Altcoin season has not arrived because everyone has jumped straight to the ‘punch line’
As crypto traders look forward to the altcoin season, one analyst argues that it won't be as expected as new crypto traders rush to buy highly speculative assets soon.
“The joke's been told, everybody knows the punchline, and they've gone straight to the punchline, and it's not funny anymore,” Glassnode lead analyst James Check said on the Aug. 29 episode of the Rough Consensus podcast.
Traders tried to outperform the market.
Analyzing traders' behavior during the bull run of 2021 and comparing it to 2024, Czech traders tried to beat the market by jumping directly into buying overvalued memecoins as soon as possible.
In past bull runs, memecoins have typically rallied towards the tail end of a broader market rally, but this time the asset is rallying faster than ever.
“In 2021, we will have everything bubble, where this beautiful capital falls, Bitcoin, Ethereum, L1s, DeFi, up to monkey JPEGs,” Czech explained. He explained that many crypto natives have learned that the fastest way to make a lot of money is to “buy the dumbest coin”.
Following the Czech approval of spot bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded funds (ETF) on January 10, traders took advantage of the sharp rise in the price of Bitcoin to swing the fence on memecoins.
Traders jump straight to PEPE
Instead of buying utility tokens or other assets, they stepped up the risk curve and “went straight to PEPE tokens.”
In particular, PEPE ( PEPE ) posted impressive gains in the first half of 2024, with a select few traders making eye-watering gains. On May 15th, one savvy PEPE trader made a profit of $46 million, a 15,718-fold return on his initial investment of $3,000 in April.
PEPE has increased by 757.37% over the past 12 months. Source: CoinMarketCap
However, despite the rise in value of PEPE and other major memcoins like DogwhipHat (YF), Czech said, “There was this gap in between where nobody touched anything.”
Related: Key altcoin current gauge in accumulation mode as Bitcoin dominance increases
On the other hand, other traders and analysts interpret the falling price of altcoins and lower-than-expected trading volumes as a big sign of future price action.
In the year On August 29, crypto trader Luke Martin told his 331,500 X followers: “Altcoins are currently being sold to ‘buy more of your house'.”
Martin said that when Bitcoin was at this level in the summer of 2020, its price rose sixfold in the second half of the year.
“The price went straight from 10k to 60k in the next 6 months,” Martin said.
Magazine: ‘Everything seems to be angry': Peter McCormack unveils new podcast
This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and business activity involves risk, and readers should do their own research when making a decision.
