With 36.4 million tokens flooding the market, analysts are starting to wonder if altcoin seasons are a thing of the past. An altcoin season is when alternative cryptocurrencies do better than Bitcoin. Historically, these seasons have seen some impressive price jumps for coins other than Bitcoin.
Back in the 2017-2018 cycle, the altcoin market really took off. Coins like Ether, XRP, and Litecoin saw record-breaking gains. But now, crypto analyst Ali Martinez argues that the overwhelming number of altcoins makes it hard to expect a sustained altseason.
“Today, there are over 36.4 million altcoins, compared to fewer than 3,000 during the last alt season and even fewer than 500 in 2013-2014,” Martinez shared on X, referencing data from Dune Analytics. “With such massive supply, the market has changed significantly.”
Economist Alex Krüger agrees. He points out how the oversupply of tokens impacts market behavior. “Too many tokens. Infinite more to come. Supply of tokens is greater than demand,” he wrote on X. “This illustrates why expecting an ‘altseason’ where everything goes up for an extended period of time is misplaced.” He believes future alt seasons will be shorter, lasting only a few days or weeks at most.
Krüger also highlighted the challenges for investors. With so many options, picking the right coins becomes tough. “Being a good coin picker is now very hard. Just as being a good stock picker is also very hard,” he noted.
Pseudonymous trader Ash Crypto raised concerns about the dilution of the altcoin market. He blamed the rise of memecoins and low-quality tokens. “The market is diluted. Exchanges are only listing memes to grab volume and grow their user base. Retail buys these memes and is down 80% in a week and then quits,” he criticized.
On the other hand, Ki Young Ju, CEO of CryptoQuant, compared altcoins to Bitcoin. He stated, “Only a few altcoin projects with strong use cases and narratives will survive.”
Bitcoin has doubled its market cap since 2021, now sitting at $2.07 trillion. Meanwhile, the total altcoin market cap is at $1.6 trillion, about 15.8% below its all-time high of $1.9 trillion, reached during a brief rally in December.
Not everyone is pessimistic, though. Some analysts see potential in certain altcoins. Michaël van de Poppe believes that utility-focused coins could attract institutional interest. “I think we’ll also see real utility coins take the spotlight as institutional interest continues to grow,” he stated.
Van de Poppe also suggested that Ethereum might lead the next rally, calling ETH “the most hated rally of 2025.”