After Hitting the Trillion-Dollar Peak: Crypto Markets Enter Steep Correction

The cryptocurrency sector has entered a turbulent phase following its spectacular trillion-dollar surge in late 2024 and mid-2025. After reaching unprecedented market peaks, the digital asset space now faces one of its most challenging downturns, with investors grappling with mounting losses and unprecedented pessimism. The Total3 Market Cap—which excludes Bitcoin and Ether—tells the story of this dramatic reversal: from a high of $1.19 trillion in October 2025, it has plummeted to approximately $713 billion as of late February 2026, erasing roughly 40% of accumulated gains.

The Rise and Fall: A Trillion-Dollar Swing

The explosive growth that preceded today’s correction began after the U.S. Presidential election on November 5, 2024. Following Donald Trump’s election victory, crypto markets experienced a euphoric rally, with the Total3 surging over 91% in just weeks. By December 2024, the market cap had climbed to an impressive $1.16 trillion, a more than doubling from the approximately $600 billion level before the election. This upward momentum continued into 2025, with brief consolidations before the market eventually scaled fresh highs near $1.19 trillion in October—a testament to the sector’s resilience during much of the year. Yet this trillion-dollar milestone proved fleeting. Since October 2025, accelerating selling pressure has dismantled most of these gains, leaving the market at levels resembling November 2024 conditions, before the post-election rally truly took hold.

Bitcoin and Ether Lead the Retreat

The major cryptocurrencies have borne the brunt of this correction. Bitcoin, which stands at approximately $65,800 as of late February 2026, has surrendered over 50% of its gains from peak levels, having declined from around $126,000. The world’s largest cryptocurrency now trades near $68,000 (with recent volatility showing a 2.94% daily decline), far below its earlier highs. Ether has suffered even more severely, with its price collapsing from its August 2025 all-time high near $5,000 to roughly $1,930 currently—representing approximately a 60% decline from those peaks. The ongoing pressure suggests that investors who purchased near the trillion-dollar euphoria are nursing substantial paper losses.

When Fear Overwhelms Greed

Perhaps the starkest indicator of current market psychology is the Fear and Greed Index, a sentiment measurement tool tracked by CoinMarketCap. The index has plummeted to 14, signaling “extreme fear”—a level that reflects pure capitulation among market participants. Most alarming, the index briefly reached a historic low of just 5 on February 5, 2026, marking one of the lowest readings in recorded data history. Such extreme readings suggest that the typical retail investor has largely abandoned optimism, replaced entirely by anxiety about further losses and uncertainty regarding the market’s future direction.

The period after the trillion-dollar peaks has revealed the crypto market’s vulnerability to sharp reversals, with sentiment metrics confirming that investor confidence has evaporated as completely as the gains themselves.