XRP and cardano (ADA) prices slid for a second straight day as traders eased off riskier alternative cryptocurrencies, with no major token in the green. Both fell as much as 3%.

Losses in ADA came even as on-chain data analytics tool Santiment reported that development activity on Cardano was the highest among all networks in the past month, surpassing Polkadot and Kusama. Bnb (BNB) fell 1.2% amid concerns of a major liquidation on Venus Protocol, a lending and borrowing platform built on BNB Chain.

Bitcoin and ether remained little changed over the past 24 hours, data from CoinGecko shows, with few catalysts to lift markets. Broader equity markets and indexes extended gains, with Nasdaq futures signaling further advances in U.S. tech shares after Monday’s rally, Bloomberg reported.

A bump in mentions of “buy the dip,” a dictum among traders referring to purchasing assets that are discounted relative to fundamentals, on social media forums flattened out amid the sideways price action.

“We saw a huge rise in ‘buy the dip’ mentions. This indicates that trader optimism was quite high that there would be a quick market recovery,” Santiment said in a Monday note. “But looks at how the wishful thinking has died down considerably in the past few days.”

The firm scraped data from Reddit, X, Telegram and 4Chan for the findings. Falling mentions meant traders were no longer certain of a market recovery and that “pessimism was beginning to take over again as market caps fade,” it said.

Professional traders were, however, likely to utilize sophisticated instruments such as futures and options to make returns, analysts at crypto exchange Bitfinex shared with CoinDesk in a note.

“Data suggests that long volatility strategies have been deployed extensively over the weekend after the price crashed below the $25,000 level,” the analysts wrote. “In turbulent times, traders might expect high volatility to continue and use options strategies (like straddles or strangles) to profit from this.”