Crypto markets are down again today, with total capitalization having lost around 3% over the past 24 hours in a fall to $3.24 trillion.

As usual, the brunt of the losses is from altcoins, which have continued to bleed for most of this month. Nevertheless, February has usually been a pivotal period for altcoins and markets in general if past cycles are anything to go by.

“Markets look bleak, and everyone is calling for the death of altcoins, but could we be in store for a bounce soon?” asked analyst Miles Deutscher on Feb. 19.

He observed that February has historically marked a local bottom in the “OTHERS/BTC ratio” at this stage in the four-year cycle.

Markets look bleak and everyone is calling for the death of altcoins, but could we be in store for a bounce soon?

February has historically marked a local bottom in the OTHERS/BTC ratio at this stage in the 4-year cycle.

What if pic.twitter.com/LdmbMgLTHK

When Altseason?

Fellow analyst ‘Mister Crypto’ observed that there is always a Bitcoin dominance wick right before altseason, as seen in the 2017 and 2021 cycles.

The metric did spike earlier this month, hitting a four-year high of 64.3% before declining slightly to current, but still high, levels at 61.3%, according to Tradingview. Others have suggested that BTCs dominance needs to tap 70% first before it begins to fall, heralding the start of the altseason.

We always get a dominance wick right before altseason.

It happened in 2017 in 2021

It will happen again in 2025! pic.twitter.com/23ktw2ldua

Analyst ‘Kaleo’ opined that we have yet to see the heart of the bull market.

“What we saw in memes is comparable to the growth we saw in coins during DeFi summer at the early stages of last cycle,” he added.

It was a “mini-altseason” after a long bear market that preceded and led to the next Bitcoin all-time high, which “led into the next wave of L1 ecosystem growth.”

He added that we are entering into the most frictionless regulatory period the crypto market has seen in years, combined with the most support it has seen from the highest levels of the government.

“I have a very hard time believing that we dont see significant growth in the altcoin sector outside of *just* meme coins.”

Meme Coin Bubble Bursts

Meme coins have played a major role in the altcoin market cycle this time around, but as recently reported, the majority of them have no purpose or utility and/or were pump-and-dump scams orchestrated by insiders profiting off retail degen speculation.

The fallout from these meme scandals has battered the Solana ecosystem, with SOL dumping almost 45% in just a month as the network was primarily used to mint and trade these spurious tokens.

SOL hit its lowest price since Nov. 5 on Tuesday, dropping below $162. Other big losers today include Cardano down 6%, Chainlink down 4.3%, and Hyperliquid dumping more than 14% on the day.