- Bitcoin’s growth has sucked all the liquidity from the markets which also has corporate money unlike altcoins.
- Stablecoin markets, too, have swelled up riding on cross-border payments.
- The Alt Season has already ended its current cycle, and markets are consolidating for the next.
- The upcoming alt cycle focuses on revenue, active users, and addressable market size.
- Cryptos like Ethereum, XRP, Solana, Chainlink, and Ton could outperform others in the future.
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Why did Bitcoin grow but Ethereum didn’t?
So far, Bitcoin is the only cryptocurrency with significant financial investment, thanks to the success of ETFs, corporate investors, and whales holding their investments without booking substantial profits.
Ethereum could not achieve a similar success because Ethereum ETFs currently do not allow staking, which reduces annual profits by as much as 4%. As a result, Ethereum ETFs failed to gain traction in the last 1 year of their existence (since July 2024).
Bitcoin had no staking component attached to its ETFs (it is a PoW Blockchain) and hence, people investing in Bitcoin are getting similar gains as those who are directly holding Bitcoin. In addition, ETF holders do not have to worry about securing their Bitcoin, which adds a whole other dimension of benefits.
Uncertainty in Stablecoin Markets
Stablecoins are the liquidity on which crypto markets run. Without them, there would be no way for investors to reap profits and retain them.
Furthermore, allocating 15 to 20% of your portfolio to stablecoins acts as a shock absorber. Without them, your profits in one cryptocurrency could be erased soon due to market volatility.
Currently, stablecoin markets have been witnessing massive policy changes. The US’s Genius Act, the European Union’s MiCA framework, and other ongoing legislations are attempting to regulate them in a manner that better addresses these issues.
We need more uniform stablecoin policy across the world to see a new era of growth in the crypto markets.
Will an Alt Season Ever Arrive?
The altcoin corresponding to the 2024 market rally has already arrived and faded away. This rally did not seem significant because, unlike previous alt seasons, Altcoin prices grew in tandem with the season; this alt season, the market size increased. This increase was evident in the changes to the Altcoin market cap between January 2024 and June 2025.
The largest gainers of this alt season were AI coins and memecoins. However, these gains failed to solidify because there was no utility driving them. In the case of AI coins, the rally was fueled by the hope of a future AI revolution. For the memecoins, however, they were simply based on unrealistic hype, followed by market saturation caused by the Solana memecoins.
When Will the Next Altcoin Season Arrive?
The next Altcoin season appears to be driven by utility, with a focus on tangible factors such as protocol revenue, real-world utility, addressable market size, and other critical aspects.
A few coins that could outperform others are Ethereum, XRP, Solana, Chainlink, and Toncoin.
Ethereum
Ethereum remains the second-largest crypto for a reason despite all its challenges. It powers the DeFi markets across multiple chains via its EVM and supports hundreds of protocols and dApps that utilize its Layer-1 chain for security.
Suggested Reading: Data Proves Ethereum Is The Real Market Leader
Ethereum’s current series of upgrades (Pectra, Dencun, Sharding) aims to make the Blockchain more decentralized through improved staking guidelines, reduced validator maintenance costs, lower downtime penalties, increased scalability, and enhanced security.
In its most developed form, Ethereum would be highly cost-effective, allowing validators to run nodes with just 1 ETH and scale up to 100,000 transactions per second.
XRP
XRP has been making great strides in the Payment and Tokenization markets. Its Blockchain is optimized to finalize transactions within a few seconds. Furthermore, transactions on XRP cost a fraction of what they cost on Bitcoin and offer significantly greater security.
XRP has been utilized for cross-border transactions, banking, and other finance-related applications.
Solana
Solana remains a top choice for dApps because of its reliable and low-cost Blockchain. The chain is also ready for RWA applications, which are believed to be one of the largest upcoming fields in crypto.
Chainlink
Chainlink has become a top utility coin due to its success in the Oracle market, cross-chain solutions (CCIP), and its enterprise adoption.
In terms of revenue, the project is doing extremely well. The annual estimated revenue for 2025 stands at $30 million for Chainlink.
Toncoin
TON benefits from its integration into the vast Telegram ecosystem, enabling dApps and DeFi protocols to operate at the lowest cost.
The Blockchain has a theoretical speed of 100,000 transactions per second. For Blockchain projects, Toncoin remains a cheap and scalable solution. It also provides its users access to over a billion Telegram users, as users do not need to install additional dApps for TON if they have Telegram.
