How far do coins actually fall?
Annual returns are the highlight reel. Drawdowns are the footage nobody posts: the fall from a peak to the worst moment that followed, which is what holding the thing actually felt like. Here is the past twelve months in Australian dollars, from our own records, recomputed every day.
78.0%
median worst fall, 12 months
127/134
coins that more than halved
134/134
below their all-time high
median 90.3% below
7
at a 12-month high this week
What that looked like in dollars
A A$1,000 position in Bitcoin bought at its 12-month peak was worth about A$448 at the worst point that followed — down A$552, or 55.2%. The same A$1,000 in Ethereum bottomed near A$313. These are the two most established assets in the class. Everything smaller fell harder, and that is the normal case rather than the disaster case — which is the entire point of this page.
The 12-month falls, deepest first
| Coin | Worst fall (12m) | Peak → trough | Time underwater | From all-time high |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 XPL Plasma | −96.5% | A$2.47 → A$0.0869 | 12 months | -95.0% |
 EIGEN EigenCloud | −92.9% | A$3 → A$0.2139 | 12 months | -96.3% |
 SNX Synthetix | −92.3% | A$3.53 → A$0.2706 | 11 months | -99.1% |
 BONK Bonk | −91.8% | A$0.0000384 → A$0.00000316 | 12 months | -94.4% |
 STRK Starknet | −91.8% | A$0.3845 → A$0.0317 | 10 months | -99.2% |
 APT Aptos | −91.2% | A$8.24 → A$0.7263 | 12 months | -96.3% |
 OP Optimism | −90.8% | A$1.26 → A$0.116 | 12 months | -97.6% |
 ENA Ethena | −90.4% | A$1.06 → A$0.1021 | 12 months | -87.4% |
 SAND The Sandbox | −90.1% | A$0.4745 → A$0.047 | 12 months | -99.5% |
 SEI Sei | −89.5% | A$0.5197 → A$0.0548 | 12 months | -95.2% |
 FARTCOIN Fartcoin | −89.4% | A$1.42 → A$0.1503 | 12 months | -93.4% |
 IMX Immutable | −89.2% | A$1.29 → A$0.1397 | 12 months | -98.4% |
 JTO Jito | −88.7% | A$3.03 → A$0.342 | 12 months | -92.9% |
 GRT The Graph | −87.5% | A$0.1495 → A$0.0186 | 12 months | -99.0% |
 KAIA Kaia | −87.4% | A$0.2463 → A$0.0311 | 12 months | -92.6% |
 APE ApeCoin | −87.1% | A$0.9225 → A$0.119 | 12 months | -99.4% |
 ARB Arbitrum | −86.9% | A$0.7968 → A$0.1044 | 12 months | -91.3% |
 WIF dogwifhat | −86.8% | A$1.45 → A$0.1916 | 12 months | -95.5% |
 WLD Worldcoin | −86.7% | A$2.43 → A$0.3224 | 12 months | -96.7% |
 THETA Theta Network | −86.6% | A$1.31 → A$0.1764 | 12 months | -98.5% |
 MNT Mantle | −86.5% | A$4.11 → A$0.5557 | 11 months | -78.6% |
 PENGU Pudgy Penguins | −85.7% | A$0.0578 → A$0.00826 | 12 months | -87.0% |
 NIGHT Midnight | −85.6% | A$0.1666 → A$0.024 | 9.1 months | -81.8% |
 TRUMP Official Trump | −85.5% | A$13.55 → A$1.96 | 10 months | -97.7% |
 ETHFI Ether.fi | −85.3% | A$2.77 → A$0.4062 | 12 months | -93.0% |
 ENS Ethereum Name Service | −85.3% | A$37 → A$5.43 | 12 months | -91.6% |
 PUMP Pump.fun | −85.3% | A$0.0118 → A$0.00173 | 12 months | -57.6% |
 TIA Celestia | −85.2% | A$2.75 → A$0.4056 | 12 months | -98.0% |
 ADA Cardano | −85.2% | A$1.4 → A$0.2083 | 12 months | -91.9% |
 IOTA IOTA | −84.9% | A$0.2967 → A$0.0449 | 12 months | -99.0% |
 DOT Polkadot | −84.7% | A$6.88 → A$1.05 | 12 months | -97.9% |
 SUI Sui | −84.3% | A$5.91 → A$0.9248 | 12 months | -84.1% |
 RAY Raydium | −84.3% | A$5.05 → A$0.7925 | 12 months | -87.4% |
 AVAX Avalanche | −84.3% | A$53.43 → A$8.41 | 12 months | -92.7% |
 SPX SPX6900 | −84.3% | A$2.42 → A$0.3804 | 12 months | -82.3% |
 VET VeChain | −84.2% | A$0.0394 → A$0.00621 | 12 months | -96.6% |
 ILV Illuvium | −84.0% | A$24.63 → A$3.94 | 12 months | -99.8% |
 STX Stacks | −83.8% | A$1.05 → A$0.1695 | 12 months | -92.6% |
 FET Artificial Superintelligence Alliance | −83.3% | A$1.02 → A$0.1702 | 12 months | -94.8% |
 PYTH Pyth Network | −83.3% | A$0.264 → A$0.0441 | 12 months | -95.0% |
 FIL Filecoin | −83.1% | A$5.3 → A$0.8951 | 11 months | -99.6% |
 MANA Decentraland | −83.0% | A$0.5243 → A$0.089 | 12 months | -98.6% |
 LDO Lido DAO | −82.8% | A$2.03 → A$0.3481 | 12 months | -94.7% |
 GRASS Grass | −82.5% | A$1.43 → A$0.2488 | 12 months | -89.5% |
 INJ Injective | −82.3% | A$22.35 → A$3.97 | 12 months | -86.1% |
 FLOKI FLOKI | −82.1% | A$0.000158 → A$0.0000282 | 12 months | -92.5% |
 PENDLE Pendle | −82.0% | A$8 → A$1.44 | 12 months | -69.1% |
 CRO Cronos | −81.9% | A$0.3593 → A$0.0649 | 12 months | -92.9% |
 CHZ Chiliz | −81.9% | A$0.0929 → A$0.0168 | 8.2 months | -98.0% |
 AAVE Aave | −81.6% | A$469 → A$86.52 | 12 months | -76.8% |
Top 50 of 134 coins with a full year of our records, ranked by deepest fall. Stablecoins and tokenised gold excluded — a peg holding steady is not a drawdown. Recomputed each daily rebuild.
How to actually use this
Not as a shopping list — the deepest faller is not "due" for a rebound, and the coin at a fresh high is not "proven". Use it as a stress test on the only variable you control: position size. Take what you are considering investing, multiply by the falls in this table, and ask whether you would have held through that number without selling. If the honest answer is no, the position is too big — not because the coin is wrong, but because a plan you abandon at the bottom is the one reliable way to turn volatility into permanent loss. The correlation study shows these falls mostly arrive together, the portfolio tracker puts your own numbers on it, and the readiness quiz asks the question directly.
FAQ
What exactly is a drawdown?
The fall from a peak to the lowest point that followed it, measured in percent. A 60% drawdown means that if you had bought at the high, your position was worth 40% of what you paid at the worst moment. It is the honest measure of what holding an asset actually felt like — far more informative than an annual return, which quietly skips the part where you wanted to be sick.
Why measure this over 12 months rather than all time?
Because our own daily AUD records cover the past year, and we only publish numbers we hold the data for. All-time drawdowns for most coins are considerably worse — the majors have historically fallen 70–90% from cycle peaks, and the coins in our graveyard fell 100%.
Does a big drawdown mean a coin is bad?
No — and a small one does not mean a coin is good. Deep drawdowns are the standing condition of this asset class, including for its most successful assets. What the number tells you is what you would have needed to sit through, which is a question about you rather than the coin.
How is "time underwater" calculated?
Days since that coin's highest daily close in our 12-month window. It answers a question the price chart hides: how long the market has spent failing to reclaim its own best moment. Assets can be underwater for years — Bitcoin itself has spent multi-year stretches below a previous high.
Computed from our own daily AUD closing records (market data by CoinGecko) over the trailing 12 months; all-time-high comparisons use CoinGecko's recorded highs. Past drawdowns do not predict future ones — they describe what already happened. General information only, not financial advice.