance for other assets to shine.

Jeff Dorman from Arca said it well: the industry keeps selling BTC, ETH, and SOL as safe havens, when in reality, the most profitable cryptocurrencies are DeFi protocols that generate real earnings. But no one believes it because Wall Street hasn’t packaged it that way.

Bitcoin’s dominance has stayed above 50% since the arrival of spot ETFs two years ago. And that’s not going to change. Institutions entered for Bitcoin, not to explore. As long as Bitcoin remains 55.92% of the total market, disconnection is a dream. Everything will continue to be concentrated in BTC.

XRP tried to do its own thing, dropping only 1% this year, but even that’s not enough to talk about real diversification. The crypto market remains a one-trick pony, and as long as stablecoins continue to be the default defensive allocation, it’s hard to see how that changes. Projects that truly generate value remain ignored.