Ethereum Traders Post Worst Year on Record as Altcoin Performance Plummets

Research from CoinGecko reveals that Ethereum on-chain traders have seen their worst year yet in terms of trading performance. The median win rate across active decentralized exchange (DEX) traders plummeted to 26.29% in the twelve months leading up to August 2026, down 25.91 percentage points from 52.20% the previous year - a 49.63% relative decline.

This marks a significant drop from the already dismal 80.65% win rate seen in 2020, with the figure falling by 54.36 percentage points over this period, representing a 67.40% relative drop.

The data analyzed by CoinGecko tracked the top 500 tokens by market capitalization on Ethereum as of August 2026, excluding non-Ethereum tokens and stablecoins. The remaining 200 tokens were categorized into two groups: Majors-Only (wallets trading exclusively the top 10 tokens) and Altcoins (Any) - wallets trading any token ranked 11-200.

The study found that while win rates remained relatively evenly split between the two groups, with Majors traders posting higher median win rates in three out of seven years studied, Altcoin traders' median profit/loss (PnL) consistently amplified the performance of Majors traders. In six out of the seven years analyzed, Altcoin's median PnL was roughly 3-6.6 times the size of Majors', whether positive or negative.