Is This Alt Season Different?
Camila Russo & Olivia Capozzalo
August 14, 2025
gm, Defiers!
Today’s big story:
- Alt season is finally here — but does that mean a crash to bear market is near or is this time different?
In other news:
- ETH’s price run is leading to new all-time highs in on-chain lending and borrowing
- Uniswap’s UNI is rallying on the anticipation that protocol fees will finally be distributed to token holders
- #2 Solana perps DEX Drift has integrated Maple’s yield-bearing stablecoin as collateral
- The launch of Circle’s L1 Arc re-ignites the debate between open vs. permissioned chains
- DeFi Saver: Elevating DeFi excellence with game-changing features [SPONSORED]
- Exploring Stellar Flipside Quests: Earn, learn and contribute on the blockchain [SPONSORED]
Read more below! But first, please give our sponsors some love; they make this newsletter possible.
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📈 Markets in the Last 24 Hours
| TICKER | VALUE | 24H | |
|---|---|---|---|
 | Bitcoin | $117,817 | -3.08 % |
 | Ethereum | $4,551.41 | -3.42 % |
 | XRP | $3.07 | -5.89 % |
 | BNB | $844.18 | -0.15 % |
 | Solana | $192.5 | -3.01 % |
 MessariPortals | MINDSHARE Rank | MINDSHARE % Change (7d) |
|---|---|---|
 |  | -0.32% |
 | | -38.22% |
 | | -58.84% |
| Powered by Messari Portals | ||
Today’s Big Story
Altcoin Season Is Here. Is It Different This Time?
We might be upon another altcoin season — but this one might just have the strongest legs to run.
Both Coinbase and Pantera Capital say we’re nearing the tipping point where altcoins begin to consistently outperform Bitcoin.
“We think current market conditions now suggest a potential shift towards a full-scale altcoin season,” the exchange said in an Aug. 14 report.
Google searches for “altcoin” have hit their highest level since January 2018. Bitcoin dominance has slipped to ~58% from 65% last month.
In past bullish crypto cycles, what followed was a few months of speculative mania, and then a quick flameout into a new bear market.
Don’t say, don't say it… But this time it’s different! I know, famous last words, but it is. This time, the backdrop is far more favorable. In the U.S., regulatory clouds are parting: the SEC has stepped back from major lawsuits, Congress is pushing forward on stablecoin and market structure bills, and the SEC’s own staff wants open blockchains to be a key part of capital markets.
DeFi is fusing with fintech and TradFi — PayPal and Stripe are all in on stablecoin payments, while BlackRock, Franklin Templeton and Apollo are tokenizing funds. Consumer-facing apps like Polymarket, Zora and Kaito show crypto can drive real retail engagement. And a brand-new sector — crypto x AI — is emerging, creating new demand channels and use cases.
Coinbase’s latest Monthly Outlook report backs this up. They believe we’re in an early rotation to altcoins but we haven’t seen a full-blown alt season yet. The Altcoin Season Index is still in the low 40s, well below the “full season” threshold of 75, according to the report, which cites an index from CoinMarketCap.
Still, altcoin market cap has already jumped 50% since early July to $1.4 trillion. Much of this rotation has been ETH-led, driven by institutional buying from digital asset treasuries like BitMine Immersion Technologies and SharpLink Gaming. Together, top ETH treasuries now hold about 2% of the supply.
And Q4 will bring additional tailwinds. Rate cuts in September and October are expected to push capital out of U.S. money market funds and into risk assets, including crypto, Coinbase said.
What It Means for BTC and ETH
- BTC – Likely to underperform in percentage terms as capital rotates into higher-beta plays, though it remains the macro anchor.
- ETH – Poised to be the biggest winner. ETH’s role as the settlement layer for DeFi, stablecoins, and AI projects, plus heavy treasury accumulation, makes it the primary gateway for altcoin rotation.
Could This Be a Longer Rally?
Historically, altcoin seasons burn fast. 2018 and 2021 both ended with blow-off tops when speculation outran utility. This time, the rotation is happening with improving liquidity, institutional ETH demand, regulatory clarity, and real-world use cases.
Coinbase notes that liquidity metrics (stablecoin issuance, spot/perp volumes, orderbook depth) are recovering after six months of decline — a sign that this isn’t just paper gains.
That doesn’t mean corrections won’t come — they will. But for the first time, there’s a credible argument that altcoin season could be less of a sprint and more of a marathon.
With love,
Cami, founder of The Defiant
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Top News in the Past 24 Hours
- DeFi Lending Market Hits $100 Billion With the ETH price flying and regulators opening up to DeFi, on-chain lending and borrowing markets are making concurrent all-time highs, hitting the $100 billion threshold this week. Aave commands a lion’s share of the market, with $63.4 billion, or 63.4%, of the total TVL.
- UNI Rallies in Anticipation of Fee Switch Uniswap’s UNI is rallying this week, fueled by a recent proposal to establish a nonprofit legal structure for Uniswap Governance. Traders are operating under the assumption that the new structure paves the way for Uniswap Governance to finally start distributing protocol fees to token holders, what is known as the fee switch.
- Maple Launches Yield-Bearing Stablecoin Collateral on Perps DEX Drift Drift, the second-largest DEX on Solana by trading volumes, is integrating on-chain asset manager Maple Finance’s SYRUPUSDC as collateral, letting traders on earn yield on collateral for perpetual futures trading.
- FEATURE: Circle’s Arc Layer 1 Re-ignites the Open Versus Permissioned Chain Debate Circle’s newly launched Arc, described by the firm as an open Layer 1 blockchain, is dividing experts across the crypto community, with some saying its design undermines the principles of decentralized finance, and others calling it a practical step that boosts USDC’s infrastructure.
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