Bitcoin stays above $110k: Is an altcoin season coming?
After a blistering price rally, Bitcoin eases back a bit toward the end of the week.
After an impressive price rally, Bitcoin is taking a breather heading toward the end of the week. Although the price has fallen 0.18% on the day, BTC is still holding the psychologically important $110,000 level. At the time of writing, it trades at $110,816.
Still, investors remain optimistic. Open interest in the futures markets reached a new record of more than $80 billion on Thursday morning May 23 — up about 30% since the start of the month. According to data from CryptoQuant, it’s mainly new long positions, signaling a bullish market outlook.
Yet retail remains notably cautious. Google search trends for "Bitcoin" stay low, and the number of so-called shrimps — wallets with less than 1 BTC — is at the lowest point since 2021. The current rise is therefore being driven mainly by institutional investors, who are pouring billions into the market via spot ETFs. On May 22 alone, nearly $1 billion flowed into Bitcoin funds.
Meanwhile, traditional markets wrestle with uncertainty over Donald Trump’s tax plans and rising government yields (the U.S. 30-year yield recently topped 5%), yet crypto keeps its own course. A bright spot is signals that talks between the U.S. and China may be de-escalating.
The rally isn’t limited to Bitcoin. Altcoins are riding the mood too. Ethereum posted a local high of $2,731 this morning. Hyperliquid (HYPE) is making waves with a new all-time high of $36.01 around 5:25 a.m.
Among the top-20 projects, only SUI stands out negatively. Reason: a multi-million dollar hack on their own DEX, Cetus. Despite that incident, the odds of a real Altcoin Season are rising. The related index has gained almost 20 points this month and is now at 33%. Technically, such a season begins when at least 75% of altcoins outperform Bitcoin.
Yet BitMEX founder Arthur Hayes warns it’s not there yet. He says a real Altcoin Season can’t really take off until the summer or starting in Q3. To get there, Bitcoin would first need to head toward $150,000–$200,000, he said recently in an interview with Fortune Crypto.
In short: the engine is running, the settings are long, and the Altcoin index is heating up, but whether it really becomes Altcoin Season still depends on the king: Bitcoin.
