"Creator's Perspective" is a dialogue column launched by Foresight News, where we ask outstanding content creators of the month about hot market topics and compile the collected results into articles to gather diverse opinions and uncover deeper insights.
Written by: Outstanding Content Creators of Foresight News, November 2024
Compiled by: Foresight News
After the dust settled on the US election, the crypto market has been soaring, with BTC leading the charge and Memecoins closely following. Although BTC has seen a brief pullback, ETH has reversed its previous decline, and sectors like DeFi and Layer2 have experienced a broad rally, with the altcoin market finally showing signs of new life. Is the altcoin season coming?
The theme of this edition of "Creator's Perspective" is "As Bitcoin's market share declines, is the altcoin season coming?" We invited SevenX Ventures, Web3 Farmer Frank, Professor Liu, 0xTodd, 0xLoki, Chu Yan, HelloLydia¹³, YettaS, and Cryptoria | Talking Web3 and Crypto, who were ranked among the outstanding content creators of Foresight News in November 2024, to join the discussion.
Regarding the topic of the "altcoin season," we posed the following five questions: "What are the exact signals that the altcoin season is coming?", "What was your most memorable experience during the last altcoin season?", "What are the reasons behind the recent rebounds of old-school altcoins and the declining hype of Memecoins?", "How will this altcoin season be different from the past?", and "What are the most noteworthy narratives and tracks to watch out for?" Here are the answers we collected:
1. Do you think there will be an altcoin season in this bull market? What do you consider the exact signals that the altcoin season is coming?
SevenX Ventures:
Web3 Farmer Frank: The old coins are starting to surge, and combined with the recent trend of capital outflows from BTC, it indicates that the altcoin season has entered a period of fermentation. This capital flow often expands gradually as market sentiment accumulates, gradually driving the revival of some dormant old tracks, allowing the altcoin season to develop from the vanguard to the depth.
Professor Liu: Yes, there will be an altcoin season. BTC initiates the bull market, and the bull market drives the altcoin season. When the narrative sectors start to take turns rallying, and the discussions about various altcoins become lively again in the community, you can consider the altcoin season has arrived.
0xTodd: To answer this question, we need to define what qualifies as an altcoin. Honestly, I don't think the "old altcoins" from the last round or the round before really have a true chance (to outperform BTC-level), but on the contrary, the "new altcoins" (meme, AI Agent, etc.) undoubtedly have the opportunity to usher in an altcoin season, and in fact, it has already begun.
The exact signal comes from trading volume. The top 20 on mainstream CEX spot/contract trading volume are these new altcoins, and their rapidly increasing trading volume is the clear signal for the next wave.
0xLoki: There will be an altcoin season, in fact, we have already entered the altcoin season, but this altcoin season will be very different from the previous ones. The logic of the altcoin season is the spillover of capital and wealth effects, but compared to the previous cycle, the investment scale of VCs from 2021-2023 has increased by an order of magnitude, with a certain degree of irrationality. Excessive investment, lower financing valuations, and the exit needs of funds will also make the token structure more unstable, which will eventually be transmitted to the secondary market. So this time, the altcoin season will be more favorable for fairly issued Tokens or some old Tokens with very high circulation.
Chu Yan: The altcoin season has already arrived, and many old-school altcoins have seen decent gains from the bottom recently. In fact, the activity level in various crypto communities can be used as a judgment of the arrival of the altcoin season. When BTC rose from $50,000-$60,000, the various coin-trading groups were not very lively, but every time BTC hits a new high, it will suck the blood of the altcoins. Since DOGE, XRP, HBAR, and other old altcoins have seen several-fold gains, the crypto community has seen various bragging posts about making a killing, indicating that many people have accumulated and are lying in wait with a bunch of altcoins, and real BTC holders are very few. Additionally, from the data perspective, the fee rate of the altcoin market has always been maintained at a relatively high level, and the on-chain data shows that the frequency and volume of market makers' addresses depositing and withdrawing altcoins from exchanges have increased significantly compared to the past, all of which indicates that the altcoin season has already arrived.
HelloLydia¹³:
YettaS:
Cryptoria | Talking Web3 and Crypto: Looking at the current market structure, I have a cautious attitude towards the altcoin season. Although we have entered a bull market, there is a lack of key new demand. There are three main observations:
- First, a large number of project tokens that have completed financing in the past will be unlocked in the next two years, which will form a continuous selling pressure. If there are no new users to take over, the prices will be difficult to maintain.
- Secondly, the current market innovation is mainly concentrated in the PayFi and stablecoin tracks, lacking application scenarios like the DeFi Summer that can ignite the entire market. The lack of new narratives limits investors' imagination space.
- Finally, institutional capital is currently mainly flowing into compliant products like ETFs, with relatively limited interest in altcoins. In the absence of incremental capital to drive it, the altcoin season may be difficult to replicate its past glory.
2. During the last altcoin season, the DeFi Summer and NFT Summer, what were you doing? Share your most memorable experience.
SevenX Ventures:
Web3 Farmer Frank: During the last altcoin season and the DeFi Summer, I was still in school, so I was frantically borrowing blockchain books in the library and trying to learn and write on platforms like Bihu and Lichang, basically achieving self-sufficiency to cover my living expenses and save some capital. Fortunately, I encountered the continuous airdrops of UNI and LON, which was a huge shock at the time, not only directly covering my living expenses for the last year, but also making me determined to enter the crypto industry directly after graduation. I have been working in this field ever since, so in a sense, the DeFi Summer of 2020 was the most memorable altcoin season for me.
That vibrant and thriving atmosphere is still fresh in my memory.
Professor Liu: At the end of the DeFi Summer in 2020, I started to build a position in $UNI. NFT didn't seem to be in the summer, but rather in the spring of 2021 when the Beeple work was auctioned at Sotheby's. The Bored Ape Yacht Club series suddenly emerged, and later even acquired the Crypto Punks series, which I found very impressive.
0xTodd: During the DeFi Summer, I was mainly mining Curve Convex, and during the NFT Summer, my focus was on Azuki.
The most memorable thing was when one of the Curve founders suddenly pledged CRV to AAVE to borrow money to buy a top-tier luxury mansion in Melbourne; Azuki's founders decided to release a new elemental sequel, and everyone said they were going to jump into the sea.
This is also one of the things I most admire about Bitcoin - Satoshi Nakamoto has become an eternal monument, and will never create any founder risks again.
0xLoki: The most profound feeling was that there was no need to worry about missing the pump, because things like the DeFi Summer and the NFT Summer had very strong sustainability. Even if you missed the ETH DeFi Summer, you could still experience the ones on Polygon, BSC, AVAX, etc. So there's no need to FOMO, in a real bull market, there will always be opportunities to get on board.
Chu Yan:
HelloLydia¹³:
YettaS:
Cryptoria | Talking Web3 and Crypto:
Chuyuan: Unfortunately, during the last altcoin season, I was working at an exchange, responsible for risk control, internal control, regulatory enforcement cooperation, and the design of the exchange's on-chain anti-money laundering products. I was quite busy with my work, so I did not participate much in the DeFi Summer and NFT Summer. But what left a deep impression on me was seeing many of my colleagues around me achieve financial freedom through small capital during the last altcoin season, and now they are focused on trading.
HelloLydia¹³:
YettaS:
Cryptoria | Talking about Web3 and the Crypto World: That was when I just entered the industry, still with a traditional finance perspective. I remember at the time, when looking at the Bloomberg terminal, the yield of high-quality bonds was only 3-4%, and a 20% annual return for stock funds was considered an excellent performance. But after entering the crypto market, I saw yield farmers using various leveraged strategies for liquidity mining, with yields often reaching over a thousand percent. But as a newcomer back then, my understanding of smart contract risks and impermanent loss was limited, so I chose the most conservative configuration - just buying BTC and ETH.
Looking back now, that kind of craziness is hard to replicate. Because at that time, it was the first large-scale application of the DeFi model, combined with the global liquidity glut during the pandemic, which created the "lying down and earning" myth.
3. Recently, some well-established altcoins have seen decent rebounds, while the hype around memecoins has somewhat subsided. What do you think are the reasons behind this?
SevenX Ventures:
Web3 Farmer Frank: Market rotation. Capital always has speculative demands, and although people were more interested in discussing the narrative of fairness and anti-VC perspectives when memes were pumping, after the leading sectors showed signs of consolidation, capital flowed out of high-volatility assets like memes and back into relatively lower-risk coins with stronger fundamentals, which is also a main logic of Crypto asset cycles.
Liu Jie Chain: In the past, value coins and project coins were suppressed by the SEC under Gary Gensler's leadership, and speculative capital did not dare to act rashly, so a "M-shaped" pattern was formed where big capital hoarded BTC, small retail investors traded memecoins, and altcoins (project coins) were neglected. After the US election, Gary Gensler has been forced to announce his resignation, which has given the previously SEC-suppressed well-established altcoins a chance to revive.
0xTodd: I tend to think it's a cyclical correction. Especially for the blue-chip, quasi-blue-chip memes, it doesn't seem to be at the end yet. The reason is also very simple - in a bull market, there is always sector rotation.
But my advice to everyone is to dare to bet on only 1-2 tracks that you recognize, and stick with them until the end, as this often yields greater rewards.
0xLoki: The decline in memecoins hype is a very normal thing, because in the past one or two weeks, memecoins have formed a comprehensive and extremely high-multiple wealth effect, and as the magnitude of this wealth effect increases, the subsequent capital required will also increase, so a certain degree of differentiation and spillover is inevitable. Meanwhile, well-established altcoins have high liquidity and relatively stable chip structure, and some of them have shown very obvious fundamental reversals, such as the recovery of DeFi protocol fundamentals and the shift in Western regulation.
Chuyuan: There are no projects that only go up and never go down. This round of memecoins, from PEPE to the present, has already seen many 100x coins, and various on-chain data analyses have revealed the gameplay and patterns of memecoins, and now on-chain memes have already reached an extremely competitive PVP stage. From the user groups involved in the DEXX platform incident, we can see that many new entrants have rushed to the on-chain to gamble with capital. With the change in the US regulatory climate, now is a good time to pump some well-established altcoin projects, accompanied by some positive news, which can attract a lot of big capital. These altcoins have fallen quite a bit in the early stage and have been thoroughly washed, with lighter vehicles and less resistance, so they can have a sustained rally.
HelloLydia¹³:
YettaS:
Cryptoria | Talking about Web3 and the Crypto World: The rebound of well-established altcoins is actually easy to understand: as long as the project continues to provide value, the price will eventually return to its true value. For example, projects like Chainlink, which have always maintained stable oracle services, will naturally be rediscovered in a bull market.
The cooling of memecoins reflects a change in market sentiment. In the early days, people chased memes to a large extent because they were worried about the unlocking risks of VC-backed coins. Now, as some quality projects have gradually proven themselves, investors are re-evaluating the risk-reward ratio. I've observed that many investors are adopting a "dual-track" strategy: allocating the main capital to valuable projects, while reserving a small amount of capital for meme speculation.
4. Some say that this bull market is driven by the Trump policy dividend. How do you see this? How might the altcoin season be different in this case?
SevenX Ventures:
Web3 Farmer Frank: Trump is definitely the best promotional figurehead for this round of the market and the next 4 years of Crypto. This unprecedented "traffic saint" will subconsciously promote global market recognition of cryptocurrencies.
So in addition to the coin types associated with the appointees of the new US administration being hyped, if large traditional capital starts to shift towards Web3, those "Old Money" representing mainstream institutions and high-net-worth individuals will likely prioritize the targets that are either close to compliance or already have various traditional investment tools, such as the altcoins previously held by Grayscale or listed on licensed exchanges in Hong Kong, in addition to BTC, ETH, and SOL.
Liu Jie Chain: The contribution of the crypto industry and pro-crypto individuals behind this US election cannot be underestimated. Since they have taken the right side, the next 4 years will be a period to reap the rewards. With pro-crypto politicians entering the center of power, the "three mountains" of the SEC, Treasury, and Federal Reserve that have been pressing on the crypto industry in recent years will also see changes. Many well-established altcoins also have a good chance of following BTC's footsteps and gaining the possibility of being accepted into the mainstream.
0xTodd: I partially agree. In fact, I have a four-stage rocket theory.
The first stage rocket: 16,000-30,000, we have to thank Grayscale, which has been sucking in BTC like a Qilin, and also won a crucial victory in the lawsuit with the SEC.
The second stage rocket: 30,000-60,000, we have to thank the ETFs, especially BlackRock and Fidelity, as these two traditional institutions brought their users and the hot money from the US stock market into BTC.
The third stage rocket: 60,000-100,000, we have to thank MicroStrategy. In fact, key round numbers are very difficult to break through, especially the invisible pressure of various technical indicators, but MicroStrategy's faith and determination allowed them to use debt and stock sales to directly and forcefully eliminate the pressure and push BTC to the vacuum zone.
Next, there is the fourth stage rocket, which is also the most powerful one:
Considering that Trump has currently nominated new crypto-friendly, even crypto-enthusiastic government personnel, the US BTC strategic reserve proposal is likely to become a reality.
And as the US takes the lead, will Europe, the Middle East, Japan-Korea, South America, and even China possibly follow suit?
The 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th stage rockets all originate from US-related institutions, and while other markets (East Asia, Europe) are mainly following, they are still crucial.
0xLoki: The Trump policy dividend and the US policy are the most important driving factors for this bull market, and this is very obvious. Currently, apart from memecoins, the coins with larger gains, such as BTC, SOL, and XRP, are all direct beneficiaries of the Trump policy dividend and US policy. At the same time, we can also see that the stock price gains of Coin companies this year have almost exceeded all centralized exchange platform tokens. This will also affect the altcoin season, especially two types: ① projects that were previously under heavy regulatory pressure, and ② projects that have strong associations with the US government and some key figures within it.
Initial Spark: With the launch of ETFs, the election of Trump as president, and the changing regulatory landscape for cryptocurrencies, the crypto space will see more compliant capital and attention from leading traditional companies, bringing more opportunities for the integration of crypto assets, blockchain technology, and the traditional world. In this context, this round of the Altcoin season will see many projects that generate real returns due to compliant licensing and collaboration with various sectors of the real world, providing investors with decent returns.
HelloLydia¹³:
YettaS:
Cryptoria | Discussing Web3 and the Crypto World: This market cycle is indeed closely related to policy expectations. The Trump team has released many pro-crypto signals, and the Republican Party as a whole has an open attitude towards crypto, so the market expects a more relaxed regulatory environment.
At the same time, we also need to look at the broader macroeconomic context - the Federal Reserve is about to enter a rate-cutting cycle, and global liquidity is expected to improve. In this environment, capital will be more willing to allocate to risky assets, with Bitcoin as the digital gold being the primary choice.
But precisely because it is policy-driven, the feature of this market cycle is "leading the small ones." Mainstream cryptocurrencies benefit from the inflow of institutional capital, while Altcoins find it difficult to share too much of the dividends. This is also why I believe that even if an Altcoin season occurs, its scale and sustainability may not be as strong as the previous one.
5. What narratives and tracks do you think are most worth paying attention to in this Altcoin season? Do you have any tokens in ambush?
SevenX Ventures:
Web3 Farmer Frank: RWAFi and DeAI, the former being the most aligned with the incremental institutional players and New Money, and the latter will always be anchored to the current biggest tech hype globally. I don't have any specific tokens at the moment, hoping this Altcoin season will also be a chance for everyone to catch some fish.
Professor Chain: I value real value and decentralization. There are real value-creating application scenarios on the blockchain, BTC's SoV is in a league of its own, DeFi is a value track, and RWA is also one. Currently, I only see these three. But RWA is too operationally heavy and too centralized. So apart from hoarding BTC, I've only selected from DeFi. I'm still holding my existing positions and haven't made any changes.
0xTodd: Not financial advice.
I think a barbell strategy is the best:
- Mainstream coins (primarily BTC, with ETH, SOL, BNB as supplements)
- Meme coins (my largest holdings are DOGE and HarryPotterTrumpSonic100Inu, with others like Moodeng, Luce, AVA, RIF, ACT, etc.)
Everyone can configure a barbell portfolio (mainstream coins + meme) based on their own aesthetics and hold on to their beliefs, so as to achieve some excess returns while basically matching the overall market performance.
Of course, I reiterate that this is not financial advice.
0xLoki: The track areas are memecoins and AI, and in addition to BTC and some DeFi blue chips, I will also pay more attention to the tokens in the Base, Near, and Bittensor ecosystems.
Initial Spark: The AI narrative. The competition in large AI models mainly lies in computing power, algorithms, and data.
Traditional tech giants wanting to enter the AI large model field first need to consider the high upfront costs of model training and tuning. Tian Qi, Chief Scientist of Artificial Intelligence at Huawei Cloud, mentioned in a speech at the AI Large Model Technology Summit that the single-time cost of large model development and training can reach $12 million, and Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, has also mentioned that the training cost of GPT-4 exceeds $100 million, with GPU computing power costs accounting for the majority of the entire training cost.
At the core algorithm level, the industry has a relatively high degree of technical openness, and many projects are built on the open-source code of GPT2 and the architectural structure of GPT3/3.5 papers.
However, in terms of data, due to the differences in their own business scenarios, the differentiation of the accumulated training data is significant, so data will become a core competitive factor for AI products.
Therefore, in the direction of the integration of blockchain and AI computing power and data, some promising projects may emerge, such as Livepeer, which does decentralized computing power for AI video creation, and The Graph, which builds underlying blockchain data. In addition to this, there are also some AI agent-type AI application projects that may have good implementation and bring decent returns to the projects.
HelloLydia¹³:
YettaS:
Cryptoria | Discussing Web3 and the Crypto World: The focus will be on PayFi and DePIN. PayFi represents real application scenarios for crypto payments, such as projects like Strike that can reduce the cost of cross-border payments. DePIN is the integration of token incentives with the real economy, such as Helium and Render.
But to be honest, I'm staying cautious in my investment operations. Currently, I'm only allocating to the top three assets: BTC, ETH, and SOL.
