Analysts Declare End of Traditional Altcoin Season, Predict Hyper-Accelerated Market Cycles

The cryptocurrency market has experienced a significant downturn, wiping out over $1 trillion in market capitalization since the October 10 pullback, driven by large-scale liquidations and sustained selling pressure. This has dampened investor sentiment, with early Q4 rally hopes fading and most altcoins losing gains from Q3's breakout.

Nic Carter, a crypto investor and partner at Castle Island Ventures, highlighted in October that the market has matured, reducing historical volatility. He stated, "crypto natives no longer control the narrative, there’s more serious businesses (which don’t require tokens), there’s less chaos, the whole space has matured significantly." This shift means crypto is now "boring" due to resolved uncertainties and derisking as a technological substrate.

Altcoin Sherpa expanded on this in a Friday X thread, asserting that old market cycles are "dead" and replaced by a "hyper-accelerated regime." He explained that instead of prolonged euphoric phases, altcoins like Solana (SOL) and BONK now undergo short-term pumps of 1-3 months followed by 2-6 month downtrends, with no year-long berserk rallies. Sherpa advised investors to reframe expectations, noting that "coins will still downtrend, just not in a slow bleed. More [of] an accelerated destruction + carnage," and recover quicker but with weaker pumps due to the absence of accumulation phases.

Joao Wedson reinforced this outlook, observing that the weekly and daily Altcoin Season Index has re-entered "Bitcoin season" territory, with altcoin seasons between 2022 and 2025 being short-lived and far from 2021's explosive performance. He attributed this to low investment capital flowing into crypto, as funds have shifted toward the artificial intelligence sector. Wedson believes a broad altcoin season akin to 2017 or 2021 is unlikely without institutional investor return, predicting instead isolated, trend-driven surges in specific sectors.