Altseason without myths: what actually shows up on charts before alts go crazy
Everyone loves to say “altseason is coming” the same way kids say “summer is coming” in March. Feels good, zero responsibility.
But altseason isn’t magic. It’s just money rotating. And that rotation leaves fingerprints on the charts way before your favorite microcap does +500%.
Let me walk you through the main conditions I usually want to see before I start taking alt setups seriously – not memes, not hopium, just price.
1. King Bitcoin does his move first
Healthy altseasons rarely start from a flat Bitcoin price.
Typical pattern:
- First, a strong impulsive move up on BTC
- After that move, BTC stops trending and starts chopping in a range
- Volatility cools down, candles get smaller, volume drops
TL;DR: Big boys rode BTC, locked in chunky profits, and now their fresh capital is looking for higher beta plays. That’s when alts start feeling “lighter”.
If BTC is nuking or making fresh parabolic highs every day, alts usually just get dragged around like bags on a train.
2. BTC dominance stops climbing and starts bleeding
Open BTC.D (Bitcoin dominance) and zoom out.
Before most big alt runs, I usually see:
- A clear uptrend in dominance while BTC is running
- Then a topping structure: double top, lower high, or a fake breakout above the previous high
- And then – the key part – a confirmed breakdown with lower lows
That’s literally money leaving BTC relative to alts.
No need to overcomplicate:
Rising dominance – the market respects Bitcoin.
Falling dominance – the market starts gambling on the side quests.
3. ETH vs BTC wakes up
ETHBTC is my canary in the coal mine.
If ETH can’t even beat BTC, why should I expect your random GameFi coin to do it?
Before many altseasons, I’ve watched:
- ETHBTC prints a base or higher low
- Breaks local resistance
- Starts grinding up, even if slowly
ETH often leads the rotation. When this pair wakes up, liquidity is starting to accept “more risk”.
4. Total alt market cap breaks structure
Open TOTAL2 or TOTAL3 – that’s your x-ray of altcoins as a whole.
What I like to see:
- A clear downtrend turning into a sideways accumulation range
- Higher lows forming under a big horizontal resistance
- Breakout of that resistance with expanding volume
That’s not your random lucky pump – that’s the whole sector getting repriced.
5. Volume rotation: BTC quiet, alts noisy
Check the volume bars:
- BTC: volume fades while it ranges
- Major alts: volume spikes on green days, pullbacks on lower volume
That’s exactly what “rotation” looks like. Money doesn’t appear from nowhere – it walks from chart to chart.
Maybe I’m wrong, but I think “altseason” is mostly a marketing term influencers use when they've run out of Bitcoin content. On charts, it’s just a sequence:
BTC pumps → BTC chills → dominance tops → ETHBTC turns → alt market cap breaks out → volume rotates.
Last nuance: don’t try to guess the exact start like it’s New Year’s midnight. Focus on conditions, not dates. When several of these signals line up, I start hunting alt setups. When they disappear, I stop dreaming about 50x and go back to trading what the market actually gives.
In the end, altseason is just greed with a chart pattern. Learn to spot the pattern – and the greed will find you on its own.
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