Altseason: Is it coming or not? And if so, when?

Many in the crypto market tirelessly ask: when will altseason finally come? Let's honestly analyze not speculation and guesswork, but the facts and factors that could lead to market movement toward alts.

We will also examine the opinions of popular crypto enthusiasts to form the most comprehensive picture.

When is altseason according to the crypto community?

The 6 sources below provide their arguments in favor of altseason occurring in the 2026-2028 range. Let's look at their reasoning.

Overall, those who believe in the upcoming altseason argue that it will be driven by a new business cycle, monetary policy easing, and BTC reaching a new ATH above $120k. This should trigger a new peak of euphoria in the market and breathe life into altcoins.

Now let's look at the bearish assessments.

Many analysts agree that the classic altseason scenario has been nullified due to changes in the cycle structure. We only saw a minor local altseason for a small number of projects (Zcash, BNB, Hyperliquid). The market entered a bear market in late 2025, and now a long consolidation period (at least a year) is needed to accumulate strength for a new push.

Now let's look at what crypto exchanges think. Although they may have a conflict of interest – giving a positive forecast to attract users.

According to our research, forecasts regarding prices or the start of altseason from crypto exchanges should not be trusted because they are interested in attracting traders.

Most exchanges gave forecasts for 2025 or early 2026. The others spoke cautiously about 'possible altseason for selective altcoins'.

In turn, our editor Pavel Grachev came to the conclusion that massive bullish hype will occur between late 2026 and mid-2027. The expected market capitalization will be $6.5–7 trillion, and this will allow BTC to reach $200,000–250,000, and ETH to reach $7,500–8,500.

The drivers will be the US midterm elections, institutional inflow via ETFs, and Fed policy easing.

Altseason according to bytwork.com

In our opinion, blindly following the old cycles (BTC -> ETH -> alts) is 'dead,' because the market has evolved and become more like traditional finance (TradFi). It is no longer the small and cozy market that grew in previous cycles. And 4-year cycles have changed towards lengthening.

At the same time, the global landscape has changed, including geopolitics and the AI race. To more accurately understand the possibility of altseason, one needs to understand the market structure and what shapes it.

How does the noise around AI divert interest from crypto?

AI is the main competitor for investor attention and liquidity. Probably, altseason in the old sense will not happen yet due to AI hype.

Retail liquidity is now limited and flows into the trendier AI sector, leaving crypto as a 'dead zone' for now. Historically, people have been screaming about an AI bubble since 2023, but the point is that the noise about AI, whether as a bubble or as a future technology, further increases interest in neural networks.

Previously, people went to altcoins for super returns. Now attention has shifted to stocks like Nvidia, which show explosive growth. Convenient tools for speculation have also appeared (e.g., futures on AI sector stocks), allowing one to play on growth without even touching crypto.

How does the number of cryptocurrencies dilute interest?

There are more than 30 million tokens in the crypto market, of which only 9-13 thousand (0.04%) have real trading. The number of junk tokens grows by thousands daily, and this dilutes overall interest. This is because every project tries to grab a piece of liquidity for itself.

For comparison, in 2017 there were less than 10,000 tokens on the market, by 2021 there were 100,000, and now their number exceeds 30 million (including those that are not traded at all).

The math is simple. In 2017, $1 million distributed across the entire market gave $100 per token, and now that amount turns into less than 3 cents per token. Because of this, liquidity simply cannot cover such a number of assets to cause their simultaneous growth, called altseason.

Most crypto aggregators can no longer cover such a number of coins, so you can see different estimates of their quantity. From 9,000 to 29,000. New projects are added daily and dead ones are removed.

Moreover, many investors have become accustomed to quick trades (via Pump.Fun and memecoins), which killed the previous patient altseason that lasted for months. Now pumps will be short, sharp, and selective. In confirmation, local growth was seen in BNB, Tron, Hype, XMR, ZEC, and XRP, which quickly collapsed.

Many claim that 'whales are just accumulating.' If so, great, but this should be backed by deep on-chain analysis, not as an excuse for losing positions. Let's try to conduct an analysis.

When will altseason begin?

To forecast altseason, we need to look at the market structure through its most important indicators for the onset of hype. These are liquidity injection into the economy, the crisis of crypto ideas, institutional investors, and ISM PMI indicators.

ISM PMI Indicators

The crypto market does not live on its own, but depends on the global economy. The Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) measures economic expansion or contraction. A value above 50 means economic expansion, and below 50 means slowdown. Historically, strong altseasons only began after the ISM index started to rise. Both in 2017 and 2021, the biggest altseason began after the ISM exceeded 55%:

We have not yet reached 55%. But this is the first sign that the macroeconomic factors blocking altseason have begun to weaken. That's how it all starts.

Crypto analyst Raoul Pal believes that the absence of altseason is solely explained by the depressed state of the business cycle (ISM < 50). The index was below 50 for more than 32 months (a record period since 1948!).

Simply put, when the business cycle is strong, corporate and investor incomes grow, and they begin to invest these funds in riskier assets (and further along the 'risk curve'). However, the business activity index is not the only factor.

The role of quantitative easing (QE) and liquidity

Quantitative easing (QE) is a process by which the Federal Reserve (Fed) adds liquidity to the financial system. Simply put, the printing press, making money expensive or cheap.

When money is expensive (high rates, strong dollar, leverage is punished), capital flows out of alts. But with liquidity expansion and increased risk appetite, they gain support.

This is not just theory. This is confirmed by the altseasons of 2017 (against a backdrop of easy conditions) and 2020–2021 (zero rates and stimulus).

Easy liquidity does not guarantee altseason either, but it creates the necessary market breadth for it. Our bullish argument is not about the magical return of altseason, but that a favorable macro environment can bring back the conditions that made it possible in the past.

The role of institutional investors

Although many institutional investors invest only in Bitcoin and do not buy alts, they were never the driving force of altseason. They move Bitcoin itself, but not altcoins.

If macro conditions ease and risk appetite returns, capital will flow into alts not from funds, but from crypto-native players - traders, market makers, capable of moving down the risk curve.

Altseason is not a decision of one player, but a chain reaction driven by a confluence of factors. Bitcoin's maturity does not kill the risk curve, but merely changes the early part of the cycle, as we showed in our study of BTC cycles.

Crisis of crypto ideas?

The bears' claim that cryptocurrencies have run out of ideas is not new. The crypto market is a sandbox where altcoins serve as a testing ground for experiments, unlike conservative Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Yes, 90% of projects die, but the remaining 10% define the next trends. Sectors may change over time - whether AI, RWA (real-world assets), gaming, privacy, or something else - but the behavior remains the same.

Regulation is also important for these sectors. For example, the Clarity Act aims to create a clear regulatory framework for digital assets and cryptocurrencies. But it has not yet been adopted due to disputes over DeFi, stablecoins, and ethical issues.

Again, if regulation becomes more favorable, it does not guarantee altseason, but it opens the path for new ideas to enter the market. And where builders go, capital usually follows.

The next altseason – harsh reality

The harsh reality is that most altcoins will never recover. Given the endless number of coins created each cycle, it is mathematically impossible for every altcoin from past bull cycles to rise to new highs again.

Here you can see that only a small portion of altcoins show gains every 3 months: Altcoin Season Index

It is impossible to know which coins will survive and which will not. One can guess that large ones like ETH or Solana might recover, but even quality projects like Avalanche failed to update their all-time highs in the last cycle.

Fundamental analysis cannot predict a comeback. Why? Because you cannot rely on fundamentals, as growth is caused by a complex combination of momentum, market making, team behavior, and seller pressure - all of which are impossible to research and often subject to insider trading.

This is the harsh truth that many refuse to accept, but it is inevitable: mathematically, most old coins will not return to their peaks.

As a result, for growth to resume, 5 macroeconomic conditions need to be met:

1. a drop in the DXY dollar index below 94 (current - 97-99),
2. a reduction in the Fed rate below 2.5% (current - 3.5%),
3. return of liquidity,
4. sustained inflation drop to 2% (current - 2.4%), and
5. a drop in Bitcoin dominance.

It is important not just to guess, but to analyze open interest in coins and the market as a whole through Coinglass, Dropstab, DefiLlama, Nansen.

Conclusions

Why hasnt there been an altseason? Spot Bitcoin ETFs ($767 million weekly inflow in March 2025) have captured institutional capital, preventing it from flowing into altcoins. The Feds balance sheet has shrunk by $2.2–$2.4 trillion from June 2022 to December 2025, drying up liquidity. US trade tariffs have risen to 7.7% (a high not seen since 1947), fueling inflation and blocking any easing of Fed policy. Additionally, the growing number of coins and the AI hype are also diluting interest.

The upcoming altseason will be more selective than in 2017 or 2021. Cryptocurrency has left the easy mode when everything grew indiscriminately.

These are the conclusions of the altcoin market research:

And why did everything collapse? Large players who used to supply liquidity to the 'long tail' of altcoins went bankrupt after the FTX and Luna collapse. And new infrastructure never appeared. Mentions of the term altseason on social media have fallen to a 2-year low. New retail investors simply are not coming to the market.

The problem with blog assessments is that many analysts never have a point where they admit they are wrong. They just keep promising growth to not lose views and monetization. It is profitable for exchanges and market makers to promise growth regardless of whether it actually happens or not.

In the current market structure, the inflow of capital via ETFs reduces the likelihood of rotation into alts, creating a risk of apathy without repeating historical return patterns.

4 main signals have already changed, repeating patterns from 8-10 years ago:

1. The business activity index (ISM) has been rising for 2 months.
2. The downtrend in the altcoin/bitcoin pair has been broken.
3. Signals have appeared regarding Bitcoin dominance.
4. Mass apathy and despondency ahead of the next possible growth cycle.

However, it is important to understand that the appearance of these signals is not yet a guarantee of an immediate start of altseason. It only indicates the possibility of its beginning in the future.

To resume the bullish trend and a new altseason, the market may need Bitcoin to fall to $30,000–$40,000 (25% below the average cost basis of long-term holders) followed by a rapid rise to $200,000. This will provide the necessary volatility and inflow of retail investors.

Overall, on the negative side, it can be noted that there are more than 30 million tokens on the market, of which only 9-13 thousand are traded, but liquidity is too diluted among them.

If altseason does return in 2026-2027, it will be 'selective' – not all coins will grow indiscriminately, but only projects with real yield or the strongest narratives.

Speculative capital is now moving to other instruments: prediction markets (Polymarket/Kalshi), stock futures, or the AI sector, which has become a stronger narrative than crypto.

Also gaining traction are RWA projects, a bit of DePIN, and of course the ubiquitous Hyperliquid with its system of betting against the market.

In turn, the change in the macroeconomic regime (transition from QT to QE and growth in business activity) will be the catalyst that will allow altcoins to stop falling against bitcoin.

Ultimately, we have seen many times that after a prolonged correction, altseason starts again. From this perspective, the question should be not whether it will happen, but when it will happen and in what form.

A true bottom and subsequent growth are possible only after the complete capitulation of average traders and the death of hope, when investors stop waiting for moonshots.

Also relying on the opinions of analysts, exchanges, influencers, and the entire crypto community, we can conclude that altseason usually begins when no one believes in it anymore. Well, we'll live and see.

Happy trading! Your editor - Maxim Anisimov for bytwork.com.

This material is for informational purposes only and is not financial advice.