The disappointment over the lack of an altcoin season is palpable throughout the market. While Bitcoin (BTC) has renewed one all-time high after another almost every two months or even less, alternative cryptocurrencies show much weaker performance, and only select ones like Solana (SOL) saw their historical highs rewritten.
To put it in perspective, while the total market capitalization of the crypto market will increase by 98.41% in 2024, the same indicator without Bitcoin showed a result of only 71%.
Tomiwabold OlajideFor veteran trader DonAlt, the issue is not just about an absent altcoin season. Instead of waiting for a broad rally, he believes the focus should be on quality assets — like XRP and Cardano (ADA).
With meme coins dominating the scene, sucking in liquidity and fading into irrelevance, DonAlt argues that true market healing will come when capital flows into strong, utility-driven projects instead of speculative trends.
Common sense says that the fact that there are now about 33 million coins, which is 10 times more than previous cycles, significantly shattered any hopes for a broader altcoin season, and investors are now required to choose wisely.
Gamza KhanzadaevThat is why DonAlt made such a statement about meme coins taking over, absorbing liquidity and then dying, leaving all the money in the wallets of sophisticated actors and apps like Pump.Fun, who then dump all of the collected SOL in fees.
ETFs to rescue
Interestingly, both XRP and Cardano tokens fall into the ETF asset theory, which states that when exchange-traded funds based on these cryptocurrencies appear - and with recent news it seems more likely to happen sooner than later - the flow of capital from Bitcoin ETFs (which have absorbed about $10 billion this year alone) will organically be made into altcoin-focused ETFs like an XRP ETF or ADA ETF - if such will exist.
There is also a sense that the market needs to get out of quick flips of meme coins to strong holding of assets with the fundamentals to back them up. Whether it is really like that remains to be seen, as even a trader's opinion does not determine reality. But such an opinion has its place.
Tomiwabold Olajide
Gamza Khanzadaev
Dan Burgin
Vladislav Sopov