Esta temporada de altcoins não chegou, para onde foram os investidores de retalho em cripto procurar novas oportunidades?

As altcoins with the highest risk in cryptocurrency are collapsing, retail speculators are scrambling to sell, suffering heavy losses. The much-anticipated altseason has yet to arrive in this cycle. So where has retail capital gone?

Altseason Didn’t Come?

While Bitcoin repeatedly reached new highs, the crypto community eagerly awaited altseason, but it has yet to materialise. According to Coinglass’s Altcoin Season Index, the current index is at a low of 30, far below the levels seen during the 2017 ICO boom and the 2021 DeFi summer. The recent high occurred in January 2024 when Bitcoin ETFs launched, and the market expected a broad rise in altcoins. However, even as SOL, XRP, DOGE, and LINK ETFs have successively come to market, the altcoin market remains sluggish.

Prominent market cycle analyst Ben Cowen remarked in a November interview with Bonnie Blockchain, “We simply don’t have an altseason this cycle.” While some tokens, such as SOL and BNB, have surged in the short term, the majority of altcoins continue to underperform against Bitcoin, and the market is nowhere near the broad prosperity of 2017 or 2021. He emphasised that a true altseason is when most altcoins see sustained gains against BTC: “But this cycle, what we’re seeing is a series of selective speculation and rebounds, not a full bull market.”

(O bull market das criptomoedas já terminou? Ben Cowen fala sobre altcoins: Pare de acreditar que o seu portefólio vai duplicar)

Disappearance of Meme Mania

For many traders, the logic of the internet meme era was key: buy tokens early, hope others follow, and repeat the process. This speculative behaviour has worked for years in crypto but now seems broken; prices no longer rise simply because new buyers appear.

Especially after the October 11th flash crash—dubbed “crypto’s Black Friday” by the community—meme coins have been struggling. According to Bloomberg statistics, monthly trading volume on meme coin platform Pump.fun has been on a steady decline since May.

Fonte: Bloomberg Acabou a era em que os ciclos de mercado valorizavam todos os tokens

Shuyao Kong, co-founder of MegaETH, states:

“For many years, token appreciation was due only to market cycles, not real progress—and that era is ending. Now, cypherpunks, traders, Wall Street institutions and even politics influence the market. A single narrative can no longer sway the market, and the rise of traditional valuation frameworks is making some people uneasy.”

Investors are starting to judge tokens as they would traditional companies, assessing whether they have users, revenue, or usable products.

Retail Turns to Tokenised Stocks and Prediction Markets

Many emerging tokenisation platforms feel safer or easier to understand. Crypto exchanges like Bybit and Kraken offer tokenised stocks like Apple and Tesla. DeFi platform Ostium brings real-world assets on-chain for trading, including indices, commodities, and forex, offering transparent and non-custodial trading with up to 200x leverage. While these products are currently small in scale, they already show a shift in speculative habits.

Since the October crash, daily trading volume for small- and mid-cap crypto derivatives on perpetual-focused exchange Hyperliquid has plunged. By contrast, prediction market activity on Polymarket has hit all-time highs.

Apps that once funnelled retail capital into altcoins now offer other forms of betting. Robinhood is aggressively expanding into sports betting. Crypto exchange Gemini is preparing to launch prediction market contracts. DeFi platform Hyperliquid allows users to create DIY contracts on various assets, from stock indices to private company shares. Coinbase Global Inc. has also broadened its service offerings.

Speculative Bets Never Disappear, They Just Seek the Next Target and Casino

Bloomberg columnist Muyao Shen believes altcoins will not disappear—herd speculation will always find a new outlet—but the reliable demand seen in previous cycles has faded.

According to Token Terminal, in the past month, out of thousands of traded crypto projects, only about a dozen generated over $1 million in revenue. The vast majority are declining, lacking value-supporting fundamentals.

Joshua Lim, Global Markets Co-Head at crypto broker FalconX, notes:

“Mainstream retail traders no longer see convex returns in altcoins as before; instead, they find upside in stocks linked to artificial intelligence, quantum, nuclear, and other emerging speculative fields.”

Perhaps we should say that speculative bets never disappear—they just keep searching for the next target and casino.

Este artigo Esta ronda de altseason não chegou, para onde foram os retalhistas de cripto? apareceu primeiro em ABMedia.