The most ironic thing about this bull run: $BTC has sucked up all liquidity, and the altcoins have become sacrificial corpses

People used to say that after $BTC’s rise, the money would flow into $ETH and into altcoins; 2017 and 2021 were played this way. But this time, the script is completely flipped—$BTC surged from 40,000 to 63,000, while the altcoins are still stuck in place, even dropping even more disastrously.

I’ve been watching the fund flows for a week. The trading volume in $BTC trading pairs has clearly collapsed. Either the money stays in $BTC, or it goes into stablecoins and ETFs—there’s basically no sign of rotation into altcoins.

The fact that institutions are only buying $BTC is already obvious. A certain institution’s IBIT has had net inflows for 10 consecutive days, and its ETF holdings are still hitting record highs.

In the past, altcoin season was driven by retail FOMO spillover. Now, thousands of tokens are competing for that small pool of existing liquidity, and investors have gotten smarter—who would dare to jump in and take the bag?

Back then, my thoughts were actually pretty complicated. I still held a few old altcoins. Watching $BTC rise every day while my own holdings stayed completely unchanged—that feeling was even more painful than losing money outright.

Missing out on $BTC is already painful. Missing out on altcoin season too? But the reality is that altcoin season may never come again—at least not like before, with broad-based gains.

The trick I see is simple: the liquidity structure has changed. In the past, it was $BTC → $ETH → altcoins. Now, $BTC itself has already drained the water.

With rate-cut expectations warming up, too, although it pushes the dollar weaker, it mainly drives $BTC. Retail and institutions are waiting for certainty—no one is willing to rush into altcoins first. The key issue is that the unlock amount for altcoins is too large. Every day, new tokens come out to compete for liquidity.

Do you think there will be an altcoin season this year? Or is this bull run just a one-man game for $BTC?

Actually, looking back now, the hype from the World Cup prediction market gave an insight—short-term hot spots are the current liquidity exit, not the result of market makers pumping prices. It’s really that there are users who are willing to bet their funds on emotions and a sense of participation.

If this model can spread from sports predictions to DeFi, NFTs, and even on-chain derivatives, then money could potentially overflow again into $ETH and altcoins. Otherwise, $BTC’s bloodletting will only get harsher—the altcoins will either wait to die or pivot into products that can generate their own liquidity.
#我的Gate交易时刻 #预测世界杯德国VS科特迪瓦 #STRC跌破面值11%创上市新低