• Glassnode founders believe that an altcoin season could happen soon. 
• However, BTC’s dominance has remained high amid ETH’s worrying underperformance

According to Glassnode’s founders, Jan Happel and Yann Allemann, the market could soon see a strong altcoin season. The execs believe that the last two Bitcoin [BTC] upswings towards $70k didn’t ignite a similar stronger move for altcoins. 

However, the next leg up could mean a new ATH for BTC, partly boosted by “strong altcoin undercurrent,” shared Happel and Allemann. In doing so, they cited their proprietary BTC/ALT cycle metric. 

“Is Altcoin Season just days away? Given an Altcoin Season, the next $BTC run-up will likely break March’s all-time high, carried by a strong #Altcoin undercurrent”

Here, it’s worth pointing out that the metric gauges BTC vs. Altcoin seasons, and March was the last time a strong alt season was flashed. At press time, the metric was on the verge of crossing the 50-neutral mark. According to Happel and Allemann, this could mean a major lift-up for the market’s altcoins. 

Is the altcoin season closer?

Needless to say, this observation spurred more analyses from the rest of the crypto community.

Another crypto analyst and investor, TechDev_12, echoed the same outlook. In doing so, he cited Dogecoin’s [DOGE] price action. The analyst highlighted that DOGE’s weekly price pattern has so far mirrored the 2021 trend, before its explosive rally last cycle. 

Some analysts use DOGE and ETH to gauge the altcoin sector’s health and strength. If DOGE’s trend repeats itself and the correlation holds, the altcoin season may happen. 

However, so far, the numerous altcoin season calls made in the past have been invalidated. For those using the ETH/BTC ratio to gauge the sector, the approval of Spot ETH ETFs was viewed as a potential trigger.  

In fact, Glassnode’s founders themselves made a similar altcoin season call in July based on the same. However, since the projection, the ETH/BTC ratio, which tracks ETH’s relative value to BTC, has dropped to new yearly lows. Over the same period, no alt season has happened. 

What this meant was that BTC outperformed ETH. Also, its increasing dominance could further stifle the overall outlook for the altcoin season. Especially if you gauge the alt market using ETH’s performance. 

At press time, Blockchain Centre’s Altcoin Season Index reading suggested that it’s still a firm BTC season. 

While it hiked slightly in September, it wasn’t as strong for altcoins, as seen between the end of 2023 and early 2024. Whether the recovery will trend higher to signal a sustainable altcoin season remains to be seen.