These 6 cryptocurrencies are hinting at a small cap summer

Crypto has only two mega-cap assets and five large caps — but there are over 140 small-cap tokens jostling for higher prices

article-image

Olesia3/Shutterstock and Adobe Stock modified by Blockworks

share

Small cap summer may end up being this bull market’s final form.

Think of it like the internal waves churning thousands of feet deep beneath the ocean — ones that finally summon a real altcoin season.

“Small cap” is a stock market term. It’s possible to sort the crypto market into different categories based on established equities definitions.

  • Mega-caps are worth $200 billion or more
  • Large-caps between $10 billion and $200 billion
  • Mid-caps between $2 billion and $10 billion
  • Small-caps between $250 million and $2 billion

Riffing on those benchmarks, mostly to account for crypto’s volatility, tokens can be placed in those buckets if they spent more than 50% of their trading days over the past three years above their respective benchmarks.

Stacks, for instance, only traded in the mid-cap range for 31% of its trading days since August 2021, so it goes alongside the other small caps.

There are currently over 50 mega-cap stocks but only two cryptocurrencies: bitcoin and ether. Crypto also only has five large-cap assets — bnb, solana, xrp, dogecoin and cardano — and around two dozen mid-caps including polygon, filecoin, cronos, monero and chainlink.

143 tokens otherwise represent small-caps. Coins such as pyth, dydx, worldcoin, blur, ondo, helium, celestia and bittensor. 

Small cap summer has a sizable army in waiting. Click the dots in the middle to zoom into a particular category.

Small-caps all spent most of the past three years (or however long they’ve been on the market) trading at a capitalization between $250 million and $2 billion. They may have spent weeks or even months above the $2 billion mark, but not long enough to transcend categories.

But when does small cap summer start? Just like how there’s no real definition of what makes an altcoin season (see previous attempts here and here), what makes a small cap summer has never been formally decided.

One could say that small cap summer starts when, as a cohort, small cap tokens are altogether worth more than mid-caps.

That unfortunately hasn’t happened since April 2022. 

But we are closer now than we were this time last year — small caps are altogether worth $93.6 billion to $115.2 billion for midcaps, a difference of only 19% compared to over 30% in August 2023.

Mid-caps and small-caps are losing ground against large-caps over the year to date.

There is some hope. An overwhelming majority of small caps may have lost significant value over the past three months — but six in particular are keeping the dream alive.

Memecoins mog, brett and notcoin have all outperformed bitcoin and ether since May, and so have zcash, helium and ens. 

In the memecoins’ case, they’ve all done multiples while bitcoin and ether are slightly underwater across the same period.

All small-cap summer needs is another batch of tokens to rally this hard.

That only six out of 143 have shown real strength amid a bitcoin correction may however sound grim (it’s a strike rate of about 4%). 

But if you’re looking for green shoots to mark the start of small cap summer, these could be it.

A modified version of this article first appeared in the daily Empire newsletter. Subscribe here so you don’t miss tomorrow’s edition.


Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:

  • Blockworks Daily: The newsletter that helps thousands of investors understand crypto and the markets, by Byron Gilliam.
  • Empire: Start your morning with the top news and analysis to inform your day in crypto.
  • Forward Guidance: Reporting and analysis on the growing intersection of crypto and macroeconomics, policy and finance.
  • 0xResearch: Alpha directly in your inbox. Market highlights, data, degen trade ideas, governance updates, token performance and more.
  • Lightspeed: Built for Solana investors, developers and community members. The latest from one of crypto’s hottest networks.
  • The Drop: For crypto collectors and traders, covering apps, games, memes and more.
Tags

Upcoming Events

Industry City | Brooklyn, NY

TUES - THURS, JUNE 24 - 26, 2025

Permissionless IV serves as the definitive gathering for crypto’s technical founders, developers, and builders to come together and create the future.If you’re ready to shape the future of crypto, Permissionless IV is where it happens.

Old Billingsgate

Mon - Wed, October 13 - 15, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

recent research

Research

article-image

A wild BearWhale has also been spotted more than 10 years after the original

article-image

Stablecoins haven’t yet gone mainstream, and at least one roadblock can be solved when regulatory clarity is finalized

article-image

Pantera’s Jiang thinks that AI is going to become as important to our everyday lives as the internet is today

article-image

“Every asset manager and bank doing ‘crypto’ is earning insane fees for putting things ‘onchain,'” read a slide from Meltem Demiror’s DAS talk

article-image

The move from the national bank regulator came after increased pressure from Republicans

article-image

Industry leaders at DAS sounded off on the SEC’s approval of solana futures ETFs and how the crypto industry could expand into futures products