Pearl
ZKsync
Bitcoin
Starknet
Quantus
Puffer
Lighter
Over the past 24 hours, the crypto markets experienced yet another cascading liquidation, with altcoins at the forefront. Bitcoin (BTC) itself dropped to the $100,000 zone as predicted by most participants on the Polymarket’s prediction market.
Bitcoin led the decline in the crypto market, but it was dropping at a slower rate than the altcoins. Over the past two months, altcoins have outperformed BTC, with the Altcoin Season Index jumping to levels above 90%.
Bitcoin’s dominance, trading at levels above 60% at the time of writing, threatened this altcoin season outlook. Bitcoin is likely to remain the market leader through the end of the year. However, altcoins still have a chance to rebound from their current lows.
Altcoin Season Dilemma: Altcoins Take a Beating from Bitcoin
The chart from the Alphractal analysis tool showed that Bitcoin was ranked fourth among the best-performing cryptocurrencies. Only three of the altcoins have outperformed Bitcoin over the past two months. This suggests a shifting dynamic in the context of an altcoin season.
BTC climbed from the 90th spot at the bottom of the chart. Within months, it surged into the top 10 positions. On average, most altcoins faced a drawdown of more than 75% during this period of decline.
Bitcoin was still up 3.4%. Conversely, BAT, Synthetic (SNX), and BNB were ahead with gains of 35.8%, 34.9%, and 17%, respectively. Most of the altcoins were deep in the red, with FET closing this list with more than 65% drawdown.
Maartunn noted on X that the price drawdown heatmap for cryptocurrencies was completely red. Only Solana (SOL), Ethereum (ETH), and three earlier coins stood out, suggesting a shift in the Altcoin Season Index.
PancakeSwap (CAKE), Internet Protocol (ICP), and TRON (TRX), which was the weakest in this group, were closest in performance. They reported losses of less than 14%.
The most notable altcoins experienced losses of over 20%. Emerging projects like ChainOpera AI (COAI) saw their market capitalization nearly erased. The individual performance of most altcoins indicated that Bitcoin was significantly outperforming them.
Altcoin Season Index and Bitcoin Dominance
When evaluating the altcoin season index vs. the Bitcoin season, the outcome was similar. The index dropped to levels below 20%. This indicated that Bitcoin remained the dominant cryptocurrency in the market despite facing similar struggles.
In fact, Bitcoin’s dominance (BTC.D) was at 60%, Ethereum’s at 12%, while others collectively accounted for 28%. The rising BTC.D signaled that Bitcoin was the safer asset amid mass liquidations. This trend reflected a turbulent period that hurt the broader cryptocurrency market.
On that note, Bitcoin slightly recovered the $103K level with strength. However, the decline in altcoins appeared not to have come to an end. This was backed by CT analysts who were anticipating another drop before a full market resurgence.
Analyst Predicts Another 30% Drop In Altcoins, But Here’s What The Charts Are Saying!
Another assessment was combining analysts’ views with the price action structure. As per a post on X by Benjamin Cowen, further drawdowns were on the way. Cowen wrote, “Altcoins will likely drop another 30% against Bitcoin over the coming weeks.”
On the charts, Rekt Fencer was eyeing a potential 136x if the trend continued as per the post. In fact, the analyst proposed buying these altcoins at the current discount and offloading them in December.
Still, traders needed to apply risk management, taking into account the changing seasonal dynamics in the cryptocurrency market.
In conclusion, the altcoin season was losing its dominance to Bitcoin. This is despite analysts expecting it to last until the end of the year. This could shift only if crypto market conditions improved and tariff turbulence eased.
