The altcoin market, which is valued at over $879 billion on the time of this writing, is poised for its subsequent main leg up towards its earlier all-time excessive of almost $1.2 trillion, in keeping with crypto dealer and market analyst Michaël van de Poppe.
The Total3 market cap, which tracks the entire market capitalization of your complete crypto token ecosystem, excluding Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH), has maintained crucial assist across the $784 billion stage, Van De Poppe stated.
The worth of Total3 can be inching again towards the 365-day shifting common, one other crucial assist stage, in keeping with TradingView knowledge.
In October, the Total3 hit an all-time excessive of almost $1.2 trillion, however shortly retraced after a historic market crash rocked digital belongings, inflicting the entire altcoin market cap to say no by about 33% in a single day.
Traders, merchants, and analysts try to gauge the potential begin of the following altseason, a interval of sustained altcoin value appreciation, following a disappointing 2025 marked by adjustments to crypto market dynamics and historic patterns.
Associated: Are altcoins coming again? Why ‘Bitcoin season’ has endurance in 2026
Traders waited patiently in 2025, however altseason by no means arrived
Traders usually rotated BTC beneficial properties into higher-risk altcoins throughout the latter components of earlier crypto market cycles, which had been pushed, partially, by Bitcoin’s four-year cycle principle.
Nevertheless, after a disappointing 2025 for BTC, which noticed the yearly candle shut pink — a historic first for BTC in a post-halving yr, the 4-year cycle principle has been invalidated, in keeping with analysts.
The variety of cryptocurrencies has additionally grown considerably. There are over 29 million listed cash on CoinMarketCap, all competing for restricted investor capital and a focus.
The proliferation of altcoins has saturated the market, with too many tokens, stopping altseason from kicking off, in keeping with some crypto analysts.
Analysts additionally say the launch of crypto exchange-traded funds (ETFs) modified market dynamics by creating liquidity siloes for digital belongings with an ETF that stored funds locked and never freely flowing inside the crypto ecosystem.
This prevented capital from any potential Bitcoin beneficial properties or different tokens from being rotated into altcoins and dampened the altseason part of the market cycle that seasoned crypto merchants had come to anticipate.
Journal: Altcoin season 2025 is nearly right here… however the guidelines have modified
