Binance’s CZ hails the tough alt season ranking system launched by CoinMarketCap

Binance co-founder and ex-CEO Changpeng Zhao has endorsed CoinMarketCap’s Altcoin Season Index, coining it as a “tough ranking system.” The Index measures market trends based on the performance of the top 100 altcoins relative to Bitcoin over a 90-day period.

“So CoinMarketCap has a new feature about Alt Season,” Zhao wrote on Friday. “Of the top 100 altcoins, how many of them outperformed Bitcoin in the past 90 days? I think this is a tough ranking system. 50 is probably a really good score.”

CoinMarketCap’s website shows real-time data, charts, and metrics that track market trends and identify changes in altcoin dominance. This provides a clearer picture of market cycles and investor sentiment toward the assets.

According to CMC, the threshold for determining an official “Altcoin Season” is when 75% of these altcoins outperform Bitcoin within three months. 

The index excludes stablecoins like Tether (USDT) and Dai (DAI), as well as asset-backed tokens such as Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC), staked Ethereum (stETH), and Chainlink’s collateralized LINK (cLINK). It focuses solely on coins that operate independently of Bitcoin’s direct price movements.

BERA, TRUMP and XRP among best performers against Bitcoin

As of March, only 14 coins in the rankings beat BTC’s 3-month gains, including Berachain (BERA), the Official Trump token (TRUMP), Mantra (OM),  Story (IP), and Ripple (XRP). 

The top two performers on the chart were newly launched tokens, Berachain and Trump’s Solana-based memecoin. BERA is currently changing hands at $6.71, up over 500% from its all-time low value of $1 on February 6, the date it was launched. 

TRUMP is trading 82% from its January 19 high of $75.35 but has maintained a value that is slightly over 100% more than those during its debut.

Other coins in the list that had between 60-70% gains in the last 90 days included exchange-based tokens like Bitget (BGB), Gate (GT), and decentralized autonomous organization protocol DeXe (DEXE), which recorded 64.04%, 64.71%, and 64.04%, respectively.

One market analyst, quoting Zhao’s post, talked about how lackluster the state of the altcoin market is now, saying: “New launches there are kinda meh but CT once again missing plenty of good opps. The fact that out of 14 alts that outperformed, 2 are new launches and 2 are gold proxies is CRAZY how down bad are alts this cycle.”

‘Wen’ alt season?

Historically, Altcoin Seasons have been marked by periods where alternative cryptocurrencies collectively gain prominence over Bitcoin. One of the most notable instances occurred between February and May 2021, when the combined market capitalization of the top 100 altcoins surged to 130% of Bitcoin’s market cap. 

During these cycles, altcoins often experience rapid price appreciation, sometimes delivering significantly higher returns than Bitcoin. Large-cap altcoins saw average returns of 174%, far outpacing Bitcoin’s 2% growth over the same period.

Per CMC’s data, in the last year, altcoins last took charge of the market during the November-December 2024 bull run, which saw a total of 87 out of the 100 top-ranked alts outperform the largest crypto by market cap. 

Market sentiment during such times tends to be overwhelmingly bullish, which leads to increasing trading volumes and a price volatility index uptick. The fear of missing out, or FOMO, also creeps into traders, and starts a period of high buying and selling activity. 

Some members of the crypto community predict the altcoin season will come in the last quarter of 2025, just like the previous year. But for others, like market watchers Rawl_xbt, this year will not have any Trump market effect if the US Federal Reserve does not cut interest rates, which could cause a recession.

“It doesn’t make any sense for the altcoin season to be in Q4 this year because we are getting closer and closer to a QE slowdown…. the worst scenario is that if Jerome will not cut rates or atleast giving any clue that will do so, then most likely a recession will come and markets will crash,” he remarked on X.

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