Bitcoin trailed in every quarter since 2025 as six coins led Grayscale ranking
Bitcoin has not led a single quarter since the start of 2025, according to a Grayscale study tracking the ten largest non-stablecoin crypto assets from the first quarter of 2025 through data to 4 November. Six different coins took first place across those quarters, a rotation the asset manager says shows the sector is not simply a bitcoin trade.
XRP led the first quarter of 2025. Ether then held the top spot for two straight quarters, gaining 36% in the second and 67% in the third. BNB, of Binance Smart Chain, led the fourth quarter of 2025 despite falling 14%, because all ten top cryptocurrencies declined in that period. TRX took the lead in the first quarter of 2026 with a 10% advance.
Hyperliquid jumped 78% to finish first in the second quarter of 2026, a result Grayscale had flagged in July when it noted financial tokens led by Hyperliquid outperforming memecoins. Zcash then posted the period's biggest gain, rising 260% in the third quarter of 2026.
Grayscale's segment data points the same way. Artificial intelligence tokens depend least on bitcoin: sector-specific factors accounted for 50% of their annualised volatility, while bitcoin explained 35%. Digital currency tokens sit at the opposite end, with bitcoin-linked volatility at 43% against 7% attributed to internal sector factors. The report adds that bitcoin's own volatility has fallen to 43%, reaching the level of the S&P 500, and cites J.P. Morgan Asset Management projections for 2027 of a 10% compound annual return for bitcoin over a decade.
In the current quarter, bitcoin sits third with a 7% decline, while Zcash, last quarter's leader, has dropped to seventh with a 15% fall. The gap between bitcoin and TRX was just 2 percentage points at that point. Bitcoin's most recent slide came after the data cut-off, so the picture may have shifted since. A first-place finish before 31 December would be bitcoin's first in Grayscale's ranking.
