Podcast Ep.354——Has the Era of Bitcoin Ended? KT10 Index Demonstrates a New Center in the Cryptocurrency Market

In January 2026, the digital asset data analytics firm Kaiko released its flagship cryptocurrency benchmark index, the “Kaiko 10 Index,” along with a market trend report. The report emphasizes that the cryptocurrency market is no longer solely reliant on Bitcoin but is evolving into a structure where multiple large assets contribute independently to performance. Keywords mentioned in the report include “market diversification,” “liquidity-based index construction,” and “rotation strategies.”

Kaiko pointed out the concentration risks faced by existing cryptocurrency investment strategies in the report. Focusing assets on Bitcoin and Ethereum can no longer keep pace with technological developments, shifts in investment narratives, and the speed of capital flows driven by market sentiment. The report explicitly states that “the KT10 Index is designed to reflect the momentum of the entire sector rather than a single token,” and highlights the limitations of portfolios overly invested in a single asset like Bitcoin.

The KT10 Index is based on a dual-weighted average methodology combining market capitalization and liquidity data, selecting the top ten cryptocurrencies. Its constituent asset weights are capped at 30% to prevent over-concentration, with rebalancing occurring quarterly. By the end of 2025, BTC and ETH remained the main assets, each accounting for about 29%, but XRP and SOL also held significant shares at 15% and 14%, respectively. Interestingly, Dogecoin, with its high liquidity and order execution capabilities, also ranked among the top.

The report notes that in analyzing 2025 performance, the driving force behind KT10’s performance is increasingly surpassing Bitcoin. Particularly, SOL and XRP made significant contributions to the index’s performance even during Bitcoin price adjustments. This rotation among assets is increasingly revealing its sophistication in the cryptocurrency market, and the structural approach designed for KT10 offers institutional investors a more attractive risk exposure strategy. It also clearly exposes the limitations of interpreting the entire crypto market solely through Bitcoin’s performance.

In terms of risk-adjusted returns, KT10 also shows signs of recovery. The report indicates that as of October 2025, KT10’s 30-day rolling Sharpe ratio remained in negative territory but had recovered to positive by early 2026. This is interpreted as an improving balance between profitability and volatility, signaling the development of a better risk-return framework. Volatility itself also decreased significantly in the second half of 2025, indicating market stabilization.

2025 was a year of significant volatility in the cryptocurrency market amid overall macroeconomic shocks. During this period, KT10 alternated between bullish and bearish cycles dominated by blue-chip cryptocurrencies. Although the year-end performance was negative, in terms of long-term returns, its gains since 2019 exceeded 1100%, outperforming the S&P 500 index by a large margin.

Ultimately, the Kaiko research team defines the next phase of the cryptocurrency market through the KT10 index as a “diversification path.” Its core is that, compared to betting on a single asset, a portfolio that reflects market rotation and can sustain itself over the long term in an environment where multiple assets have liquidity and investability is more important. KT10 is a benchmark that proves this strategic insight with data. As the cryptocurrency market matures, the demand for diversified indices like KT10 is expected to further grow.