This round of altcoin season may be shorter, more fragmented, and may not even fully blossom.

The previous altcoin trends relied on retail investors and small funds rushing in, but now large funds are focused on BTC ETFs, ETH ETFs, and high market cap blue-chip assets on-chain, and are less willing to cast a wide net into a bunch of illiquid junk.

On-chain monitoring and KOL chain tracking are becoming increasingly widespread, making it much more costly for manipulators to pump prices and cut retail investors; as soon as they pump, on-chain hunters follow suit to arbitrage.

In the past, the themes of altcoin seasons were scarce, but now meme, AI, RWA, and on-chain games are all competing for attention, making it difficult for funds to concentrate on a wave of junk for sustained fermentation.

Thus, a new situation may arise where a few top junk coins are wildly pumped while the rest can’t even catch the atmosphere of the opening.