Analyst Dennis Liu Sees No Altcoin Season Yet as Bitcoin (BTC) Dominance Holds 58%

Liu Puts Excess Returns Near 10%

Two market watchers are reading the same tape in opposite directions: analyst Dennis Liu argues a full-blown altcoin season has yet to begin, while MN Trading chief investment officer Michael van de Poppe says money is already cycling out of Bitcoin (BTC). Liu's case rests on relative performance. Since Bitcoin formed its recent bottom, the average altcoin has beaten it by only about 10%, he wrote on X, a gap far narrower than in past bull phases. The ratio of total altcoin capitalization to Bitcoin's, he noted, shows no clear upward trend either. Several single names tell a louder story than the market as a whole. Zcash, the privacy network built on zero-knowledge proofs, has climbed more than 700% since the start of the year, and Quant also ripped higher over a short window, moves that show how whale-scale concentration can lift one token while the field stands still. Large caps have not followed: Ethereum and XRP, the heaviest altcoins by market value, have delivered only limited gains against Bitcoin. The Bitcoin (BTC) price reflects the same hesitation, trading between $85,000 and $86,000 after running into resistance near $87,000. Ethereum changes hands above $2,700 and XRP near $1.50. The largest coin's share of total digital asset value sits near 58%, so most capital still parks in Bitcoin (BTC), whether traders buy dips or simply HODL. Index readings split the difference. The CoinMarketCap altcoin season index prints 61, and the usual threshold for a confirmed season requires at least 75% of the top 50 altcoins to beat Bitcoin over 90 days. Blockchain Center's comparable gauge lingers near 53. Both measures assume breadth, not a handful of winners, defines a season, and by that standard the market is not there yet.

Rotation Evidence Meets Its Limits

The rotation case leans on September's scorecard. Ethereum gained 9.8% and XRP 9.9% over the month, both ahead of Bitcoin's 7.7%, and XRP has outperformed both majors across the past year. Activity backs part of that story: on-chain data from Glassnode shows total spot trading volume across digital assets running at roughly four times Bitcoin's spot volume, while altcoin inflows to exchanges have picked up, a sign participation is widening. Van de Poppe frames the same flows as the opening of a new bull phase for the wider market rather than a blip. Skeptics answer with precedent. Past episodes in which altcoin turnover spiked quickly have coincided with short-term Bitcoin (BTC) tops, so a volume surge alone does not settle whether a trend will hold. Structure has changed too. The 2017 and 2020 pattern, in which nearly every altcoin rallied together, has given way to short bursts of theme-driven capital that rotate through artificial intelligence plays, real-world asset tokenization and memecoins. Liu extends the point to the classic playbook, long contested in Bitcoin Maximalism debates, that a fresh Bitcoin all-time high automatically sends money into alts: in 2024 Bitcoin set a record and a large share of altcoins still lagged it. The ceiling matters as well. Bitcoin stalled below $87,000, a level where stacked sell orders capped the last push, and that stall keeps the relative-performance math anchored to a market leader that is not yet breaking out. Traders watching for the turn to confirm are tracking the ETH/BTC ratio as the main gauge: if Ethereum's ratio clears major resistance and Bitcoin's dominance slips further, capital should spread across the altcoin field, with the levels mapped in our Bitcoin technical analysis.

The ETH/BTC Break Settles It

In our read, the dispute turns on one assumption a reader can watch directly: whether Ethereum's ratio against Bitcoin clears its major resistance while Bitcoin's dominance keeps slipping. Liu's 10% excess-return figure and the 58% dominance share say the market has not yet paid for broad rotation; van de Poppe's September returns and the fourfold volume expansion say the first shipments have already left. Until the ratio and the dominance chart both move, watch those two levels, not the headlines from a 700% mover, because single-name rallies stay selective, not seasonal.