When would be the real Altcoin Season?

[Cryptoddler]

We’ve seen mini-runs, isolated pumps, and short-lived hype cycles — but when will the real Altcoin Season actually begin? You know, the one where midcaps go 10x, narratives rotate weekly, and everything starts decoupling from BTC?

Some say we need:

    ✅ BTC dominance to peak and roll over

    ✅ MVRV Z-Score to hit red zones (indicating BTC top)

    ✅ Fresh retail liquidity entering the market

    ✅ A macro green light (rate cuts, QE, etc)

    ✅ Strong narrative catalysts (AI, RWAs, L2 wars, etc)

Others argue that alt season doesn’t come unless BTC first shows sustained strength and then cools off while ETH and others rotate.

So I’m curious:

🔹 What metrics or conditions do you look for as altseason signals?
🔹 Do you think we’re close — or is it still months away?
🔹 Could this cycle be different, where BTC and ETH dominance stay high and only selective alt narratives pump?

Let’s get your thoughts. Charts, indicators, historical references — all welcome.
Let’s try to crowdsource a better framework for timing this beast 🧠

[Charles-Tim]

We have discussed about this many times on the altcoins discussion board of this forum but some people against me that there will still be altseason. Also I have saw on X, news and some online places that there is still altseason coming. Do not be deceived by these, there is no altseason that is coming until next 4 year cycle because 2024 was the altseason.

[ultrloa]

We have discussed about this many times on the altcoins discussion board of this forum but some people against me that there will still be altseason. Also I have saw on X, news and some online places that there is still altseason coming. Do not be deceived by these, there is no altseason that is coming until next 4 year cycle because 2024 was the altseason.

I guess the altcoin seasoned happened in that year didn't get much great effect on the whole altcoin ecosystem since somehow Bitcoin still dominant at that year.

Won't be to negative about current situation but let see if the altcoin season index will hit above 70% above and ETH will lead on then provably that we would see a altcoin season this year. But it seems that situation might hard to achieve especially that people are so focus on Bitcoin. Also there's lots of things happen on it that's why I believe that it will became more dominant compare to other alts out there.

[Charles-Tim]

I guess the altcoin seasoned happened in that year didn't get much great effect on the whole altcoin ecosystem since somehow Bitcoin still dominant at that year.

Institutions are not getting into crypto to gamble like people in the past that wants to invest in crypto. The institutions are the ones that are getting in now most and they are going for good coins and not most altcoins. 2024 can be easy to be known as altseason because many coins pumped 25x or more on centralized exchanges. You can check the price of Pepe, Floki, WIF, Bonk and many others. The last coins that pumped were the old coins like Dash, Ripple and some other coins but many among them did not go more than 5x or maybe more like Ripple.

Won't be to negative about current situation but let see if the altcoin season index will hit above 70% above and ETH will lead on then provably that we would see a altcoin season this year. But it seems that situation might hard to achieve especially that people are so focus on Bitcoin. Also there's lots of things happen on it that's why I believe that it will became more dominant compare to other alts out there.

Ether was so disappointing this season. It did not even get to all-time high. This shows how bitcoin is mimicking gold while altcoins mimicking other assets like ether for silver. People will focus more on bitcoin while altcoins will disappoint at anytime.

[asriloni]

So I’m curious:

🔹 What metrics or conditions do you look for as altseason signals?
🔹 Do you think we’re close — or is it still months away?
🔹 Could this cycle be different, where BTC and ETH dominance stay high and only selective alt narratives pump?

Let’s get your thoughts. Charts, indicators, historical references — all welcome.
Let’s try to crowdsource a better framework for timing this beast 🧠

1. BTC/USDT dominance. This is always working because when altseason comes, Bitcoin/USDT dominance willl be dumping so hard.

2. I don't think we're closer to the alt season. There's nothing happen in the market and we may be in the side way cycle.

3. That could, why not? This time only some alts which are following the trend that gets pumped. The rest were just getting stuck at bottom like nothing happened.

[pooya87]

Lets first see what is altseason and most importantly why it happens. It can tell us when it is going to happen if we do that.

Altseason is when a large amount of money keeps being injected into the altcoin market every day for a long period of time going into a large number of various altcoin projects pumping each of them up.

But where would that money come from and why should it be injected into altcoins?
We all know altcoins are largely useless in the real world and if we look at previous massive altseasons we can see that the money comes from the bitcoin market. Meaning when bitcoin has a very long and large bull market (eg. 2017) the constant introduction of newcomers into the "crypto world" is bringing in a lot of money. Some of which goes into the altcoins.

We haven't had any long and large bitcoin bull markets like the past yet. This means not enough money (newbies) are coming in to invest into the useless pump and dump market known as altcoins. This is why there has been no major altseason for a very long time.
The only way we can have that is if bitcoin starts rising up and keeps setting new ATH like 2017.

[Mrbluntzy]

Why does this question keeps arising repeatedly on this board? OP, if you had taken your time to read through this board before posting, you will come across not less than three topics asking same question and you could also see the answers you want from the comments on those topics. With my little knowledge, there's not altcoin season that is coming, if we are still in the bull season, every coins that have intentions of pumping will do but if not, nothing. Is there any historic data of past altcoin seasons? If there is, I would love to have a look at it, so that I can understand better.

[kotajikikox]

We have discussed about this many times on the altcoins discussion board of this forum but some people against me that there will still be altseason. Also I have saw on X, news and some online places that there is still altseason coming. Do not be deceived by these, there is no altseason that is coming until next 4 year cycle because 2024 was the altseason.

To be fair the question was just about the metric we use. We can say that during an altcoin season, there are booming new projects and the existing ones are all doing well. It’s not an altcoin season if only one altcoin is pumping and the rest is stale. Answering this question does not mean we are in an altcoin season or that there will ever be this year. We didn’t really see one last year so expectations are down.

[el kaka22]

Near the end of the year or start of next year. That is when the price of bitcoin will peak and start to fall, because altcoins go up when the bitcoin price starts to drop. How is that connected? People end up buying bitcoin when they think it will go up, so they do not invest into alts, the price of alts go up in a sense when bitcoin goes up considering they are tied to that, but they do not move that much.

However, if we look at the reverse, when bitcoin starts to fall, because people believe that we are going to end up lower price and that means we are going to face a lot of tasks, and should not be easy at all. So if bitcoin price goes down, where will they put the money in? Altcoins and that would be a lot better.

[ndutndut]

Near the end of the year or start of next year. That is when the price of bitcoin will peak and start to fall, because altcoins go up when the bitcoin price starts to drop. How is that connected? People end up buying bitcoin when they think it will go up, so they do not invest into alts, the price of alts go up in a sense when bitcoin goes up considering they are tied to that, but they do not move that much.

However, if we look at the reverse, when bitcoin starts to fall, because people believe that we are going to end up lower price and that means we are going to face a lot of tasks, and should not be easy at all. So if bitcoin price goes down, where will they put the money in? Altcoins and that would be a lot better.

This cycle pattern is indeed a little different, bitcoin has reached its latest ATH before the halving occurred, before the halving occurred bitcoin had passed the previous ATH and now in the last few days bitcoin has also recorded a new ATH again. If asked when the altcoin season will occur? maybe it happened last year, yes it is not like previous altcoins. This is just a personal opinion. Or it could be like you said maybe at the end of this year, we can only speculate but still be careful. Because basically, why can there be an altcoin season? The answer is because there is a rotation of assets from Bitcoin that has reached ATH to altcoins that have not reached ATH. But what you said also makes sense.

[cryptotact11]

Near the end of the year or start of next year. That is when the price of bitcoin will peak and start to fall, because altcoins go up when the bitcoin price starts to drop. How is that connected? People end up buying bitcoin when they think it will go up, so they do not invest into alts, the price of alts go up in a sense when bitcoin goes up considering they are tied to that, but they do not move that much.

However, if we look at the reverse, when bitcoin starts to fall, because people believe that we are going to end up lower price and that means we are going to face a lot of tasks, and should not be easy at all. So if bitcoin price goes down, where will they put the money in? Altcoins and that would be a lot better.

No, that is not likely to happen. A lot of people lost money from altcoins in past years, it is better to exit to a stablecoin and buy Bitcoin lower than to risk losing your money in random projects.

This cycle pattern is indeed a little different, bitcoin has reached its latest ATH before the halving occurred, before the halving occurred bitcoin had passed the previous ATH and now in the last few days bitcoin has also recorded a new ATH again. If asked when the altcoin season will occur? maybe it happened last year, yes it is not like previous altcoins. This is just a personal opinion. Or it could be like you said maybe at the end of this year, we can only speculate but still be careful. Because basically, why can there be an altcoin season? The answer is because there is a rotation of assets from Bitcoin that has reached ATH to altcoins that have not reached ATH. But what you said also makes sense.

A pattern is not a pattern if its next iteration is different. The cycle theory has been left in the dust, and altcoins may never recover again.

[nelson4lov]

We have discussed about this many times on the altcoins discussion board of this forum but some people against me that there will still be altseason. Also I have saw on X, news and some online places that there is still altseason coming. Do not be deceived by these, there is no altseason that is coming until next 4 year cycle because 2024 was the altseason.

AFAIK, there was no alt season in 2024. Even 2024 was one of the worst for altcoins. I mean, even ETH failed to reach ATH and we know for a fact that there is no alt season without ETH leading the charge and we didn't have that last year.

As a matter of fact, I don't think we'd have full blown alt season like we did in past alt seasons (2017 and 2021).

[cryptotact11]

We have discussed about this many times on the altcoins discussion board of this forum but some people against me that there will still be altseason. Also I have saw on X, news and some online places that there is still altseason coming. Do not be deceived by these, there is no altseason that is coming until next 4 year cycle because 2024 was the altseason.

AFAIK, there was no alt season in 2024. Even 2024 was one of the worst for altcoins. I mean, even ETH failed to reach ATH and we know for a fact that there is no alt season without ETH leading the charge and we didn't have that last year.

As a matter of fact, I don't think we'd have full blown alt season like we did in past alt seasons (2017 and 2021).

I think he's trying to refer to the period after Trump got elected, where all alts rose significantly. But that can't be considered an alt season because they didn't go that high and they didn't stay high. It was pretty brief and since then things have only gone downhill.

[TastyChillySauce00]

BTC.D is just an indicator to show us that there's money rotating in the altcoin market from bitcoin, or it could be that the altcoin market is having huge inflow of captital.

As for the sign, actually there's no obvious sign except the altcoin market moving up in unison and all of them are having massive rally.
But there's no guarantee that altcoin will be the same, most of money that moves bitcoin are institutional money, they can't freely rotate to altcoin on their own, there will be legal implication.
Therefore i don't actually expect much honestly .

[Charles-Tim]

We have discussed about this many times on the altcoins discussion board of this forum but some people against me that there will still be altseason. Also I have saw on X, news and some online places that there is still altseason coming. Do not be deceived by these, there is no altseason that is coming until next 4 year cycle because 2024 was the altseason.

AFAIK, there was no alt season in 2024. Even 2024 was one of the worst for altcoins. I mean, even ETH failed to reach ATH and we know for a fact that there is no alt season without ETH leading the charge and we didn't have that last year.

As a matter of fact, I don't think we'd have full blown alt season like we did in past alt seasons (2017 and 2021).

I think he's trying to refer to the period after Trump got elected, where all alts rose significantly. But that can't be considered an alt season because they didn't go that high and they didn't stay high. It was pretty brief and since then things have only gone downhill.

I will also use this to quote nelson4lov.

Tron increased 10x and got to all-time high. Solana increased from $8 and in 2024/2025 it got to $295. Pepe increased more than 25 times. BNB got to all-time high. Ripple increased significantly up to January 2025. The old coins increased at least 5x but not all. People concentrated on memecoins and many of them significantly were pumping at the time. You can see how people's interests on memecoins has significantly reduced. You can see some coins like NOT increased. Also you can see ordinals and BRC20 increasing significantly, congesting the bitcoin blockchain which is now not congested at all. We have 2024 as the altseason. Do not expect all altcoins to pump as if we were in 2017 and 2021 because altcoins are too many now.

[Sim_card]

We have discussed about this many times on the altcoins discussion board of this forum but some people against me that there will still be altseason. Also I have saw on X, news and some online places that there is still altseason coming. Do not be deceived by these, there is no altseason that is coming until next 4 year cycle because 2024 was the altseason.

I guess the altcoin seasoned happened in that year didn't get much great effect on the whole altcoin ecosystem since somehow Bitcoin still dominant at that year.

Won't be to negative about current situation but let see if the altcoin season index will hit above 70% above and ETH will lead on then provably that we would see a altcoin season this year. But it seems that situation might hard to achieve especially that people are so focus on Bitcoin. Also there's lots of things happen on it that's why I believe that it will became more dominant compare to other alts out there.

Of course, due to different big tech firms, institutions and government buying bitcoin will make the price of bitcoin to keep dominating the market, because if people don't buy altcoins how will the price pump when we know that demand and supply is what controls the market. I feel that Etherum have failed in this circle to be influenced by bitcoin price movement. Therefore, I don't know if Etherum will lead the way for altcoins to follow.

[Z_MBFM]

Altcoins basically follow Bitcoin and when Bitcoin is pumped, Alts are also seen to increase and when Bitcoin price is down, Alts prices are seen to decrease by a lot. However, this year a slightly different picture has been seen, even though Bitcoin price has increased, the price of alts has not increased by much. And Bitcoin is now in a downtrend, so if Bitcoin price continues to decrease, then the price of alts will also continue to decrease by a lot. So it is not expected that much will be gained from alts this year or in this circle. However, some coins are sometimes seen pumping in good amounts, so if you can take risks, you can analyze the market and invest in those potential coins.

[pooya87]

Altcoins basically follow Bitcoin and when Bitcoin is pumped, Alts are also seen to increase and when Bitcoin price is down, Alts prices are seen to decrease by a lot. However, this year a slightly different picture has been seen, even though Bitcoin price has increased, the price of alts has not increased by much.

That was not new. This trend has been happening every time. When bitcoin goes up or down, the altcoins get dumped. It's been like this forever. The only time altcoins see consistent pumping is when bitcoin has a consistent rally that continues for a couple of months at least.

Take any old shitcoin like ETH. Back in 2017 because bitcoin's rally lasted for months it got pumped all the way to 0.15BTC. In 2018 the bitcoin bull run ended and market crashed so ETH got dumped too. But then in early 2019 the trend reversed and despite COVID19 recession bitcoin managed to reach its prevoius ATH at $20k by the end of 2020 and even set a new ATH at $64k in 4 months into 2021.

ETH and other shticoins could not even go back to their 2017 ATH let alone set a new ATH ever since 2017!
That's because in long term, altcoins always get dumped. If they have unlimited supply, their dump is even harder.

[nelson4lov]

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I will also use this to quote nelson4lov.

Tron increased 10x and got to all-time high. Solana increased from $8 and in 2024/2025 it got to $295. Pepe increased more than 25 times. BNB got to all-time high. Ripple increased significantly up to January 2025. The old coins increased at least 5x but not all. People concentrated on memecoins and many of them significantly were pumping at the time. You can see how people's interests on memecoins has significantly reduced. You can see some coins like NOT increased. Also you can see ordinals and BRC20 increasing significantly, congesting the bitcoin blockchain which is now not congested at all. We have 2024 as the altseason. Do not expect all altcoins to pump as if we were in 2017 and 2021 because altcoins are too many now.

Yup, good talk and I completely agree with you. We didn't have a full blown alt seasons like those years. The reason why I said what I said initially was because 2024 was also one of the worst years for alts. I mean, the dump on August 5th, 2024 wiped out most of those gains.

ETH and other shticoins could not even go back to their 2017 ATH let alone set a new ATH ever since 2017!
That's because in long term, altcoins always get dumped. If they have unlimited supply, their dump is even harder.

Couldn't have been said any better. The biggest scam of this bull cycle was the belief that ETH will hit a new ATH just like Bitcoin.

[bitgolden]

Might happen early 2026, ı agree on that, or very late 2025 like December. People are rushing too much into this, but in most cases it is not really that quick, just because we had some increases, doesn't mean we are going to keep going up forever, and we already had some profit, so we should be happy and be able to wait some more.

If we can do that then we are going to end up with a lot more money eventually, we just need to focus on holding. Too many people have hard time holding, so we need to realize holding isn't acceptable and we could be doing something much better if we just ignore all the risks and focus on just holding. Drops in price isn't as bad as you think, it would be still a good reason why we should make money by just holding.