With Ether (ETH) approaching the $3,000 mark, the market is increasingly calling for the potential “Altcoin season,” but some analysts warn that it may not come so soon. Henrik Andersson, the investment director of Apollo Capital, stated in an interview with Cointelegraph that he believes there are several strong catalysts on the horizon that could trigger a rebound in altcoins. Andersson mentioned that these catalysts primarily stem from Ethereum’s fundamentals, such as the DenCun upgrade, the scaling solution Blast, and the mainnet launch of the re-staking platform EigenLayer. Yuga Cohler, a senior engineering manager at the cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, also stated on the X platform, “We are entering an ETH bull market: the beta of altcoins.” 10x Research’s Markus Thielen expressed a different view on the altcoin season, stating that there is still a lack of evidence indicating its imminent arrival. Thielen explained that it is necessary for the Bitcoin dominance index to continue declining below 45% to initiate a flourishing altcoin season. The Bitcoin dominance index refers to the percentage of Bitcoin’s market capitalization among all cryptocurrencies. TradingView data shows that the index is currently around 53%. Thielen also noted that the recent surge in altcoins quickly fizzled out, indicating that Bitcoin investments have a higher risk-adjusted potential. Additionally, Ethereum’s rise seems to be driven by the potential approval of a spot ETF in May rather than the growth of on-chain activity in decentralized applications. Santiment, a blockchain analytics company, released a report on Tuesday stating that since the crypto market started fluctuating in October, the majority of cryptocurrency projects have brought profits to regular wallets, except for a few underperforming altcoins. However, Santiment warns that its model is showing overbought signals and cites the market value to realized value ratio (MVRV) as an indicator that “buying or establishing new positions in the market is riskier than average during a four-month period of rapid growth.”
