A sudden surge in buying pressure is lifting the broader crypto market, with Bitcoin's 2026 push above $93,000 ending the year-end slumber and raising all ships.
The total crypto market capitalization has swelled by $250 billion to $3.297 trillion in less than a week. Among the altcoins leading the charge are Sui, up 16.6% over the past 24 hours, and XRP, which has notched 10.5% gains in the same period, according to CoinGecko data.
“Sui is benefiting from renewed risk appetite in altcoins, driven by strong ecosystem momentum, rising on-chain activity, and positioning around high-throughput Layer-1s going into 2026,” Shivam Thakral, CEO of Indian exchange BuyUCoin, told Decrypt.
XRP, on the other hand, is surging on “expectations of deeper institutional adoption, improving regulatory clarity, and growing use in cross-border payments,” Thakral added. He highlighted that both altcoins are riding a “mix of narrative strength and post-year-end capital rotation.”
Altcoins gain, but traders cool on alt season
The rotation extends beyond these leaders.
While meme coins were the first to react to the market uplift, AI-related tokens such as Render and Virtuals Protocol followed suit, clocking upwards of 50% gains in the past week.
“The recent surge in AI tokens reflects a broader shift back to risk-on behavior across crypto markets,” Ryan Li, CEO of AI platform Surf, told Decrypt. He noted that the Crypto Fear and Greed Index has moved from fear to neutral for the first time since November, indicating "increasing appetite for riskier assets."
Li explained that AI tokens outperforming can be seen as capital rotating toward assets viewed as more future-facing. “Additionally, Elon Musk’s New Year’s Day praise of Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang on X helped concentrate attention and capital in AI tokens amid the broader altcoin rally.”
Despite the uptick, some sentiment indicators remain cautious. Users on prediction market Myriad—owned by Decrypt’s parent company, Dastan—assign only a 17% chance to a full "alt season" kicking off in the first quarter of 2026.
免责声明：本文章仅代表作者个人观点，不代表本平台的立场和观点。本文章仅供信息分享，不构成对任何人的任何投资建议。用户与作者之间的任何争议，与本平台无关。如网页中刊载的文章或图片涉及侵权，请提供相关的权利证明和身份证明发送邮件到support@aicoin.com，本平台相关工作人员将会进行核查。
