Bitcoin sitting pretty with a +5% green candle while the altcoin market got absolutely hammered—down 40%. What's really going on here?

This kind of divergence tells you something. When BTC pumps but alts crater, it usually means capital is rotating hard into the perceived safer bet. Investors pulling liquidity from riskier plays and parking it in the king of crypto. Classic risk-off behavior in action.

A few things typically drive this:

First, macro headwinds hit alts harder. They're the leverage plays, the speculative bets. When uncertainty creeps in, people dump those first.

Second, if there's profit-taking on BTC gains, sure—but that dry powder often doesn't rush straight back into altcoins. It sits on sidelines or moves into stablecoins.

Third—and this matters—institutional money usually flows to Bitcoin first. Alts get the retail wave later, if at all.

The 45% gap between BTC and alts? That's worth watching. Could mean we're entering a consolidation phase where only the blue chips hold value. Or it could be the setup before alts make their own recovery run. History says alts tend to lag but eventually catch up when sentiment shifts.