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‘Bull markets everywhere’: Bitwise says crypto equities beat every major asset class but emerging markets in H1 2026

Crypto asset prices fell 36% through the first half of 2026 while crypto equities returned 23%, beating every major asset class except emerging market equities, Bitwise said in a Tuesday memo.Ryan Rasmussen, head of research at the asset manager, pulled five charts from the firm's quarterly Crypto…

Crypto asset prices fell 36% through the first half of 2026 while crypto equities returned 23%, beating every major asset class except emerging market equities, Bitwise said in a Tuesday memo.

Ryan Rasmussen, head of research at the asset manager, pulled five charts from the firm's quarterly Crypto Market Review to argue that fundamentals across the sector held up through a price drawdown. "There are bull markets everywhere for those with the eyes to see," Rasmussen said.

A lonely winter

Gold was the only other major asset class in the red at the halfway mark, down 7%. Everything else finished the period in green.

The Bitwise Crypto Innovators 30 Index, which tracks the 30 largest publicly traded companies building the crypto economy, more than doubled the return of U.S. equities.

Miners, drawing AI tailwinds, stablecoin issuers, and tokenization platforms all contributed to the divergence, according to Rasmussen. "Crypto is not a single thing," he wrote

Applications are earning

The 10 largest crypto applications generated $5.9 billion in combined revenue over the trailing 12 months, with PancakeSwap at $923 million, Hyperliquid at $912 million, and Aave at $877 million, per Token Terminal data cited in the memo.

Lido Finance, Uniswap, Pump.fun, Sky, Ethena, edgeX, and Axiom rounded out the top 10. "When skeptics tell me crypto has no fundamentals, this is the chart I send them," Rasmussen said.

RWAs and prediction markets set records

Tokenized real-world assets reached a record $33 billion in Q2, up 12% on the quarter and 45% year-to-date, led by tokenized U.S. Treasurys, corporate credit, stocks, and venture capital. The figure excludes stablecoin issuers such as Circle and Tether.

Prediction market open interest hit an all-time high of $1.8 billion in the quarter, with sports the largest category. Quarterly volume set a record at $43 billion.

Rasmussen expects further highs as U.S. midterms approach, pointing to politics as the category that put the sector on the map in 2024 and a market that has tripled since.

The correlation case

The Crypto Innovators 30 Index had a 0.77 correlation with U.S. equities on a 90-day rolling basis, compared with 0.73 for bitcoin (BTC), per Bloomberg data cited in the memo.

Against developed market equities, emerging market equities, U.S. REITs, U.S. bonds, and gold, the index ran lower correlations than U.S. equities did. Commodities were the exception, where both readings are negative.

Rasmussen expects crypto assets to bounce back in the second half. None of the charts answer the question of whether prices have bottomed, he wrote.

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