The altcoin market, which is valued at over $879 billion at the time of this writing, is poised for its next major leg up toward its previous all-time high of nearly $1.2 trillion, according to crypto trader and market analyst Michaël van de Poppe.
The Total3 market cap, which tracks the total market capitalization of the entire crypto token ecosystem, excluding Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH), has maintained critical support around the $784 billion level, Van De Poppe said.
The Total3 market capitalization is also inching back toward the 365-day moving average
In October, the Total3 hit an all-time high of nearly $1.2 trillion, but quickly retraced after a historic market crash rocked digital assets, causing the total altcoin market cap to shed roughly one-third of its value over a rapid sell-off.
Investors, traders, and analysts are attempting to gauge the potential start of the next altseason, a period of sustained altcoin price appreciation, following a disappointing 2025 marked by changes to crypto market dynamics and historical patterns.
Related: Are altcoins coming back? Why 'Bitcoin season' has staying power in 2026
Investors waited patiently in 2025, but altseason never arrived
Investors typically rotated BTC gains into higher-risk altcoins during the latter parts of previous crypto market cycles, which were driven, in part, by Bitcoin's four-year cycle theory.
However, after a disappointing 2025 for BTC, which saw the yearly candle close red — a historic first for BTC in a post-halving year, the 4-year cycle theory has been invalidated, according to analysts.
The number of cryptocurrencies has also grown significantly. There are over 29 million listed coins on CoinMarketCap, all competing for limited investor capital and attention.
The proliferation of altcoins has saturated the market, with too many tokens, preventing altseason from kicking off, according to some crypto analysts.
Analysts also say the launch of crypto exchange-traded funds (ETFs) changed market dynamics by creating liquidity siloes for digital assets with an ETF that kept funds locked and not freely flowing within the crypto ecosystem.
This prevented capital from any potential Bitcoin gains or other tokens from being rotated into altcoins and dampened the altseason phase of the market cycle that seasoned crypto traders had come to expect.
Magazine: Altcoin season 2025 is almost here… but the rules have changed
