For years, the institutional playbook for the crypto industry was simple: buy Bitcoin, perhaps dabble in Ethereum, and ignore the rest.
In 2025, that playbook was rewritten.
While Bitcoin retained its crown as the largest asset by total volume, the real story of the year was a dramatic structural shift in where new capital chose to go.
According to year-end data from CoinShares, the era of “Bitcoin-only” dominance has given way to a tiered market hierarchy where Ethereum has cemented its status as a core holding, and XRP and Solana have emerged as the first true “institutional alt majors.”
The numbers portray a distinct pivot in investor behavior. While Bitcoin investment products attracted $26.98 billion in inflows for 2025, that figure represented a 35% decline from the record-setting pace of 2024.
In contrast, capital poured into alternative networks at unprecedented rates.
Ethereum products saw inflows surge 138%, while XRP and Solana posted growth rates of approximately 500% and 1,000% respectively, effectively doubling their installed asset bases in a single calendar year.
This divergence signals a maturing market moving away from broad, speculative diversification toward a narrow, concentrated elite.
The graduation of Ethereum and the ‘velocity’ of new majors
The 2025 data suggests that institutional allocators have fundamentally reclassified Ethereum.
For years treated as a high-risk satellite to a Bitcoin core, the second-largest cryptocurrency has graduated to the status of a primary portfolio asset.
CoinShares’ report shows Ethereum drew $12.69 billion in net new money in 2025, up from just $5.33 billion the year prior.
This 138% year-over-year jump occurred even as Bitcoin flows cooled, indicating that investors are increasingly comfortable holding independent views on the two assets rather than trading them as a correlated pair.
With total assets under management (AUM) in Ethereum products ending the year at $25.7 billion, the network has achieved a scale that mandates inclusion in diversified digital portfolios.
However, the most aggressive repricing of risk occurred in the next tier down.
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XRP and Solana, long battling for third place in the market hierarchy, experienced an inflow velocity that dwarfed the majors.
XRP investment products absorbed $3.69 billion in 2025, a roughly five-fold increase from the $608 million seen in 2024. Solana’s ascent was even steeper, attracting $3.56 billion compared to just $310 million a year earlier, a tenfold expansion.
What makes these figures significant is not just their growth rates, but their scale relative to the existing market.
At the start of 2025, the investment product ecosystems for XRP and Solana were relatively modest. By year’s end, flows into both assets roughly equaled their total ending assets under management, approximately $3.5 billion each.
In financial terms, this represents a “replacement rate” of nearly 100%. While Bitcoin’s inflows represented about 19% of its total AUM and Ethereum’s accounted for 49%, Solana and XRP effectively turned over their entire cap tables, signaling a massive influx of new institutional holders entering the fray for the first time.
The death of the long tail
If 2025 was a breakout year for the top tier, it was a sobering reality check for the rest of the market.
When excluding Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP, Solana, multi-asset baskets, and short-Bitcoin hedging products, the “remaining altcoins” category, which includes established names like Cardano, Litecoin, and Chainlink, as well as emerging competitors like Sui, saw inflows collapse.
This basket drew just $318 million in 2025, a 30% drop from $457 million in 2024.
This contraction points to a significant hardening of the investment landscape. In previous cycles, retail enthusiasm often spilled over into hundreds of smaller tokens, driving broad-based rallies.
The ETF and ETP (Exchange Traded Product) era appears to be functioning differently. Regulatory moats and liquidity requirements create high barriers to entry for new financial products.
So, asset managers are hesitant to launch products for tokens that lack regulatory clarity or deep liquidity. Without those regulated wrappers, institutional capital cannot easily access the long tail.
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The result is a “winner-take-most” dynamic. As capital coalesces around the four assets that have established liquid, regulated investment vehicles, the liquidity gap between the “majors” and the “minors” widens.
This creates a self-reinforcing cycle: because Solana and XRP have the liquidity and products, they attract flows; because they attract flows, their liquidity deepens further, making them even safer for the next wave of institutional entrants.
Meanwhile, assets outside this privileged circle face a liquidity drought, struggling to attract the passive flows that now drive a significant portion of crypto market appreciation.
The model portfolio for 2026
The crystallization of this hierarchy has profound implications for how digital asset portfolios will be constructed in 2026 and beyond.
The “Bitcoin-only” maximalist strategy, while still defensible as a conservative approach, is losing market share to multi-sleeve models.
Financial advisors and wealth managers, who previously struggled to justify exposure beyond Bitcoin, now have data to support a diversified core.
The new standard model appears to be shifting toward a weighted basket: Bitcoin as the digital commodity and anchor; Ethereum as the foundational smart contract layer; and Solana and XRP as high-growth “satellites” representing specific bets on speed, scalability, and payments utility.
The CoinShares data supports this view, showing that while Bitcoin is becoming a lower-beta asset, stable, massive, but slower-growing, the alpha is being sought in these newly minted majors.
Notably, the presence of $105 million in short-Bitcoin product inflows and a total AUM of $139 million in that category further suggests a maturation in how these tools are used.
It shows that institutions are not just blindly accumulating; they are hedging.
The ability to short the market leader while going long on high-beta satellites allows for sophisticated relative-value trades that were previously the domain of crypto-native hedge funds, not regulated asset managers.
The risks of a narrow market
While the minting of new majors is a sign of maturity, it introduces new risks.
The concentration of flows into just four assets means the health of the entire ecosystem is increasingly dependent on the performance of a few networks.
The “velocity” seen in Solana and XRP, where inflows matched total AUM, is a double-edged sword. Such rapid expansion implies that a significant portion of the holder base is new.
Unlike Bitcoin’s entrenched base of “hodlers” who have weathered multiple 80% drawdowns, these new institutional entrants may be more price-sensitive. If the narrative shifts or regulatory headwinds re-emerge, the same standardized products that drove money in could facilitate a rapid exit.
Furthermore, the starvation of the long tail raises questions about innovation.
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If capital is systematically funneled only to the largest incumbents, new protocols may struggle to achieve the valuation velocity needed to attract talent and secure networks.
The industry risks becoming top-heavy, with trillions of dollars in value anchored to four chains while the broader ecosystem stagnates.
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