Last year’s warning: when altcoins pump, it’s time to ditch bitcoin

I wanted to share this thought because it really clicked with me, even though I can't seem to track down the YouTube clip of the guy who said it a while back. It wasn't some big influencer, just someone being interviewed about bitcoin, stating that you should consider leaving bitcoin behind when altcoins start outperforming it, or something like that. That idea stuck with me because it makes a lot of sense. Everyone who commented on my original post was way off base, thinking bitcoin and altcoins could just keep climbing forever. Part of the issue could be folks pulling cash out of bitcoin to throw at these altcoins, which then drives bitcoin's price down and causes the whole market to crash. The thread I started was basically asking if it’s true that the best time to sell bitcoin is when altcoins are rallying. Last year, I noticed a lot of altcoins or what I call shitcoins were going up and getting pumped. I had a feeling that was a sign the market was about to turn, and sure enough, a few months after I posted that, bitcoin took a big hit from its peak. Tom Lee was even hyping up Ethereum, one of those shitcoins, and I used to think he had some credibility. But once I caught him pushing that, I realized he was just looking out for his own interests, and I can’t take him seriously anymore. Every time bitcoin rallies, altcoins seem to follow suit. I remember trading altcoins back when bitcoin first hit $1,000. Most of those shitcoins ended up crashing hard afterward, but it’s always the same pattern bitcoin pumps, altcoins pump, then everything tanks.

Your headline looks confident, but I became disappointed when I read the body, as everything looks dependent on some individuals on an interview, internet or social media. Calling people delusional for their speculative beliefs is also out of place. Next time let your pride match your own independent warning conceived by your own work. After all, you will have something reasonable to boast of. About the quote above, I mostly see it the other way around. Bitcoin leads while altcoin follows. Of course, unless you don't understand the "body language" of Bitcoin and how to analyse it. What we see now has been warned since last year.

Altcoin rally happen because people thought they are already making max profit with bitcoin and want to try their luck in altcoin, money is trickling down it has always been that way. This isn't true at all anyway, nobody is buying shitcoins. They instead buy semiconductors, AI, and SpaceX IPO.

What he is saying is that bitcoin will first increase, then the altcoins will follow. That is correct as dumping will follow, but the way it will happen is not simple and straight forward but still the same pattern. In the last bull run closer to the bear market, old coins pumped while privacy coins like monero, zcash and dash which are also old coins followed. It was a big indication that the bear market was very close. This will let me say he is rightnane and also not new. Yes, this is true, we always talked about this on this forum. Since I have been on this forum, we have good posters that talked about this and that are speculating correctly. Although, in this last one, some moved towards what Micheal Saylor, CZ the former Binance CEO and some other well know people said, which made them argue in 2025 that no bear market, but many people among us still said the bear market is coming and it happened as usual.

You said this based on your experience in Bitcoin, but what he said is not so, or better said, misplaced. How could altcoins rally be used to judge the next Bitcoin's movement? I've seen a quite number of people misrepresenting that; using what altcoin does to predict what Bitcoin would do. As that is not bad, in the end, their predictions are wrong many times, but at the time it luckily align, they start thinking it's a yardstick, which is not. Nothing is better than using the directly technical and micro/macro economic happenings related to Bitcoin to speculate about Bitcoin. Too many correlation assumptions bring absurdity.

I would rightly say that we can use any method to actually predict the market as long as it goes in your favour, because there is no definite way to predict the market, in fact the most likely scenario of getting a bitcoin prediction right is using the historical data or trend and even that that doesn’t always align or correspond perfectly all the time. People actually have this believe that alt season comes after the bitcoin rally in a bullish year. This can be agreed to a degree because in some bitcoin cycles it had happened and right after this the market sentiment changes to bearish state, I think this is as a result of the buyers losses after which creates panics. But is this a good prediction sign? I would say no, because last year which was supposed to be bull season, I can say that there wasn’t any alt season that happened, although very few alts actually pump but this is definitely not an alt season, so had one rely on this sentiment it wouldn’t have come through

Despite what so many people said about altcoins last year, what is so different (in a better way) with those altcoins in this year? There have been a whole bunch of shit and scam coins since last year and even a lot new ones has been added to the previous number,  so what is so special that should make someone sell their Bitcoin and then invest in altcoins during altcoins rally, meanwhile Bitcoin price even influences the price of those other altcoins and not the other way round, as for those people saying last year that there would be an alt season, how many of that expectation have come true? Is not everything you hear online that you should pay attention to.

Yes, it is true, but not exactly the reason you said, though. What you saw was to avoid FOMO, that is when everyone is buying bitcoin and it keeps making the headlines that is going to keep increasing, that is the time you should exit the market and wait for the next opportunity. I somehow followed the strategy, I exited the market when bitcoin was around $112K and kept waiting for my moment to buy them back, but if I kept buying at the ATH then now I will be sitting with more than 50% down. It is very common rule in the investment market not just limited to cryptocurrency.

What you're stating here is seemly to be like an investment strategy for those who believes in the concept and moreover, not every bitcoin investors are diversifying on the AltCoin and so there'll be no room to sell their bitcoin for AltCoin. Moreover most AltCoins aren't long term potential value as bitcoin, and how would investors holding long term take such risk? Even the AltCoin season only trends for a very short period of time which makes it more risky to treat it as long term potential assets as bitcoin. In all, notable bitcoin investors only sells their bitcoin to take profits or probably when they're in need of money to settle their needs.

There is some truth to it, I mean that is just basically what happened in a Bullrun, but I think not always since I dont really feel some of the movement in the altcoins compared to Bitcoin that even reach around 126k$ when is really high compared to the past years. I mean, there is still some movement in the altcoins, but mostly in the new tokens in the market or just the trending ones like AI, RWA, etc., but on some top blue-chip altcoins, I dont really feel the pump at all. I remember back in the past Bullrun where altcoins in the market could easily make you around x10 of a profit, but some 2-3$ altcoins where it came from around 10$ didn't even do a pump, most of the pump was just a little bit from 2$ pump to 3.5$ something like that, yes there was a little bit of profit but im expecting more but it didnt really happened. Still it was because there are new trends on AI etc. so most of the pump are on the new tokens and most of the top tokens didn't make a huge movement, still the best move here was always to do some kind of sell out when you think that it was already overbought because even though you believed in the long term it was normal to take profit and sell a little of the risk.

Well, it used to be true, but now it's a different story. Many things have changed in cryptocurrency since Bitcoin ETFs and large institutional investors entered the market. I used to mine some altcoins before to hold some when BTC was dropping from hype, and altcoins began to pump. I made a good profit, unlike now, when the majority of altcoins are dominated by BTC. If the price of BTC rises again, most altcoins will rise as well. The BTC.D is still high, and I think it's impossible right now to see the altcoin season I was expecting to see during the BTC bearish, but I can't seem to notice any signs yet. I thought the bull from altcoins recently would continue, but it looks like a bull trap. It's pretty bad that there is no longer an altcoin season, but I'm still hoping for an altcoin season until the year ends.

This theory would related to monetary expansion I think or rotation between sectors, some idea to it I suppose as a rough signal.  I've found in the past, the proper rise in altcoins comes after BTC peaks and money is then able to move out of the safe gains BTC gave, did that match last year I dont know. The best clue of all is people writing gloomy prospects and expectations for BTC (in majority) then you know you are near the bottom price and should be buying even if the outlook appears poor, the negatives are apparent not ahead and the future is on balance likely far better then expected.   I'm not seeing enough gloom sadly so I dont yet find enough reason to be bullish but it is telling we are usually lagging in our sentiment, price is low and somehow confidence isnt there to buy the same asset as last year at half the price.

Honestly, I thought this was coming directly from you and I would have come up with another approach to seriously attack you so much on what you just made as your title. We must be careful with what we see online especially when it comes to those YouTube videos that are coming by random people, we quite already know that there are two season, either for bitcoin or for altcoin season to perform, so I don't see any sense in what this YouTuber was trying to figure out other than to confuse the general public about investing in Bitcoin which is wrong.

I am pretty sure many people here sodl some of their coins when the price was above $100k. It is quite a shame if they didn’t. It was one hell of a chance to cash out some to real assets like a house, a car etc, whatever you were lacking… now, it doesn’t make sense to sell anymore. In fact, it makes more sense to buy and dca and wait for the next ath. Remember; bulls make money, bears make money, pigs get slaughtered.

Thanks for the warning. Luckily, I didn't notice that thread. Otherwise, I'd be stuck with a portfolio dump of over 60% because I didn't see your advice on when to fully exit the market. How much could I have made today? BTC $117k to $60k = -48,8% www.tradingview.com/symbols/BTCUSD/?timeframe=12M vs ETH $3750 to $1600 = -57.4% www.tradingview.com/symbols/ETHUSD/?timeframe=12M SOL $181 to $64 = -64.7% www.tradingview.com/symbols/SOLUSD/?timeframe=12M XRP $3.46 to $1.1 = -68.2% www.tradingview.com/symbols/XRPUSD/?timeframe=12M

It is like automatic already. People knows their next move, so there is no need for them to be warned about. Yes. I mean as said earlier, they don't really replace Bitcoin to any other coins out there but it is just that they are only done with Bitcoin for a while (max out profit already and sold). So the drop in Bitcoin price is natural. It is also not true that market collapse, since the liquidity only transfers to the other or on the altcoins. Yes altcoins since we are talking about alt rally here, not shitcoin. Although some of them can only get influenced and/or maybe some investors are truly trying their luck on them too by investing just small amounts of money.

They're who does not be in a haste to sell their cryptocurrencies even though the price of cryptocurrency Skyrocket they would not rush to sell their cryptocurrencies, but those people who invested for short-term and they are objective to invest is to make a profit that is above their capitals, they are people who utilize the opportunity of selling their cryptocurrencies in order to make a profit... For aspect of accumulating more of cryptocurrencies, I agree with you, because now is the best opportunity to invest more in cryptocurrencies due to the massive falling of cryptocurrencies, but based on what I am seeing the price of Bitcoin as of today, will you not be the price of Bitcoin before ending of this month, from my observations Bitcoin price and other cryptocurrencies is going to fall more in prices...

Totally wrong; in fact the previous alt coin rally happens like it was a coincidence and if you think the documentary of this YouTuber is that reliable, then you should be able to predetermine the forth coming of the alt coin rally. Meanwhile the footprint remains undeterminable even if the record has been established. For those anticipating for this event, be careful because you might be waiting for eternity with no outcome because the alt season had neither no be determinable nor traditionally initiated repetitive market be having instead it has only been imitating the flow of bitcoin market.

When Bitcoin market feels boring and difficult to lift the price, people will moves to the next target altcoins, tokens, or memecoins. They shaking the altcoins, tokens, and memecoins coins and makes people believes that the altcoin rally comes. They follow the steps from the big whales and put their money to some potential altcoins hopes that they can makes more profits. Bitcoin rally seems already ends and the chances for altcoin next rally will be possible but we should prepare if that might not happens and the market will be on the sideways. No guarantee after this the altcoins rally comes so just be careful and prepare for anything.

We haven't reached that point as of now, in fact, altcoins didn't have a proper bull run, not even in the last cycle. The theory you mentioned is an old one where, in 2017 and 2021, we saw bitcoin rally first, then it stops and then altcoins rally, marking the end of the cycle. In the last bull cycle, this didn't happen and altcoins failed to make any upward momentum. If I am not wrong, altcoins were in a bear market when Bitcoin was in a bull season.