The State of Crypto Trends — Q1 2026

2026-01-01 to 2026-03-31 · top 500 coins by market cap · measured with smma-15-29

11.1%. At the quarter's low on 2026-01-01, just 11.1% of the top 500 coins were trending up.

Market trend breadth

The share of the top 500 coins in an uptrend, day by day. It peaked at 19.8% (2026-01-24) and bottomed at 11.1% (2026-01-01), ending the quarter at 17.2%.

Squarito squarito.com

Trend stability

How often coins flipped between up- and downtrend over the quarter. Fewer flips means cleaner, more sustained trends; lots of flips means a choppy, whipsaw market.

A coin that never flipped simply held the same trend from start to finish. But with breadth stuck between 11.1% and 19.8% all quarter, that was far more often a held downtrend than a sustained rally. “Never flipped” here means steady, not bullish.

0.6
average trend flips per coin
66.6%
never flipped — held one trend all quarter (mostly downtrends)
2.8%
whipsawed — flipped 4 times or more
0
333
1
74
2
53
3
26
4
10
5
4
6
0
7
0
8+
0

Number of coins (right) by how many times they flipped trend (left).

Sector divergence

Share of each sector in an uptrend at quarter-end, and how that moved across the quarter.

DeFi (183) 13.1% ↑ +6.0 pts
Other (85) 22.4% ↓ -3.5 pts
AI (56) 37.5% ↑ +26.8 pts
Layer 1 (54) 5.6% ↓ -3.7 pts
Memecoins (47) 21.3% ↑ +12.8 pts
Gaming/Metaverse (27) 11.1% → flat
Layer 2 (23) 4.3% ↓ -13.1 pts
Exchange/CeFi (12) 16.7% change n/a
Payments (8) 37.5% change n/a
RWA (4) 0.0% change n/a
Bitcoin & PoW (1) 0.0% change n/a

Sectors are mapped from CoinMarketCap tags; stablecoins, tokenized fiat and tokenized equities are excluded. (n) is the number of coins in the sector; the quarter-over-quarter change is hidden where n is under 15, since a single coin would swing it.

Alts versus Bitcoin

The share of altcoins whose Bitcoin-denominated trend is up — i.e. actually outperforming BTC. This is the alt-season read. It peaked at 39.7% on 2026-02-20.

Squarito squarito.com

Large caps versus small caps

Uptrend share among the top 100 versus the rest of the universe. Large caps leading while small caps lag is risk-off within crypto; small caps leading is the classic risk-on signal. At quarter-end, 19.0% of the top 100 and 16.8% of smaller caps were trending up.

Top 100 Rest of the top 500
Squarito squarito.com

Most stable and most whipsawed

Most trend-stable

CoinFlipsLongest uptrend
Sky SKY090d
JUST JST090d
Kite KITE090d
MindWaveDAO NILA090d
SKYAI SKYAI090d
SUPERFORTUNE GUA090d
Wibegram WIBE090d
Mango MNGO090d
Stable STABLE087d
ADI ADI085d

Most whipsawed

CoinFlips
BUILDon B5
Lombard BARD5
Jelly-My-Jelly JELLYJELLY5
Huma Finance HUMA5
Gnosis GNO4
Terra Classic LUNC4
Convex Finance CVX4
CoW Protocol COW4
Wrapped Flare WFLR4
Solstice USX USX4

Track these trends as they happen

This report is a quarterly snapshot. Create a free account to watch the live Crypto Trend Index and get emailed when a coin you follow flips. Free during early access.

Methodology

Trends come from the smma-15-29 indicator: two smoothed moving averages of daily closing price (periods 15 and 29). A coin counts as in an uptrend on a given day when the faster SMMA-15 sits above the slower SMMA-29, and a downtrend when below.

The universe is the top 500 coins by market capitalisation as of 2026-03-31; stablecoins, tokenized fiat and tokenized equities are excluded, since their trend signal is meaningless or out of scope. 500 coins had enough price history to produce a trend series over 90 trading days. Sectors are mapped from CoinMarketCap tags.

This report is descriptive of past trends over a closed quarter. It is not predictive and not financial advice. Figures are frozen as of publication (2026-06-09).

Frequently asked questions

What is the State of Crypto Trends report?

A quarterly, data-driven snapshot of how crypto markets trended, built from Squarito's own smma-15-29 trend signal across the top 500 coins by market cap. The Q1 2026 edition covers 2026-01-01 to 2026-03-31. Every number is frozen at publication so it can be cited reliably.

How is a coin's trend defined?

By the smma-15-29 indicator: two smoothed moving averages of price (periods 15 and 29). A coin is in an uptrend when the faster SMMA-15 is above the slower SMMA-29, and a downtrend when it is below. This is the same signal used across Squarito.

Which coins are included, and are stablecoins counted?

The top 500 coins by market capitalisation as of 2026-03-31. Pegged and non-crypto assets are excluded entirely, because their trend signal is meaningless or out of scope: stablecoins (including yield-bearing and bond variants), tokenized fiat, and tokenized equities such as tokenized stocks. Of the universe, 500 had enough price history to produce a trend series.

Is this financial advice?

No. The report is descriptive of past trends, not predictive, and is not financial advice. It tells you how the market trended over a closed quarter — nothing about what happens next.

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