Has Alt Season Arrived?
Has it finally begun? The much-anticipated Alt season may finally be upon us, Ethereum looks to be pushing ahead, and the rest of the market, at least, appears to be looking buoyant. Except for a brief moment of momentum at the end of last year, Alt-coins have had an unfavourable run lately, and many have never recovered from their bear market lows. In my opinion there are two significant factors at play here. First and foremost, there are simply just too many to choose from now, barely a day passes without another launch. In 2023 the FCA estimated that there were 20,000 different cryptocurrencies, since then we have seen wave upon wave of launches, i doubt anyone even bothers counting anymore. Out of these 20,000 (lets stick with the 2023 figure), there are likely a hundred or so that will ever amount to anything. This makes picking Alt-coins a minefield, one that many simply can no longer be bothered to navigate.
The other factor is Bitcoin and the newfound interest, from not just the financial sector, but also the plethora of Treasury companies that are now actively accumulating as much as they can physically obtain. In typical cycles, as BTC has moved ever higher, whales circulate out of BTC and into Alt-coins, pushing up the prices throughout the market, then when gains are taken on Alts, the money flows back into BTC, and they rinse and repeat. This time its different, very different. Its likely that long term BTC whales worry about selling their positions in Bitcoin, for the fear that they wont be able to buy back lower, as in previous cycles. Anything they do sell, will get bought up by the institutions, leaving them locked out of the market. Hence, in my opinion, Alt season has taken so long to appear, and may not have the impact it has on previous cycles.
Now, that does not make me bearish on ALT-coins altogether; far from it. I just believe that 99% of them are trash and will not experience the massive runs that we have come to expect. The best coins, however, will be a different story. The likes of Ethereum, XRP, Solana & Stella Lumens, tokens with actual use cases – they will likely see success, equal too, if not better than we have seen with Bitcoin so far. The institutions will already be eyeing them up, most will likely have already added some to their balance sheets, and naturally the treasury companies are not far behind, we have already seen companies move into holding Ethereum and other Alts on their balance sheets. This bull-run is likely to be a defining moment in the Crypto market, only the best will survive, and the rest, like pets.com in the early 2000’s dot-com bubble, will disappear forever, consigned to the history books, leaving thousands of heartbroken investors behind.
Treasury Stocks Nosedive
We have reached the mid-week point, and it’s not looking good for the beleaguered treasury stocks. Once again, we have seen double-digit losses for the BTC treasury stocks, including Smarter Web Company, Satsuma Technology PLC and Vaultz Capital PLC. Has the wind finally come out of their sails? Or is this just a typical summer dip, as thousands of investors begin to jet away for their summer holidays. In my humble opinion, its just too early to say yet, but as it stands at the moment, ill be holding off making any further investments until i see a shift in sentiment, which in all likelihood, will not happen until September now.
My Current Crypto stocks portfolio is as follows:
Tap Global PLC, Cykel AI PLC, KR1 PLC, and Vault Ventures PLC – This is more than enough risk for me to take on at present. My reason for holding is in the most part, as I believe there will be a run on Alt tokens over the summer period, so I have positioned myself to benefit from that by picking both KR1 & Vault Ventures. Tap Global PLC is a different story, as the only listed Cryptocurrency exchange listed in London, i think that it will have a run at some point, and i do not want to risk it happening, whilst I am looking the other way, call it a conviction investment, or a fools errand possibly!
Disclaimer: Nothing in this article is intended as investment advice, and readers should always do their own research. The cryptocurrency sector is highly volatile and can move rapidly in both directions. I may be invested in some of the stocks I mention in these articles, so please note that my comments may be biased. Everything is my opinion, so please fact-check.
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