The cryptocurrency market faced severe downward pressure this past week, triggering sharp liquidations across several major alternative coins. While large-cap assets like Bitcoin struggled to maintain key support levels, multiple high-profile altcoins bore the brunt of the market sell-off, posting double-digit losses exceeding $25$.
Data from CoinMarketCap highlights a widespread correction driven by macro-economic factors, shifting regulatory environments, and liquidity drains from risk-on assets. Below is a detailed breakdown of the top five worst-performing altcoins over the last seven days.
1. Cardano (ADA)
$Cardano led the weekly losses among major layer-1 networks. The $ADA price plummeted by 32.19%, dropping its market capitalization to approximately $5.76 billion.
Despite continuous developer activity on the network, ADA struggled with a lack of short-term bullish catalysts. Heavy liquidations in futures markets exacerbated the spot price decline, pushing Cardano into heavily oversold territory on the daily relative strength index (RSI).
2. Aptos (APT)
$Aptos, another prominent layer-1 blockchain built for scalability, witnessed a 29.32% price reduction over the week. Trading at $0.6638 at the time of data collection, the asset's market cap contracted sharply to $544 million.
The steep drop is primarily attributed to a broader risk-off sentiment hitting newer smart-contract platforms, alongside scheduled token unlocks that increased circulating supply and diluted existing buy pressure.
3. Zcash (ZEC)
Privacy-centric cryptocurrency $Zcash experienced a volatile seven days. Despite booking a brief 19.34% recovery within a 24-hour window, its overall weekly performance stood at a negative 27.42%, trading at $374.80.
The sharp weekly decline reflects ongoing regulatory scrutiny surrounding privacy coins in various global jurisdictions, causing exchanges to de-risk and retail traders to reallocate capital into more transparent public ledgers.
4. Algorand (ALGO)
$Algorand fell by 27.06% over the past week, with its price sliding to $0.09321. The institutional-grade blockchain network saw its market cap shrink to $831 million.
ALGO’s downtrend mirrors the broader systemic outflow from decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystems. The asset failed to sustain key psychological support levels, triggering automated stop-loss orders that accelerated the downward momentum.
5. Sei (SEI)
Rounding out the top five is $Sei, a sector-specific layer-1 blockchain optimized for trading. SEI registered a 26.12% loss over the seven-day period, pushing its price down to $0.04799 with a market cap of $340 million.
As a relatively new market entrant, SEI remains highly susceptible to aggressive speculative cycles. When broader market liquidity dries up, high-beta altcoins like SEI typically suffer deeper corrections as capital flows back into safer stables or fiat.