Bitwise: 5 charts to understand the crypto market in Q2 2026

Source: Ryan Rasmussen, Head of Research at Bitwise; Compiled by Jinse Finance Claw

Bitwise releases a Bitwise Crypto Market Review report every quarter. The report includes more than 50 charts covering everything from market performance to on-chain fundamentals and institutional adoption.

Data always paints a picture. Sometimes the results are clearly bullish or clearly bearish. But more often, the results are mixed—cloudy, with both highlights and shortcomings that require careful analysis. That’s exactly how the second quarter looked. Crypto fundamentals—such as revenue, real-world usage, and institutional adoption rates—are thriving, and crypto stock prices are soaring…… at the same time, the prices of crypto assets are broadly falling. What does all of this mean?

To get a quick read on the most important points, here are the five charts I think matter most.

1）Crypto stocks and crypto assets have diverged dramatically

With 2026 already halfway over, crypto asset prices are down 36%. The only other major asset class that’s also down is gold, down 7%. Everything else is up.**That’s one reason the crypto winter is so brutal—this is a lonely winter. **

But here’s the key point: crypto stock returns for the first half are as high as 23%, outperforming every major asset class except emerging-market stocks. In fact, for Bitwise Crypto Innovators 30—which tracks the 30 largest publicly listed companies building the crypto economy—its return is more than double that of U.S. stocks.

This tells me that even in a bear market, investment opportunities in crypto are still emerging one after another. Bitcoin miners are benefiting from an AI-driven wave. Stablecoin issuers and tokenization platforms are riding the wave of Wall Street’s momentum. The links between traditional finance and crypto are getting tighter and tighter. While I expect crypto assets to rebound in the second half, the first half also confirms an important reality: crypto isn’t a single thing. It’s a diversified, dynamic space that needs a broader perspective.

Performance comparison of crypto vs. major asset categories

Source: Bitwise Asset Management; data from Bloomberg. Data as of June 30, 2026.

Note: Asset categories are measured using the following metrics. Commodities: Deutsche Bank DBIQ Diversified Commodity Index Total Return Index. Developed market stocks: MSCI EAFE Total Return Index (USD). Emerging market stocks: MSCI Emerging Markets Total Return Index (USD). Gold: Gold spot price. U.S. bonds: FTSE U.S. Broad Investment-Grade Bond Index. U.S. stocks: S&P 500 Total Return Index. U.S. real estate investment trusts (REITs): MSCI U.S. REITs Total Return Index.

All calculations are total return, including dividends during the stated period. Index performance does not represent the performance of any specific investment. You cannot invest directly in an index. Index performance does not include any fees and expenses charged by funds. Fund returns may differ materially from index returns. Past performance does not guarantee future results. Please refer to the other important disclosures at the end of this document.

2）Crypto applications are generating substantial revenue

In the past 12 months, the total revenue of the top 10 crypto applications was $5.9 billion. Of these, the largestthree applications (PancakeSwap, Hyperliquid, and Aave) each generated nearly $1 billion in revenue.

Even in a bear market, these companies are still operating normally—earning fees through trading, lending, and staking.

When skeptics tell me that crypto has no fundamentals, I show them this chart.

Top ten crypto applications by revenue

Source: Bitwise Asset Management; data from Token Terminal. Data range: January 1, 2025 to June 30, 2026.

(1) Revenue is made up of total fees paid by users.

(2) Excess liquidity revenue excludes HyperEVM fees.

3）A bull market in real-world assets (RWA)

A few weeks ago, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent also said: “Digital assets, stablecoins, tokenization, and new payment systems will help shape the future of money.”

In a sense, the future he described has already arrived. In the second quarter, the size of tokenized real-world assets (RWA) reached a record $33 billion, up 12% quarter-over-quarter and up 45% year-to-date, driven largely by the rapid growth of tokenized U.S. Treasuries, corporate credit, equities, and venture capital.

When I saw this chart, I realized that the world’s largest asset managers are moving assets onto-chain at full speed and at massive scale. That’s definitely worth paying attention to.

Value of tokenized real-world assets (RWA)

Source: Bitwise Asset Management; data from RWA.xyz. Data range: January 1, 2020 to June 30, 2026.

Note: Stablecoin issuers such as Circle and Tether have been intentionally omitted.

4）Prediction markets keep expanding in scale

In the second quarter, open interest in prediction markets hit an all-time high, reaching $1.8 billion, and sports predictions became the highest-weighted category. Trading volume for the quarter also set a record, at $43 billion.

Applications like Polymarket illustrate the hidden side of retail crypto adoption: millions of people use crypto rails to trade real-world outcomes, but most of them don’t know—or don’t care—that crypto provides the underlying technology.

I expect that as the U.S. midterm elections approach, this year’s trading volume and open interest in prediction markets will set multiple new all-time highs. After all, politics was the area that pushed prediction markets into mainstream view in 2024, and since then, the market’s size has grown by two times.

Open interest in prediction markets

Source: Bitwise Asset Management; data from Blockworks Research. Data range: January 1, 2023 to June 30, 2026.

5）Crypto stocks have lower correlation with major assets

Back to the topic of crypto stocks. One of the most interesting charts shows the 90-day rolling correlation between the Bitwise Crypto Innovators 30 index and other major asset categories. What stands out is that, compared with U.S. stocks, its correlation is lower than that of almost all other assets: developed market stocks, emerging market stocks, U.S. real estate investment trusts (REITs), U.S. bonds, and gold. (The only exception is commodities, whose correlations are all negative.)

In other words: in the first half of 2026, crypto stock returns are more than double those of U.S. stocks, while correlations with almost all other assets in an investment portfolio are even lower. This combination of returns and diversification benefits is exactly what investors want.

Correlation of specific assets and asset categories: 90-day rolling

Source: Bitwise Asset Management; data from Bloomberg. Data as of June 30, 2026.

Note: Asset categories are measured using the following metrics. U.S. stocks: S&P 500 Total Return Index. Developed market stocks: MSCI EAFE Total Return Index (USD). Emerging market stocks: MSCI Emerging Markets Total Return Index (USD). Commodities: Deutsche Bank DBIQ Diversified Commodity Index Total Return Index. U.S. real estate investment trusts (REITs): MSCI U.S. REITs Total Return Index. U.S. bonds: FTSE U.S. Broad Investment-Grade Bond Index. Gold: Gold spot price.

That’s my take on this quarter. Of course, these 50-plus charts can’t answer the question we’ve been asked most recently: “Has crypto already bottomed?”

But they do show that crypto fundamentals remain resilient, and even in a bear market, usage, revenue, and adoption of crypto are still continuing to grow.

For me, this is a truly fascinating area—the foundation on which the next cycle will be built.