Altseason when it starts

Our experts told us why it is too early to talk about the start of general growth of altcoins (Altseason) other than Bitcoin and Ethereum. And what market conditions are needed for this.

The former head of BitMEX crypto exchange Arthur Hayes, known for his analytical forecasts on the cryptocurrency markets, announced the onset of the next Altseason. At the same time, he pointed to the sharp growth of Ethereum as the basis of his assumption.

Altcoin season (Altseason)  is a slang term for cryptocurrency traders that refers to a period of active one-time growth of alternative cryptocurrencies. Altcoin season is thought to take place in four phases: the rise of Bitcoin, the rise of Ethereum, the rise of large-capitalized cryptocurrencies, and the massive growth of the rest of the crypto market. This includes low-liquid assets with no fundamental value. Which is accompanied by a massive rush by retail traders.

Our experts told us why it’s too early to talk about an altcoin season and what market conditions are needed for it to start.

Altseason hasn’t started yet

Despite numerous claims that an “Altseason” has started in the digital asset market, our experts cannot agree.

Since the start of this year, Bitcoin’s (BTC) dominance has seriously increased. And at the moment, it shows no signs of decreasing. In general, Bitcoin has shown one of the most consistent dynamics in the cryptocurrency market since January. While the standard model of market behavior in the period of altcoin growth is the presence of BTC rate in a medium-term “sideways”. And without a strong rise or fall, and currently the medium-term uptrend on BTC is too confident for “Altseason”.

As for altcoins themselves, we can notice that there is no active capitalization growth there. Individual low-capitalized assets are “growing.” But this is not an indicator of the altcoin season, it only speaks to the local interest of participants in these assets.

The TOTAL2 index, which measures the growth of the total market capitalization of all altcoins (not including Bitcoin), is very slightly ahead of the total market capitalization index (TOTAL). This indicator shows that there is no multiple growth in demand for altcoins.

An important factor of Altseason is also the growth of the volume and number of transactions in the networks. As well as the growth of developer activity and audience activity. Again, we see growth of these indicators in individual assets. For example, in Ethereum, which had a successful fork allowing to take tokens from stacking. But overall, we are not seeing multiples of growth in investor and developer activity right now. After strong growth in January and February, the market is now looking for some balance. Which again does not signal that we have started an altcoin season.

When to expect growth

Our experts think that such a season is quite possible this year. But not before the second half of the year. The cryptocurrency market is still gathering energy for growth. And although we passed the bottom at the end of last year, the market has not yet reversed upwards: it takes time.

The growth season for cryptocurrencies, including altcoins, will start with the stabilization of stock markets. For that, there needs to be no geopolitical shocks. And also there were no problems such as still ongoing problems with banks in the U.S. and Europe. And also there were no predictions of an imminent global recession, and there are more and more of them.