While Bitcoin (BTC) only slid modestly, other major cryptocurrencies tumbled over the past few days and sparkled doubts about the durability of the so-called altcoin season.
XRP (XRP), Dogecoin (DOGE) and SOLANA SOL (SOL) rejected most among the top 10 cryptos on Friday and slipped about 5% each over the last 24 hours, Coindesk data shows. From Wednesday’s heights, XRP and DOGE dropped about 18%, while sun was down to 12% over the same stretch. The Coindesk 80 index, consisting of the Mid-Cap-tokens outside Coindesk 20, lost 10% from the weekly top.
Meanwhile, BTC changed his hands around $ 116,000, slightly more than 3% lower from its top at the middle of the week of $ 120,000. Ethereums ether (ETH) was 4% below its weekly high, supported by stable accumulation of crypto -state strategy companies.
When the ALTCOIN season?
The sharp sale of the last few days came after weeks’ powerful capital rotation to smaller tokens, which fuel for conversations about a full Altcoin season. This period, sometimes called all season, occurs when more risky, less tokens surpass Bitcoin, the leading crypto, for a lasting period.
Coinglass’ Alcoin season index, which measures the Altcoin market for better than BTC on a scale of 0 to 100, cooled to 41 on Friday from Monday’s 59, the strongest reading since the end of January speculative madness about President Trump’s inauguration.
The total Altcoin market (except StableCeCoins) still saw a quick appreciation, almost doubled in value since April, said David Duong, head of research at Coinbase, in a Friday report.
In this week’s withdrawal, dealers who undertook excessive gearing on Altcoin efforts, blamed, pointed out the report.
The open dominance-metric metric metric interest that compares the amount of dollars bound in altcoin derivatives, contracts with Bitcoin’s, risen to 1.6, a level that has prior to previous market shakes noted the report. A decrease in the relationship suggests a healthy reset of reset to altcoin, otherwise more shaking is expected, Duong wrote.
In an extended altcoin season, investors should keep an eye on the Bitcoin dominance measuring BTC’s share of the total crypto market value. The metric is broken during the 200-day moving average for the first time since a short period in January 2025, the report noted.
“A sustained step under 200-DMA could validate the narrative ‘all-season’ and historically ahead of Multi-week stretch with altcoin beds than in 2021),” Duong wrote.
However, dealers may be better off waiting for more consecutive sessions that close below the level before pouring into altcoin efforts for a more “cautious positioning”, he added.
