Is it really altcoin season? Let's look at some data

Some of our favorite coins have been pumping lately, it feels great doesn't it? On one hand you love watching some green action, on the other you're probably thinking "shit, wait up, I haven't finished DCA'ing yet!"

Due to the latest alt coin pumps such as MATIC, AR, LRC, ALGO, FTM, ATOM etc. I see a lot of speculation and talks about the so called "alt season". What is an alt season you ask?

Alt season is defined as the period when BTC dominance is low (dominance in overall market cap) and alt coins start gaining quickly, which increases their market cap, thus lowers BTC's dominance.

Let me illustrate for you. Our first chart here shows the first ever alt season which saw BTC's dominance (BTC.D on TradingView) dropping from 96% all the way down to 60%. This was mainly due to the "ICO Craze" and the rise of Ethereum, Litecoin, Cardano, Dash, IOTA etc.)

Altcoin SE01 EP01

But what happened to BTC's price during that time? Well, as many of you know, it shot from $1,000 all the way up to $20,000. This is the first time cryptocurrencies really went mainstream.

bitcoin does bitcoin stuff part 1

At the beginning of 2018, BTC's dominance dropped even further, from 65% down to 35%. In my opinion, this was the first actual "alt season" because of what BTC did during that time, which dropped all the way down to $3,000, while some alt coins were actually doing a great job surviving the crypto mayhem.

Altcoin SE02 EP01

Following the second altcoin season, we basically slept until the pandemic happened. BTC dominance hovered around 50-60% during that time and its price tried to break the $10,000 resistance point.

2018 - 2021: the bear slept

And then it happened. The sky opened up and BTC launched towards infinity. It shot up from $10,000 to $60,000, back down to $30,000 before the last blast off to $69,000.

BTC's first space mission

Wait, BTC went parabolic, but its dominance dropped from 75% to 40%?!!?!. Well yeah, this is what has happened since. BTC's dominance dropped during the most insane run it ever had. Since then, BTC's dominance is still around 40%.

Altcoin returns for Season 3 baby!

So what does this all mean? Well, in my opinion, it doesn't really matter whether BTC dominates or we are in an "alt season". We got to keep in mid that as money enters the market, speculators increase, therefore funds enter into riskier territories, such as altcoins, memecoins and shitcoins.

Some got rich out of the two main bull runs. And what happened next? More pople wanted to join in the party. And how can I get rich by buying a coin that already did a 10000x? Well, I'll find the next 10000x coin.

Conclusion: BTC's dominance will likely keep falling as speculation increases. People want to pump money into anything nowdays as risk appetite increases. As other great coins such as Ethereum emerge, it is increasingly likely that newcomers will want to place their funds into the newer and more shiny coins. Altseason is a term that is probably going to become obsolete.

We are now seeing institutional adoption, but not with bitcoin, rather than altcoins (e.g. Meta partnering up with AR and Matic). Does this mean that BTC will die? Of course not. BTC will always be here. But what about the rest of them? Can we say the same about every altcoin?