Fair and objectively speaking, Q4/2025 marked the peak of the Altcoin market cap in the last cycle — the data in Figure 1 says it all.
Whether this can truly be called an “uptrend” is perhaps a concept trapped in the old mindset — where an uptrend means all altcoins pump together with Bitcoin, not just 2x or 3x, but 10x to 100x.
Unfortunately, this cycle did not meet that expectation — and honestly, I was one of those who expected it.
Why? Look at Figure 2.
Before 2023, the entire market had only around 22,000 tokens. By 2024–2025, over 2 million tokens were created. It’s easy to imagine how severely market cap and liquidity became fragmented.
So what does an “Altcoin uptrend” even look like now?
Was the Q4/2025 uptrend call wrong? Everyone can answer that honestly for themselves.
However, with proper capital management (taking principal, letting profits run) and strong psychology (not FOMO-ing at highs), even if you don’t make massive gains, you still make good gains — and even if gains are modest, it’s hard to lose money.