- Analyst made an alt-season call based on Funding Rates’ correlation with U.S. T-bills.
- But BTC and stablecoin dominance dropped negligibly to confirm the altcoin season call at the time of writing.
The broader altcoin season has remained elusive in 2025, especially amid macro uncertainty, which capped Bitcoin [BTC] below $90K.
However, Guy Young, Ethena’s [ENA] Founder, projected that the sector could explode soon.
He said,
“In the last two years, we have had only two periods where funding averaged below risk-free rates for more than two consecutive weeks. Alts went vertical immediately after on both occasions. As of last Friday, we just recorded the third period.”
Source: X
Young’s attached chart showed that the altcoin market cap, excluding BTC and stablecoins, rallied (green) after the signal (red) was flashed. But was history on the verge of being repeated?
Altcoin season status
In previous altcoin seasons, Bitcoin dominance (BTC.D) and USDT dominance (USDT.D) declined significantly. Simply put, capital flowed from BTC to altcoins, and liquidity surged as users exchanged their USDT for top altcoin gems.
Source: TradingView
Since mid-March, USDT dominance has declined from 6% to about 5.1%. Over the same period, BTC.D eased slightly from 62.4% to 61%. During the November altcoin pump, BTC.D dropped from 62% to 55%, while USDT.D declined from 6% to 4%.
Here, it is worth noting that the small retracement in BTC.D and USDT.D coincided with a recovery in speculative interest, as illustrated by the Fartcoin pump. The AI meme-coin bounced +180% in the past two weeks.
The speculative interest has since spread to BONK and SPX, as they emerged as top performers in the past seven days.
Additionally, select altcoins like Hyperliquid [HYPE], Render [RNDR], and Berachain [BERA] topped 24%-30% gains over the same period.
But for a confirmed broader altcoin rally, the BTC.D and USDT.D should weaken further, as they did last November. In fact, the Altcoin Season Index reading of 24 revealed that it was still a BTC season.
Source: Blockchain Center
In conclusion, Guy Young’s altcoin season call could be validated if BTC.D and USDT.D declined further in a clearer macro environment.
