The End of Altcoin Seasons? The Crypto Market Undergoes a Major Transformation

The crypto market is undergoing a significant transformation, causing uncertainty about the future of altcoins. Every year, people eagerly wait for an “altcoin season” to come

The crypto market has undergone a significant transformation over the years, leading to uncertainty about the future of altcoins. Every year, people eagerly await an “altcoin season,” a period when alternative cryptocurrencies experience a surge in value. However, the rapid increase in new tokens is leading some to believe that these parabolic market cycles could be coming to an end.

During previous altcoin seasons, the price of non-Bitcoin cryptocurrencies would rise substantially. The 2017-2018 cycle was a prime example, with coins like Ether (ETH), XRP, and Litecoin (LTC) experiencing unprecedented growth. But time has brought about a drastic change.

As Ali Martinez, a well-known crypto analyst, highlights, the crypto market has become an open world, evidenced by the total number of tangible coins increasing dramatically. “Today, there are over 36.4 million altcoins,” the industry expert proclaims, citing Dune Analytics figures. In contrast, there were nearly 3,000 altcoins during the 2017-2018 altseason, and the figure was even less than 500 in 2013-2014. Martinez believes that such a vast supply of tokens will surely impact market dynamics and may preclude a long-lasting altseason. Due to the ever growing number of options, it has become extremely difficult for investors to figure out the real value and potential of the coins and thus the coins which may grow.

Economist Alex Krüger shares a similar sentiment, emphasizing the way market behavior is influenced by the oversupply of tokens. He opines that “supply of tokens is greater than demand.” This imbalance runs counter to the idea of a time period in which “everything goes up” will be the case. Instead, altcoins are expected to experience shorter periods of duration, lasting only two to a few weeks at most. Krüger touches upon the difficulty encountered by the investors at present: “Being a good coin picker is now very hard. Just as being a good stock picker is also very hard.” The multitude of tokens available complicates the effectiveness of a portfolio manager.

Adding to the concern is the opinion of Ash Crypto, a pseudonymous crypto trader who discredits the spreading out of the altcoin market, blaming it on the meme coins and low-quality tokens that entered the market. The exchanges are criticized for the fact that these meme coins are listed mainly to increase the volume and user base, usually at the cost of the retail investors who suffer massive losses. Ash Crypto singled out this type of token, the price of which one week is $50 and another week, $10 in the negative, which is said to be ‘buying these memes and down 80% in a week and then quitting.’ Meanwhile, this behavior is mostly believed to have an adverse effect on the general picture of the altcoin market in the long term.

The crypto community points to the fact that the CEO of CryptoQuant Ki Young Ju solidifies the aforementioned idea by comparing altcoins to Bitcoin. In his view, “Only a few altcoin projects with strong use cases and narratives will survive.” The question raised by him is if those tokens without intrinsic value would be able to anchor the market after some corrections, which would more impact such low-performing ones.

On the other hand, Bitcoin has doubled its market cap for this period from 2021 to $2.07 trillion, thus breaking its own record. In contrast, the total altcoin market capitalization is still far below its peak. Altcoins, despite a short-lived upsurge, are currently valued at around $1.6 trillion compared to $1.9 trillion, the all-time high, down by 15.8%. Its diversity has been a clear indication since everyone would prefer using a single asset – Bitcoin over the rest. The argument is that Bitcoin is seen as the more inferior and riskier asset as compared to other cryptos.

But there are some analysts who are not that pessimistic. Michaël van de Poppe suggests that some utility-focused coins might catch the attention of institutions. He asserts that “real utility coins” may “take the spotlight as institutional interest continues to grow.” Van de Poppe also proposes that Ethereum (ETH) could be a howler, setting out the possibility of an ETH surge as “the most hated rally of 2025.” This point of view acknowledges the possibility of individual digital currency’s head becoming successful because of institutional usage and its presence in the real world. For instance, a blockchain platform that provides verifiable solutions for supply chain control could be considered a real utility project.

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong has publicly admitted the necessity of reimagining the exchange’s token listing process. Considering that the number of new tokens is estimated to be in the millions, and that they are being created on a weekly basis, the manual evaluation of each token is easier said than done. This indicates a business-wide concern that