- The Dogecoin price is riding an uptrend this week.
- Some observers posit DOGE’s uptrend will trigger altseason.
- Bitcoin dominance has leveled off at present.
This week, Elon Musk fueled speculation around integrating crypto payments on his X social media platform. Dogecoin, known as Musk’s favorite cryptocurrency, rallied in response to the speculation, culminating in a 17% gain to lead the top 100 on Thursday. This surge triggered theories that a Dogecoin frenzy may be the catalyst to kick off a broader altcoin season across the market.
Dogecoin to Lead Altseason?
With Dogecoin soaring this week, crypto YouTuber Scott Melker retweeted a post from a few weeks ago theorizing the connection between DOGE’s movement higher and altcoin season.
In this post, Melker posited that mainstream FOMO will return to crypto once Dogecoin makes a new all-time high. In support of this theory, the YouTuber stated that the previous bull cycle was kicked off “mainstream fervor,” as characterized by users facing multi-month waitlists to open exchange accounts to buy memecoins like Dogecoin, as well as the prevalence of NFT mania.
Adding further credence to Melker’s theory, trader Donovan Jolley mentioned that Dogecoin’s biggest rallies and subsequent altseasons have tended to come shortly after Bitcoin dominance dips. With BTC.D wavering recently, Jolley sees this as a potential trigger for altseason.
The crypto markets broadly oscillate between “Bitcoin season,” when BTC outperforms, and “altcoin season,” when alternative cryptocurrencies capture greater investor interest as Bitcoin’s dominance wanes. However, Blockchain Center believes the market is firmly in Bitcoin season.
Far From Altseason
Data from Blockchain Center indicated the market is currently firmly entrenched in Bitcoin season. The platform’s “Alt-Season Index,” which measures the percentage of the top 50 cryptocurrencies outperforming Bitcoin over 90 days, registered a current score of just 47%. The threshold for altseason is once this index crosses 75% of the top 50 tokens, outperforming BTC over the last 90 days.
While there was a brief two-week altseason in mid-to-late January and again for one day on March 6, according to Blockchain Center metrics, we must go back to August 2022 for the last sustained period of altcoin outperformance. That altseason lasted roughly six weeks before fading by mid-September 2022.
On the Flipside
- Correlation is not causation, and waning Bitcoin dominance cannot be directly attributed to DOGE price rallies.
- Altcoin gains during altseason are generally orders of magnitude greater than large caps, as it takes more capital to increase the market cap of established tokens.
- While Dogecoin has been soaring lately, DOGE is still 70% below its ATH.
Why This Matters
While there has been no shortage of Dogecoin clones lately, the original memecoin’s continued dominance of that niche sector and its potential to catalyze an altseason, underscores DOGE’s remarkable staying power after all these years.
Read more on Dogecoin outperforming the rest of the market here:
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