--- title: Do altcoins follow Bitcoin? How far each coin moves url: https://comparand.xyz/blog/do-altcoins-follow-bitcoin description: On Binance, Dogecoin moved 1.33% per 1% Bitcoin move and TRX only 0.72%. Beta for 9 altcoins, by year, and on Bitcoin's big down and up days. updated: '2026-10-21' category: Coins --- # Do altcoins follow Bitcoin? How far each coin moves On Binance, Dogecoin moved 1.33% per 1% Bitcoin move and TRX only 0.72%. Beta for 9 altcoins, by year, and on Bitcoin's big down and up days. Altcoins mostly follow Bitcoin's direction, but not by the same amount, and not the same way up and down. On Binance since late 2019, for each 1% Bitcoin moved on the same day, Dogecoin moved 1.33% on average, AVAX 1.20%, SOL 1.16%, ETH 1.10% and TRX only 0.72%. On Bitcoin's 5%-or-worse days, AVAX fell by more than Bitcoin on 77.01% of them and TRX on only 42.72%. An altcoin is any coin that is not Bitcoin. These are past cases, not a forecast. For Ethereum alone on Bitcoin's crash days, see [Does Ethereum fall more than Bitcoin in crashes?](https://comparand.xyz/blog/ethereum-vs-bitcoin-crash-size). For how closely they move together, see [Bitcoin Ethereum correlation by year](https://comparand.xyz/blog/bitcoin-ethereum-correlation-by-year). ## How far does each coin move when Bitcoin moves 1%? We compared each coin's daily price change with Bitcoin's on the same day. The result is called **beta**: the percent the coin moved, on average, for each 1% Bitcoin moved. A beta of 1.00 means the same size. Above 1.00 means the coin swung wider. **R squared** is a score from 0 to 1. It shows how much of the coin's daily change lines up with Bitcoin's. Near 1 means Bitcoin explains most of it. Near 0 means Bitcoin explains very little. All rows are Binance USDT perps (futures that never expire) against BTCUSDT, through October 19, 2026. | Coin | Days compared | Beta | R squared | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | ETH | 2,518 | 1.10 | 0.68 | | SOL | 2,226 | 1.16 | 0.34 | | XRP | 2,478 | 1.00 | 0.34 | | DOGE | 2,292 | 1.33 | 0.15 | | ADA | 2,453 | 1.12 | 0.45 | | AVAX | 2,217 | 1.20 | 0.36 | | LINK | 2,467 | 1.16 | 0.46 | | BNB | 2,443 | 0.92 | 0.45 | | TRX | 2,469 | 0.72 | 0.27 | Eight of nine coins had a beta near or above 1.00, but most R squared scores are low. Dogecoin had the biggest beta (1.33) and the weakest link (0.15). A high beta does not mean a tight link. Dogecoin swung wide, but much of that swing had nothing to do with Bitcoin that day. Our [10 coins ranked by volatility](https://comparand.xyz/blog/most-volatile-big-crypto-coins) article shows how big each coin's own days get. ETH had the tightest link at 0.68, in line with the 0.82 daily correlation in our [Bitcoin and Ethereum correlation by year](https://comparand.xyz/blog/bitcoin-ethereum-correlation-by-year) article. Correlation says whether two coins move together. Beta adds how big the moves are. *Diagram: Bar chart of the beta to Bitcoin for the nine Binance coins in the table, with a line at 1.00 and R squared written above each bar.* ## Is a coin's beta the same every year? No. We measured it year by year, and it moved a lot. | Coin | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 (to Oct 19) | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | ETH | 1.02 | 1.21 | 0.88 | 0.97 | 1.47 | 1.24 | | SOL | 0.80 | 1.56 | 1.38 | 1.16 | 1.66 | 1.23 | | DOGE | 1.60 | 1.11 | 0.86 | 1.50 | 1.80 | 1.17 | | TRX | 1.03 | 0.66 | 0.57 | 0.27 | 0.45 | 0.20 | TRX shows the biggest change. In 2021 it moved about as much as Bitcoin. By 2024 its beta was 0.27 with an R squared of 0.02, so Bitcoin explained almost none of its daily changes. Our [TRX price history](https://comparand.xyz/blog/tron-trx-price-history-numbers) article looks at that quiet coin on its own. 2025 stood out. Seven of the nine coins had a beta of 1.47 or more that year, and ADA's was 2.02. Only BNB (0.82) and TRX (0.45) stayed below 1.00. In 2026 (to October 19) the link was tighter than usual: R squared was 0.83 for ETH, 0.77 for SOL and 0.76 for XRP, against 0.68, 0.34 and 0.34 over the full history. So a single "alt versus Bitcoin" number describes a stretch of past days. It is not a fixed property of the coin. ## What do altcoins do on Bitcoin's big down days? We took every day Bitcoin fell 5% or more and checked each coin on the same day. | Coin | Bitcoin down 5%+ days | Median move that day (coin vs Bitcoin) | Coin fell more than Bitcoin | Bitcoin up 5%+ days | Coin rose more than Bitcoin | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | ETH | 103 | -8.09% vs -6.28% | 70.87% | 131 | 38.17% | | SOL | 87 | -8.45% vs -6.29% | 65.52% | 110 | 47.27% | | XRP | 103 | -7.33% vs -6.28% | 59.22% | 127 | 27.56% | | DOGE | 89 | -9.10% vs -6.29% | 67.42% | 111 | 39.64% | | ADA | 103 | -8.22% vs -6.28% | 73.79% | 124 | 35.48% | | AVAX | 87 | -9.87% vs -6.29% | 77.01% | 110 | 45.45% | | LINK | 103 | -9.36% vs -6.28% | 73.79% | 125 | 44.00% | | BNB | 103 | -6.82% vs -6.28% | 57.28% | 124 | 19.35% | | TRX | 103 | -5.97% vs -6.28% | 42.72% | 125 | 12.00% | Bitcoin's median move differs a little by row because newer coins have fewer days to compare. Eight of nine coins fell by more than Bitcoin on more than half of the big down days. In every row except TRX, the coin's median fall was larger than Bitcoin's. For example, AVAX fell a median 9.87% on days Bitcoin fell 6.29%. On a typical big down day, ETH's fall was 1.19 times Bitcoin's. TRX was the exception: it fell by less than Bitcoin on most of these days. Our [Ethereum vs Bitcoin crash size](https://comparand.xyz/blog/ethereum-vs-bitcoin-crash-size) article goes deeper on ETH. ## Do altcoins rise more than Bitcoin on big up days? Not in this test. On Bitcoin's big up days, every coin rose by more than Bitcoin on fewer than half of the days. The highest share was Solana at 47.27%; TRX was 12.00%. In every row, the coin's median rise was also smaller than Bitcoin's. ETH rose a median 6.44% when Bitcoin rose 7.19%. On a typical big up day, ETH's rise was 0.88 times Bitcoin's. Some coins even went the other way. On Bitcoin's up-5%-or-more days, Solana fell on 15.45% of them and TRX on 11.20%. So in our history, the picture was uneven. Many altcoins fell harder than Bitcoin on bad days but did not rise harder on good days. That is a result about 2019 to 2026 and these nine coins. It is not a rule. ## Does the same pattern show up on Coinbase? Mostly, yes. We checked Coinbase ETH-USD against BTC-USD as a separate spot market, not mixed with Binance. Beta was 0.96 over 3,803 days back to 2016. On the 220 days Bitcoin fell 5% or more, ETH fell by more on 57.27%. On the 247 days Bitcoin rose 5% or more, ETH rose by more on 36.03%. The tilt matches Binance but is smaller. Spot versus perp, or the longer history, may explain some of the gap; we did not test which. ## What does this not show? - **It does not show cause.** Moving together does not mean Bitcoin made the altcoin move. - **Big days cluster.** Bitcoin had 107 down-5%-or-more days on Binance, packed into 86 weeks, and 59 of them fell in 2021 and 2022. The tables use 87 to 103 of them, the days each coin was also trading. These are not separate, independent tests. - **Only large coins that still trade.** Coins that faded away are not in the sample. - **Timing inside the day is ignored.** Daily candles close at 00:00 UTC, the world clock. - **Four Binance daily closes disagree with the hourly data.** We kept them as stored and do not treat them as verified prices. ## How we measured this We used daily closing prices for nine Binance USDT perps and BTCUSDT, plus Coinbase ETH-USD and BTC-USD, through October 19, 2026. A day counted only with two back-to-back daily closes, and each coin was matched to Bitcoin on the same day and exchange. Beta is the standard best-fit slope of the coin's daily change against Bitcoin's. For the big days we kept days when Bitcoin moved 5% or more each way, and took the coin's middle (median) move. We did not subtract fees because this is not a trading test. ## Try this in Comparand Ask your connected AI agent: "Get daily Binance bars for ETHUSDT and BTCUSDT. On days Bitcoin fell 5% or more, how often did ETH fall by more?" - **venue_bars (1d)** returns the open, high, low and close for each completed day. It is free on every key. - Your agent works out the beta and big-day counts from those prices. The tool does not return a beta. For Hyperliquid, ask: "Show the correlation matrix for BTC, ETH, SOL and DOGE on a day I choose." - **hl_stats** returns realized volatility (how much price moved), a volatility regime and a correlation matrix for up to 20 coins on one day. It costs $0.01 per call on pay as you go. - It uses Hyperliquid data, so its numbers will not match the Binance tables above. Read the [docs](https://comparand.xyz/docs) to connect your agent, or [try 3 coins free](https://comparand.xyz/try) to see past charts. Past cases, not a forecast. ## The short version - ETH moved 1.10% for each 1% Bitcoin moved on Binance since late 2019. DOGE moved 1.33% and TRX only 0.72%. - A high beta did not mean a tight link: DOGE had the highest beta and the lowest R squared (0.15). - Beta changed a lot by year. TRX fell from 1.03 in 2021 to 0.20 in 2026. - On Bitcoin's down-5%-or-more days, eight of nine coins fell by more on over half of them. - On up-5%-or-more days, no coin rose by more than Bitcoin on most days: falls were bigger, rises smaller. ## Questions people ask **Do altcoins follow Bitcoin?** Mostly on direction, less on size. On Binance since 2019, ETH moved 1.10% on average for each 1% Bitcoin moved, and fell harder than Bitcoin on most big down days but rose less on most big up days. Dogecoin was only loosely tied to Bitcoin (R squared 0.15). Past cases, not a forecast. **Do altcoins fall more than Bitcoin when Bitcoin drops?** Most of the ones we measured did. On the 103 days Bitcoin fell 5% or more, ETHUSDT fell by more than Bitcoin on 70.87% of them. TRXUSDT did the opposite: it fell by more on only 42.72% of those days. **Do altcoins rise more than Bitcoin when Bitcoin jumps?** Not in our test. On the 131 days Bitcoin rose 5% or more, ETHUSDT rose by more than Bitcoin on 38.17%. The other eight coins were between 12.00% and 47.27%. **What is a coin's beta to Bitcoin?** Beta is how many percent a coin moved, on average, for each 1% Bitcoin moved on the same day. A beta of 1.20 means 1.20% for each 1%. It changes from year to year, so it is not a fixed number. **Is the link between Bitcoin and altcoins the same every year?** No. TRXUSDT's beta was 1.03 in 2021 and 0.20 in 2026 (through October 19). ETHUSDT's ranged from 0.88 in 2023 to 1.47 in 2025.