If you’ve been in the crypto space long enough, you’ll notice a clear pattern: in each bull market cycle, the main upswing phase where altcoins truly break out is lasting for an ever-shorter period of time.
In the 2017 bull run, many altcoin rallies carried on from early in the year to year-end, with a long cycle. Even if you entered a bit late, as long as the overall direction was right, there were still plenty of opportunities to profit.
During the bull markets from 2020 to 2021, for coins in the DeFi craze, one trend could last several months. After that, sectors like NFTs, L1 chains, and GameFi rotated one after another—but the duration of each rally kept getting shorter.
In the previous cycle, this feature became even more pronounced. Most altcoins’ big surge phases were concentrated in two waves: early 2024, when the ETF got approved, and late 2024, around the election. By the time Bitcoin refreshed its high in October 2025, many altcoins had already topped as early as January 2025—or even as early as March 2024. A lot of people missed the right entry timing in the last cycle. They held altcoins all the way through, and in the end not only didn’t they break even, they lost a lot.
I think the rhythm of this cycle’s market will be pretty similar.
The approach for trading altcoins is actually very clear: be bold in the early stages of the bull market, and the further the market goes, the more conservative your operations should become.
When a bull market first kicks off, new narratives are only just beginning to emerge. The market hasn’t fully priced up the action yet, and most people still hold skepticism. In this phase, there’s no need to spend too much time on in-depth research. Just watch whichever product is rising the most aggressively. After this wave of pullback, I basically laid out the trade the same way—following what the market is hyping, like ZEC, HYPE, UNI. No need to overthink it.
The window for making altcoins work is short to begin with. Once the whole network has figured out the hot spots and the story has been told to death, the most profitable rally is basically over. I estimate that the altcoin main upswing this time may last only about 2–3 weeks—right now it’s just a warm-up.
Once the market starts going absolutely crazy and running hard across the board, I treat it as a phase high for distributing/covering. Even if I sell and miss out later, it’s fine—I don’t need to force the sale at the very top. Swap the altcoins into BTC, then use BTC to trade and bet on the subsequent market.
In one sentence: the bull market’s overall β moves last a long time, but altcoins’ excess returns (alpha) are often only a few short weeks.
Everyone, seize the opportunities early in the bull run.
In the 2017 bull run, many altcoin rallies carried on from early in the year to year-end, with a long cycle. Even if you entered a bit late, as long as the overall direction was right, there were still plenty of opportunities to profit.
During the bull markets from 2020 to 2021, for coins in the DeFi craze, one trend could last several months. After that, sectors like NFTs, L1 chains, and GameFi rotated one after another—but the duration of each rally kept getting shorter.
In the previous cycle, this feature became even more pronounced. Most altcoins’ big surge phases were concentrated in two waves: early 2024, when the ETF got approved, and late 2024, around the election. By the time Bitcoin refreshed its high in October 2025, many altcoins had already topped as early as January 2025—or even as early as March 2024. A lot of people missed the right entry timing in the last cycle. They held altcoins all the way through, and in the end not only didn’t they break even, they lost a lot.
I think the rhythm of this cycle’s market will be pretty similar.
The approach for trading altcoins is actually very clear: be bold in the early stages of the bull market, and the further the market goes, the more conservative your operations should become.
When a bull market first kicks off, new narratives are only just beginning to emerge. The market hasn’t fully priced up the action yet, and most people still hold skepticism. In this phase, there’s no need to spend too much time on in-depth research. Just watch whichever product is rising the most aggressively. After this wave of pullback, I basically laid out the trade the same way—following what the market is hyping, like ZEC, HYPE, UNI. No need to overthink it.
The window for making altcoins work is short to begin with. Once the whole network has figured out the hot spots and the story has been told to death, the most profitable rally is basically over. I estimate that the altcoin main upswing this time may last only about 2–3 weeks—right now it’s just a warm-up.
Once the market starts going absolutely crazy and running hard across the board, I treat it as a phase high for distributing/covering. Even if I sell and miss out later, it’s fine—I don’t need to force the sale at the very top. Swap the altcoins into BTC, then use BTC to trade and bet on the subsequent market.
In one sentence: the bull market’s overall β moves last a long time, but altcoins’ excess returns (alpha) are often only a few short weeks.
Everyone, seize the opportunities early in the bull run.