Swyftx Squawk 🦜 Altseason Come And Gone?

What if I told you we just had another altseason? Would you be disappointed, angry, regretful?  

Or would you be satisfied with your portfolio’s performance? 

It’s a touchy topic, altseason. Many hold the expectation that the state of play we have seen in previous crypto cycles – days of wild swings and moons – is still loading. And if you have been in altcoins these last few years, there’s been a common theme of prices warming up, but failing to boil over.  

So where are we in the grand scheme of things? Has altseason already come and gone? 

While nobody has a crystal ball, there are a few key data points we can digest. 

Let’s dig in.  

Relative Performance vs Bitcoin 

I’ll start this journey with an index curated by the fine folks at Coinglass that shows – and don’t shoot the messenger – the altseason ship might have already sailed yet again.  

Now this index uses a blend of data points like market capitalisation ratios, volumes, volatility and social media sentiment. You can read more about it here. With this data it then creates a relative strength comparison against Bitcoin, measuring altcoin performance relative to the past.  

Looking at the data, the relative performance we’ve seen in altcoins is like what we saw in December 2024. Which is notably when we last saw local tops across many altcoins.  

But it’s not all doom and gloom. We can dive deeper to learn more about the current state of play in the altcoin market, to hopefully unveil a glimmer of hope. 

Trading Dominance 

Another way to understand altcoin price trends is to measure the demand in derivative markets.  

Using open interest as a metric, we can understand how concentrated the markets’ focus has been on altcoins. A simple way to read this chart is to look back in time to periods of strong altcoin dominance and how it correlated to previous altcoin tops.  

The data paints a very similar picture to the Coinglass Altcoin Season Index – altcoin exposure is running hot.  

It’s a setup that looks a lot like December 2024, when altcoin dominance in derivatives markets, shown as Others (the reddish spikes) above, pushed past Bitcoin. Now again this is looking at leveraged positions– and remember altcoins are already highly volatile – sowith more leverage now stacked behind them, any shift in market dynamics could easily wipe out these traders. 

Okay, let’s take a breath. We’ve now seen two data points that seemingly conclude the market is potentially overextended in altcoins currently.  

But is there more to the story? Or is this just what an altseason looks like now?  

Well… that’s not the way I see it. Let’s zoom out. 

Chart of the week: Bitcoin and Altcoin Capitalisation Milestones  

The charts we looked at before seem very telling – but there are many approaches you can take with data. Below, we’re going to look at money currently parked in altcoins, using ticker TOTSL3ES on TradingView, for those playing along at home. 

Now, the previous data points have been great at telling us altcoin performance relative to the recent past, and how concentrated risk is in altcoins, it doesn’t give us that 10,000 ft view. They don’t really give us the bigger picture.  

And that’s what we can use this chart to understand.  

If we follow Bitcoin (red line), history shows us a clear pattern that breaking past an all-time high sets in motion a multi-month uptrend until a new top is set.   

And we’ve seen the same story play out with altcoins. Each time the total market cap of altcoins has broken its previous all-time high, it has paved the way for another record high soon after.  

It’s under these conditions that we’ve seen periods often referred to as ‘altseasons’ play out.  

When you view the market through this lens, it’s clear why many in the community aren’t satisfied. Bitcoin has already blown through this milestone, yet altcoins are still hanging under that prior milestone level. 

So, the question becomes which camp are you in? Do you: 

1. Believe history repeats itself. Altcoins will eventually break their old highs and kick off another strong uptrend, and we finally see the altseason everyone has been waiting for.  

2. Believe this time is different. That altcoins just aren’t the same as what they used to be, and we may never see a new all-time high again.  

At the end of the day, markets don’t move in straight lines, and narratives can shift faster than most expect.  

Whether you lean toward history repeating or believe the game has changed, the only real constant is uncertainty.  

That’s why doing your own research, sticking to your convictions, and managing the risks in your portfolio are paramount. Bitcoin is volatile, but altcoins are like rocket fuel. Sure, they have historically had the potential to accelerate portfolio gains – but few talk about they may burn you on the way up. 

 Swyftx Flows 

The buy-to-sell ratio for unique Swyftx orders is nominally >$20,000 AUD (rolling data over the last 7 days, captured at 09:00 am AEST).