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

Source: Ryan Rasmussen, Head of Research at Bitwise; Translated by: Golden Finance Claw

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

Data can always paint a picture. Sometimes the result is clearly bullish, sometimes clearly bearish. But more often, the result is mixed—clouded skies, with both highlights and shortcomings that require careful analysis. That is the case in Q2: crypto fundamentals, such as revenue, real-world usage, and institutional adoption rates, are booming, and crypto stock prices have surged… while crypto asset prices have generally fallen across the board. What does it all mean?

To quickly get to the most important points, here are the five charts I think matter most.

1）A huge divergence between crypto stocks and crypto assets

With half of 2026 already gone, crypto asset prices are down 36%. The only other major asset class in decline is gold, down 7%. Everything else is up. **That’s one of the reasons this crypto winter is so harsh—this is an isolated winter. **

The key point, however, is this: crypto-crypto stocks delivered a first-half return of as high as 23%, outperforming every major asset class except emerging-market stocks. In fact, for the Bitwise Crypto Innovators 30 Index, which tracks the 30 largest publicly listed companies building the crypto economy, the return was more than double that of U.S. stocks.

This tells me that even in a bear market, investment opportunities in crypto are still plentiful. Bitcoin miners are benefiting from the push of artificial intelligence. Stablecoin issuers and tokenization platforms are riding a wave of growth out of Wall Street. The connection between traditional finance and crypto is getting tighter by the day. While I expect crypto assets to rebound in the second half, what’s happened in the first half reinforces an important fact: crypto isn’t one single thing. It’s a diversified, dynamic space that needs to be viewed through a wider lens.

Performance comparison of crypto and major asset classes

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

Note: Asset classes are represented using the following metrics. Commodities: DBIQ Optimal Yield Diversified Commodities Index Total Return Index by Deutsche Bank. Developed market stocks: MSCI EAFE USD Total Return Index. Emerging market stocks: MSCI Emerging Markets USD Total Return Index. Gold: spot gold price. U.S. Treasuries: 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 particular investment. You cannot invest directly in an index. Index performance does not include fees and expenses charged by any fund. Fund returns may differ materially from index returns. Past performance does not guarantee future returns. Please refer to the other important disclosures at the end of this document.

2）Crypto applications generate substantial revenue

In the past 12 months, the top ten crypto applications generated total revenue of $5.9 billion. Of these, the largest three applications (PancakeSwap, Hyperliquid, and Aave) each generated revenue close to $1 billion.

Even in a bear market, these businesses 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 covers the period from 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 Q2, the tokenized real-world asset (RWA) market reached a record $33 billion, up 12% quarter-over-quarter and up 45% year-to-date, driven mainly by rapid growth in tokenized U.S. Treasuries, corporate credit, equities, and venture capital.

When I saw this chart, I noticed that the world’s largest asset managers are moving assets on-chain at full speed and at scale. This is worth paying attention to.

Value of tokenized real-world assets (RWA)

Source: Bitwise Asset Management; data from RWA.xyz. Data covers the period from 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 size

The open interest in prediction markets in Q2 hit an all-time high, reaching $1.8 billion, with sports prediction becoming the highest-weighted category. Trading volume in the quarter also set a record at $43 billion.

Apps like Polymarket represent the understated side of retail crypto adoption: millions are trading real-world outcomes through crypto rails, but most of them don’t know or don’t care about the underlying technology that crypto provides.

I expect that as U.S. midterm elections approach, both trading volume and open interest in prediction markets will set multiple all-time highs this year. After all, politics is the space that pushed prediction markets into the public eye in 2024—and since then, the market has doubled in size.

Open interest in prediction markets

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

5）Lower correlation between crypto stocks and 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 classes. What stands out in particular is that compared with U.S. stocks, its correlation is lower than that of almost every other asset: developed market stocks, emerging market stocks, U.S. real estate investment trusts (REITs), U.S. Treasuries, and gold. (The only exception is commodities, where the correlations are all negative.)

In other words: in the first half of 2026, crypto-stock returns were more than double those of U.S. stocks, while correlation with almost every other asset in a portfolio was lower. That combination of returns and diversification benefits is exactly what investors want.

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

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

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

That’s my take on the quarter. Of course, none of these 50-plus charts can answer the most frequently asked question we’ve received recently: “Have crypto prices already bottomed?”

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

For me, this is a very interesting area—and it’s the foundation on which the next cycle will be built.