Alt season in crypto: signals of the beginning and selection of promising coins

When the cryptocurrency market experiences a period of active altcoin growth, traders refer to it as an “alt season.” This phenomenon usually occurs about a year after the Bitcoin halving and is characterized by simultaneous surges in the prices of alternative crypto assets. Currently, the market shows signs of entering such a cycle, attracting the attention of both professional investors and novice traders interested in alt season and its opportunities.

How the Alt Season Cycle Works and Its Development Phases

Alt season consists of four consecutive stages: first Bitcoin rises, then Ethereum, followed by large-cap altcoins gaining momentum, and finally a mass rally across the rest of the market, including low-liquidity assets. There is a quantitative indicator — if 75% or more of crypto assets demonstrate a 90-day return higher than Bitcoin, it is officially considered an alt season. An alt season index is calculated based on this principle.

Experts recommend abandoning short-term speculation and instead focusing on building a long-term portfolio. Such a strategy should include infrastructure tokens of decentralized exchanges (DEX), coins of platforms for decentralized applications (DApp), and projects related to artificial intelligence technology.

Artificial Intelligence and DeFi: Active Trends of the Current Alt Season

Worldcoin (WLD) has attracted investor attention amid a significant event in the AI sphere. Following the announcement of OpenAI’s Sora neural network, trading volumes of AI-oriented tokens increased by over 83%, reaching a weekly turnover of $9 billion. The WLD price showed growth, hitting local highs. It’s worth noting that the development of Worldcoin is led by Tools for Humanity, a company where OpenAI’s Sam Altman is actively involved. Currently, WLD is trading at around $0.40 with a market capitalization of $1.16 billion, demonstrating strong interest in the project.

Alongside WLD, other AI-related altcoins have gained activity. SingularityNET (AGIX) — a decentralized AI marketplace on the Cardano blockchain — has shown impressive growth in its market cap, becoming one of the leading projects in the sector. This confirms that alt season particularly favors projects with real technological value and innovative approaches.

ENS and JASMY: Altcoins with Recognized Growth Potential

Cryptorg’s chief analyst Andrey Podolyan highlighted two promising altcoins. Ethereum Name Service (ENS) — a platform for registering domain names on the blockchain — is currently trading at $6.69 with a market cap of $256.84 million. On the daily chart, a classic technical analysis pattern, the “cup with handle,” is forming, which typically signals an upcoming upward trend.

JASMY — a coin of the Japanese IoT platform by Jasmy Corporation — has received a new development impulse. The current token price is $0.01. The analyst links the recent growth to the Japanese financial regulator’s approval for professional market participants to invest in cryptocurrencies. If JASMY breaks through the resistance level, it could accelerate by an additional 100–200%, Podolyan believes.

Market Sentiment and Extreme Greed Indicators

Against the backdrop of capital inflows into Bitcoin ETFs and the rising BTC price, the “Fear and Greed Index” has risen to 76 out of 100. This indicates a shift in market sentiment into the “extreme greed” zone — an extremely high level. Similar sentiment levels were observed in early November 2021, just before Bitcoin reached its then all-time high of $69,000. Currently, BTC is trading significantly higher at around $74,180, with an all-time high of $126,080.

Such extreme index values often serve as a warning that market euphoria has reached critical levels. However, they can also indicate the intensity of the current alt season, when a mass influx of retail capital creates favorable conditions for altcoin growth.