Major retro altcoins like Ethereum Classic, Litecoin, and Bitcoin Cash have recorded significant gains.
Old-school cryptocurrencies are on the rise after XRP reached a new all-time high, ending a long seven-year wait. An expert believes that this movement is an early sign of an altcoin season, driven by Bitcoin's record on Monday — and that newer altcoins may be the next to surge.
Major retro altcoins like Ethereum Classic, Litecoin, and Bitcoin Cash have recorded significant gains, while other altcoins such as Uniswap, Dogecoin, and Hedera have also appreciated.
"We are seeing early signs of an 'altcoin season,' but it hasn't truly started yet," said Akshat Vaidya, investment director at venture capital firm Maelstrom, to Decrypt. He noted that while Bitcoin's dominance is "starting to fall," it still remains above 60%. A rotation into altcoins like Ethereum "clearly shows that momentum is forming," Vaidya stated, adding: "It is quite possible that history will repeat itself, with an altseason following BTC's all-time high."
Leading the movement is Ethereum Classic, which surged 20.3% in the last 24 hours, according to CoinGecko — although it is still over 85% below its all-time high recorded in 2021.
Ethereum Classic was created in 2016, after a venture capital fund in Ethereum known as The DAO was hacked for $50 million — which represented a significant portion of Ethereum's market value at the time. Many considered the attack an existential threat to the network and forced a hard fork to reverse the hack. However, not everyone agreed with the decision, and those who opposed remained on the original network, which became known as Ethereum Classic.
Litecoin also surged to a four-month high, reaching $110.12, according to CoinGecko, before pulling back to $108.73 — still up 9% on the day. The cryptocurrency was created by Charlie Lee, a former Google employee, in 2011, being one of the first projects to follow the footsteps of Satoshi Nakamoto's 2008 whitepaper. It was designed in the image of Bitcoin but with the goal of being much faster.
Bitcoin Cash also rose 6.4% on the day, currently being the 19th largest cryptocurrency, according to CoinGecko, although it is 86% below its all-time high from 2017.
Like Ethereum Classic, Bitcoin Cash emerged after widespread disagreement on the network and a hard fork of Bitcoin in 2017. In this case, it was not a hack but rather a stalemate between developers and miners over a proposed change in Bitcoin's block size, which resulted in the network's split.
Ironically, Bitcoin Cash underwent two other hard forks, giving rise to Bitcoin SV and Bitcoin Cash ABC — which was later rebranded as eCash. Both have a significantly smaller market capitalization than Bitcoin Cash.
"It is clear that older coins, with greater liquidity and familiarity among investors, are attracting capital first. You will have to wait for a real altseason to see the newer coins surge," added Vaidya.
The jump of classic altcoins comes after another veteran cryptocurrency, XRP, reached a new all-time high of $3.65, after seven years of waiting. The record occurs as the long legal battle of the project with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) seems to be nearing its end — although it has not yet been officially resolved.
Other altcoins such as Uniswap, Dogecoin, and Hedera also recorded notable gains of 17.5%, 11.3%, and 7.6% on the day, respectively.
On Thursday, the U.S. House of Representatives approved by a wide margin the GENIUS Act, a landmark bill that establishes a regulatory framework for the creation and issuance of stablecoins. The measure was seen as a strong signal that Donald Trump's administration is advancing its pro-crypto agenda.
"The favorable government policy in the U.S. and institutional involvement at the right time have made the blood flow back into the crypto market," said Sean Dawson, head of research at Derive, an on-chain options platform, to Decrypt.