What’s next for altcoins and when is altseason? The answer the market is ignoring
(and it’s not about emotions, it’s about math)
There is one simple idea from the book "Influence" that perfectly explains what is happening with altcoins today.
From the book "Influence" (Scarcity chapter, p. 284):
"It is a wise decision to offer for sale goods available in large quantities one at a time: abundance is the opposite of scarcity, so showing that there is a lot of a product means reducing its perceived value."
My opinion and observations from the crypto market.
In recent years, the number of altcoins has been growing not just quickly, but in geometric (or even exponential) progression. If you apply this logic to the crypto market, the conclusion is simple:
Most alts cannot be valuable in the long run.
Yes, individual coins can "shoot up" in the short term. But overall, it's an extremely risky game because supply constantly outweighs demand. Demand simply spreads thin across thousands, and now even millions, of tokens.
To keep this from looking like a "guess," let's look at the numbers.
How I calculated supply and demand.
To avoid manipulating the data, I used two different methods to calculate supply based on CoinMarketCap data.
🔹 Option 1 — "Total tracked"
The CoinMarketCap chart, which includes:
live coins;
dead projects;
memes;
junk that no one knows about.
This is real token inflation.
🔹 Option 2 — Investment-relevant
coins that were in the ranking;
had a price;
often — trading volume (meaning someone actually invested money).
These alts were the ones splitting the actual demand.
👉 I assessed demand through TOTAL2 (Tradingview.com) — the total market capitalization of altcoins (excluding Bitcoin).
Numbers by cycles
(facts, without interpretations, cycles were taken roughly around Bitcoin halvings, other dates can be used — the result will be the same)
🔵 2016 → 2020
Demand (TOTAL2):
November 2016: $0.36 billion
May 2020: $82 billion → growth ≈ 228x
Supply:
"Total tracked": 8,700 → 19,129 = (x2.2)
Investment (snapshot): 652 → 2,568 → growth by 3–4 times
📌 Conclusion: In this cycle, demand grew significantly faster than the number of alts. That is exactly why almost "the entire market grew." And altcoins delivered insane returns.
🔵 2020 → 2024
Demand (TOTAL2):
May 2020: $82 billion
April 2024: ~$1 trillion → growth ≈ 12x
Supply:
Total tracked: ~19k → ~1.5 million
Investment (snapshot): 2,568 → ~9,518 → by 3–4 times
📌 Conclusion: Demand was still growing, but alts had already begun competing with each other. The whole market wasn't growing — selection had begun.
🔵 2024 → now(11/01/2026)
Demand (TOTAL2):
~$1 trillion → ~$1.25 trillion → growth of only +25%
Supply:
"Total tracked": 1.5 million → 29.78 million
Investment (snapshot): ~9,500 → ~8,950
Of those with trading volume: ~6,267 (gives a bit of hope 😉)
📌 Conclusion: Total token supply is exploding,
but in the investment-relevant altcoin segment, demand is stagnating
and tough internal selection is taking place.
Very important point
If even according to a conservative estimate by CoinMarketCap the number of investment-relevant alts has grown manifold, then the real token inflation is even worse than these figures show.
This means a simple thing:
most alts cannot grow together;
each new token eats up the demand from the old ones;
the "buy alts for the long term" strategy works worse and worse with every cycle.
Quick summary
Yes, individual alts can shoot up. But overall:
demand grows slowly;
supply grows insanely;
competition between alts is becoming deadly.
The market no longer “lifts everyone.” It selects.
And this is the main thing to understand about the future of altcoins.
For those waiting for the "money printer" to turn on: The money printer can create temporary activity (which is a chance to take profits on alts), but it does not guarantee the emergence of real demand and does not limit supply.
Therefore, even with QE, the altcoin market will remain risky, and most assets will be in "survival mode."
In the next article, we will define the key questions on how to filter out altcoins.
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