Regarding the issue of "altcoin season", I think it can be analyzed from the following perspectives:
First, we have to clarify what "altcoin season" means. Everyone may understand it differently, but in my opinion, the altcoin season refers to a period when a large number of high-quality altcoins appear in the market, grow rapidly and attract funds. This period is often accompanied by the rise of Bitcoin, and altcoins gain rapid opportunities to rise as the market heat and capital inflows of Bitcoin.
Looking back at the past market conditions, for example, from September 2023 to March 2024, Bitcoin rose from 25,000 to 71,000, an increase of nearly three times. During this period, altcoins performed very strongly, especially in the early stage of Bitcoin's rise. The altcoins here, represented by SEI, TIA, WLD, OM, and Inscription series, have mostly increased by more than 10 times, and many new projects and new narratives have become hot spots in the market, attracting a lot of funds.
However, from early August to late December 2024, this wave of market conditions is different from the previous one. Although Bitcoin has doubled from 50,000 to 108,000, the performance of this wave of altcoins is obviously sluggish. The flow of funds has begun to diverge, Bitcoin's increase is relatively small, and the popularity of altcoins has also greatly decreased.
Except for some relatively mature currencies (such as SUI, XRP, PUNT, ACT, etc.), and old DeFi projects have performed slightly, but compared with the previous wave of "altcoin season", this wave of altcoin market has obviously fewer dark horse projects.
From a macro perspective, I think the performance of the future altcoin season will be closely related to the trend of Bitcoin, especially the flow of funds. As funds from compliant channels continue to flow into Bitcoin, the altcoins in the secondary market will be mainly dominated by retail investors and hot money in the circle.
For new institutions, they tend to only choose projects that they can participate in, and will not buy other projects casually. Therefore, the inflow of funds and participation in the altcoin market have declined compared with the past.
