Altcoins volume hits 2.7x BTC – Is this the start of Alt season?

Cryptoquant founder and CEO Ki Young Ju has revealed that the altcoin season has kicked off. Many stablecoin holders appear to be favoring altcoins, and their volume has also reached 2.7x that of Bitcoin.

Ki Young Ju argued that BTC dominance no longer defined altcoins, but season trading volume did. He also pointed out that there was no BTC-to-altcoin rotation, and Bitcoin was no longer a quote currency. 

Altcoins volume outperforms Bitcoin by 2.7x

🚨 Altcoin volume is 2.7 times higher than BTC right now.

🚀 Time to launch?

CryptoQuant CEO Ki Young Ju said the altseason has begun: ‘BTC Dominance no longer defines alt season—trading volume does.’

Is #ALTSEASON really coming for $SOL, $ETH, $SUI & co? 👇 pic.twitter.com/KWOGoky2qZ

— Cryptorsy Ventures (@cryptorsyio) February 21, 2025

Young suggested that the volume ratio of 2.7x BTC for altcoins indicated heightened liquidity and volatility. He also claimed that Bitcoin was drifting away from the crypto ecosystem to its own Layer 2 ecosystem.

Young highlighted that Bitcoin had built its own paper-based Layer 2 ecosystem through ETFs, MSTR, funds, and more. He also argued that it was impossible to bridge Bitcoin to other altcoins in its paper-based L2.

According to the Cryptoquant’s CEO, altcoins used to move together based on their correlation with BTC, but the pattern had broken. He noted that only a few were starting to show independent trends as they attracted new liquidity.

Young believes that altcoins had the option of creating paper-wrapped versions like Bitcoin. Altcoins also had the option to build a real internet money ecosystem using stablecoins or BTC. He urged investors to look for a digital asset that could do one of the two and hold it long-term.

“Only a few coins are pumping this alt season. With no fresh liquidity, it feels like a PvP fight over a fixed pie. Trading volume shows the battles are getting fierce.”

– Ki Young Ju, CEO and Founder of Cryptoquant

Young maintained that the altcoin market was currently a zero-sum PvP game and that only a few alts with strong use cases and narratives would survive. He also noted that the alt market cap was still below its previous ATH, and altcoins were rotating among themselves without fresh capital inflows.

Young also argued that the alt season was going to be weird and challenging, and only a few altcoins would “win the game.” He also acknowledged that the altcoin market sentiment was good, but there wasn’t much fresh liquidity.

Virtune believes monetary policy could determine the 2025 altcoin season 

At the time of publication, CoinMarketCap’s Altcoin Season Index indicated that of the top 100 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, 31 of them outperformed Bitcoin over a rolling 90-day window. The score of 31/100+ indicated that the market was almost getting to the altcoin season. CoinMarketCap noted that if the number continued to move closer to 100, it would act as further confirmation that altcoins were outperforming BTC and may continue to do so.

The firm noted that the last significant altcoin season occurred in H1 2021 when the top 100 altcoins gained 174% while BTC gained just 2%. According to CoinMarketCap, this resulted in Bitcoin’s market dominance collapsing from 61.9% at the beginning of February 2021 to as low as 40% in mid-May 2021. The platform also noted that altcoins outperformed Bitcoin for almost five months straight during the last cycle.

Regulated Swedish crypto asset manager Virtune highlighted that 2025 presented a unique challenge for altcoins due to quantitative tightening and high interest rates. The firm also added that central banks like the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank had been withdrawing liquidity from the market by reducing their balance sheets and keeping interest rates elevated.

Virtune believes that the 2025 altcoin season contrasted with the liquidity-driven rally of 2020 to 2021. The asset management company also noted that altcoins thrived in an environment of low interest rates and aggressive money printing during the previous cycle.

The firm believes that speculative assets like altcoins could struggle to gain momentum if the quantitative tightening continues. According to Virtune, altcoins could see a surge in demand if economic conditions forced central banks to pivot towards a more accommodative stance, such as rate cuts and slow quantitative tightening.

Virtune also argued that Ethereum’s continued improvements in scalability, such as Layer-2 adoption and the upcoming Pectra upgrade, could provide the infrastructure for a broader altcoin surge.

The market insights firm added that when Bitcoin’s dominance was above 50%, Bitcoin led the markets. But when Bitcoin dominance started to decline sharply, capital often flowed to altcoins. CoinMarketCap’s Bitcoin dominance metric showed it’s at 60.1%, which indicated that Bitcoin was still slightly dominant in the market.

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