Bitcoin has returned to 94,000. Which altcoins are worth lying in ambush?

Bitcoin reclaimed the 90,000 mark on April 23, partly due to the gradually clarifying situation regarding the tariff war. U.S. Treasury Secretary Yellen stated that the tariff deadlock is unsustainable and that the situation is expected to ease in the near future.

On the other hand, recently Trump has been publicly pressuring Federal Reserve Chairman Powell, strongly demanding interest rate cuts, even suggesting that he would fire him if rates were not cut ( Powell ). This move has led to global market doubts about the independence of the Federal Reserve, triggering distrust in the dollar. The latest situation is that when the media inquired about Trump's related matters, Trump stated: "I have no plans to fire him ( Powell ). I just hope he can be more proactive about cutting interest rates."

Bitcoin, during the previous time when Trump demanded Powell's resignation, rarely played its role as "digital gold" for hedging, showing a high correlation with physical gold. Now that Powell's career crisis has been resolved and U.S. stocks have rebounded significantly, Bitcoin continues to rise. At this time, Bitcoin is also enjoying the dividends of liquidity asset premiums, having increased by 12% in the past seven days.

In the previous article, we mentioned that during this Bitcoin surge, altcoins have not followed suit, and the current Bitcoin market share has reached 64.2%, hitting a four-year high. Although it is still uncertain when the altcoin season will arrive, we can observe which altcoins are performing stronger than Bitcoin during periods of market turbulence to identify funding preferences, which may likely continue to show strong trends in the future.

The top 100 coins by market value in the past seven days have performed better than BTC.

The table below organizes the top 100 tokens by market capitalization, with those that have performed stronger than BTC over the past seven days. In fact, there are not only the 11 tokens listed below. Since Bitcoin surged on April 23, its market share has slightly decreased by (0.2%), indicating that a portion of altcoins has generally seen an increase. As a result, many coins that had been declining for a long time have outperformed Bitcoin's seven-day increase overnight. However, this rise should be interpreted as liquidity overflow rather than a result of capital selection.

Therefore, we exclude tokens that experience overnight surges, and instead choose altcoins that have a stable increase surpassing Bitcoin over these seven days.

Which tracks should be focused on?

The key focuses will be on the intersection of the above tokens with tracks: AI, L1, Meme, and DeFi.

AI: The previous wave of narratives was initiated by AI, starting with the combination of GOAT and memes, and later exploring more possibilities and applications. Under the AI frenzy, it brought about a bubble, which eventually burst under the continuous issuance of tokens by the Trump family, leading to a decline of more than 90% in most AI tokens and a reshaping of valuations.

The bursting of the bubble does not mean the end of the track, but rather a mechanism for eliminating projects of varying quality in the market. This means that with the continuous development of Web 2 AI, Web 3 AI projects have undergone a round of reshuffling. If one believes that Web 2 AI can be transmitted to Web 3, then the current valuation of the AI track is relatively cheap, and the fundamentals of the remaining projects have been tested. If the season of altcoins arrives in the future, this track is expected to absorb the liquidity spilled over from Bitcoin.

Currencies represented excluding the table: VIRTUAL, ARC, ALCH, SWARMS, Zerebro

L1: Public chain coins have always been a relatively stable choice when the altcoin season arrives. The overall logic is that the development of public chains determines the ceiling of the ecological projects under them, while also capturing the most liquidity.

However, unlike in 2021, funding is no longer paying for "EVM copy-paste" but is seeking public chains that can truly bring new applications through TPS and developer tools. Once specific catalysts (exchange listings, institutional custody) appear, price elasticity is clearly higher than that of established L1.

Emerging public chains without issued coins: Monad, MegaETH

Meme: Bitcoin is the largest meme coin in the entire cryptocurrency space. Meme coins have become a prominent trend in this cycle and have a high probability of continuing to survive in the future. The key factor is that meme coins serve as carriers of consensus and culture, and the leading meme coins on various public chains can also be seen as leveraged versions of public chain coins. Most meme coins are natively on-chain, and their pricing power is not monopolized by centralized exchanges, making it easy to have a wealth effect. In the cryptocurrency space, as long as there is a wealth effect, there will be endless liquidity and participants.

DeFi: In the crypto space, DeFi is a rare track with a real business model. Perp Dex and Dex earn transaction fees; lending can earn the interest spread on deposits; Yield Farming earns withdrawal and deposit fees; LaunchPad earns token issuance fees. In the table, HYPE, JUP, and AAVE are all dominant players in the DeFi field. More importantly, they all have token buyback mechanisms, which means that as the altcoin season arrives and liquidity recovers, trading volume increases. Due to the network effects of leading DeFi protocols, this will also drive the overall projects to have higher profitability, and higher profitability means stronger buyback power. When the demand for tokens increases, the likelihood of prices continuously rising also increases.

Conclusion: Pay close attention to Bitcoin market share

The launch of the altcoin season means that funds are flowing from Bitcoin to riskier and smaller market cap altcoins. Therefore, there are two key indicators to observe: first, whether Bitcoin can hold above 90,000, providing a stable confidence anchor for the market; second, and more importantly, whether Bitcoin's market share (BTC.D) can start to decline, reflecting a shift in fund preferences.

On April 23, Bitcoin surged to 90,000, but BTC.D only slightly fell by 0.2%, indicating that we are still in the stage of "capital concentrating on BTC, with steady growth in the base currency." However, if BTC.D begins to decline significantly next, such as returning to the 57% level seen earlier this year, it will be a signal that funds are officially flowing into the altcoin market, and only then will the "rotation market" have the opportunity to fully unfold.

In other words, the true starting point of the altcoin season is not only the continuous new highs of Bitcoin but also the process of rising risk appetite and capital spreading from BTC to other thematic tracks. When these two occur simultaneously, we have the opportunity to see a comprehensive revitalization of the overall market. Now is the time to observe, filter, and position. Whether the altcoin craze is coming will be answered by the movement of BTC.D.