The days of retail investors owning whole Bitcoin coins are pretty much over. I don’t know about you, but you can’t buy a house with $100,000 in my part of the world, and not many would pay the equivalent of a house for some digital coin. Just one coin, to be precise.
That’s not to say there aren’t whole coiners among retail anymore. I bet we’d be amazed to see the stash some folks you wouldn’t give a dime for actually have. I’ve had my fair share of underestimating people in my life, and I’m done with that.
Institutions have managed to acquire millions of Bitcoins since the ETFs got approved in the US, and in that regard, BlackRock owns close to 650,000 BTC alone. That’s a shit-ton of Bitcoin, and the equivalent in cash is even more outrageous. I was expecting Bitcoin to be at a higher level by now, though…
Back in 2024, when it blew past its previous all-time highs, I was expecting it to shoot straight to $200,000. I damn near saw myself rich that year, but things didn’t go as I imagined, as they never do. BTC is “just $100,000” now, and so far, it’s had a pretty lonely bull market.
Some might argue we already had an altcoin season, while others swear they know for sure we won’t have one this bull cycle. I’d say the truth is somewhere in between. We haven’t had a proper altcoin season yet—just hype coins pulling off outrageous price rallies—but we can’t say the show’s over either.
If you check the BTC.D all-time chart I uploaded in the introduction, you’ll see that since 2017, BTC has always hit a peak in dominance followed by a steep correction, which translated to an altcoin season. Why would this time be different? Exactly, why the hell would it be different…
A few paragraphs up, I said, “some might argue that we already had an altcoin season while others claim they know for sure we will not have any this bull cycle. I’d say the truth is somewhere in between.” To me, the truth lies in between because I believe BTC.D will peak at some point this year.
It might climb as high as 71%, like we saw back in 2020, before making room for altcoins to soar, or it might peak at a lower level, but it’ll happen eventually. However, the fall in BTC.D probably won’t be as steep as in past cycles due to Bitcoin’s mass adoption.
What makes me believe—or hope—that altcoins (all of them) will have their moment this year is Bitcoin’s success. Retail, as I mentioned in the introduction, will gradually lose purchasing power over BTC, but they’ll always find cash to scoop up “cheap altcoins.” Once BTC gets really crazy, like well above $100,000 (that psychological level), that’s when I think altcoins will take off.
Maybe we won’t see 100X gains on most of them, but some rally has to come for altcoins too. Otherwise, retail will vanish from crypto forever, and without retail, there’s no mass adoption. You’ve got to keep the masses entertained somehow to keep the show going. Just my two cents—take it all with a grain of salt.
Have a great day and catch up with you all next time.
Thanks for your attention,
Adrian