Foreign media reports that the altcoin market has not lost its ability to offer high returns, but the opportunities are no longer concentrated in the same batch of assets. CoinMarketCap The head of the research team, Alice Liu, believes that what is happening now is more like a rapid rotation around different narratives, rather than a full-scale altcoin rally.
Hundred-fold returns are still available in sectors with high volatility.
Liu indicates that three-digit price increases will still occur in the crypto market, but their positions will be different from in the past. She mentioned that recently, Meme coins related to Sun Yuchen, as well as tokens on Robinhood Chain, have become the focus of short-term market capital.
She believes that the Meme coin has once again entered a period of high-frequency fluctuations. If one can capture the capital movements at an early stage, it is still possible to achieve returns significantly higher than the market average. However, such opportunities come quickly and rotate more frequently.
In contrast, although some projects with more stable fundamentals may not experience a hundredfold increase in value again, they could still offer a more substantial upside potential. Her judgment is that there is still room for discussion regarding such projects achieving returns of 10 to 20 times.
The counterfeit season index is currently at 36.
Liu uses CoinMarketCap's Altcoin Season Index to indicate the current stage. This indicator measures the performance of the top 100 tokens (excluding stablecoins) relative to Bitcoin over the past 90 days.
- An index above 75 is generally considered a season of widespread copycats.
- An index below 25 indicates that the market is still dominated by Bitcoin.
- The current reading is 36, indicating that the market is just beginning to move away from being dominated solely by Bitcoin.
She stated that in the past 90 days, the market trend has not been one of overall strength for altcoins; instead, there has been a rapid switching between different themes. Currently, tokens related to Launchpad are performing well, among which Pons on Robinhood Chain ranks high, and Pump.fun remains one of the important platforms as well.
Apart from the Launchpad theme, recently active assets also include some DeFi and established tokens, such as Zcash, Litecoin, Uniswap, and Curve. This indicates that the market has not formed a single trend, but rather consists of multiple small-scale hotspots taking turns to lead the way.
It's more important for Bitcoin to break through key levels.
Regarding the question of "whether Bitcoin must first reach a new high before the 'copycat season' arrives," Liu gives a negative answer. She believes that what the market values more is whether Bitcoin will experience a clear and substantial rise and break through key price levels.
In her view, when Bitcoin reaches key levels such as $70,000 or $80,000, that is often more important than whether it breaks new historical highs or not. This type of trend usually first improves overall liquidity, increases traders' risk appetite, and then drives funds to spread gradually.
The typical transmission path she described is as follows: Bitcoin starts first, followed by the flow of funds to Ethereum and the broader DeFi sector, and then it spreads to Meme coins. She also mentioned that recent trading activities on Robinhood Chain reflect this change as well. The chain initially focused on tokenized stocks and real-world assets, but subsequently, Meme coin trading quickly became the main source of activity, indicating that market preferences are continuing to shift towards more resilient themes.
