The altcoin market is currently on a roll, with several cryptocurrencies skyrocketing to multi-year highs, but Ki Young Ju, the founder and CEO of blockchain analytics platform CryptoQuant, believes this altseason will not play out as traders and investors expected.

In an X post, Ju insisted that this altcoin season will be “weird and challenging” because only a few chosen assets will record significant gains and “win the game.” According to the CryptoQuant founder, the altcoin market sentiment is good, but the sector is not seeing a notable inflow of fresh liquidity, and this could hamper the growth of most crypto assets.

Altseason to Play Out Differently

The altseason refers to when capital flows from bitcoin (BTC) to other cryptocurrencies. During this time, BTC retraces its steps and consolidates within a particular range, its dominance and market share declining, while altcoins skyrocket and possibly hit new highs.

From Ju’s perspective, BTC is drifting away from the crypto ecosystem and developing its own paper-based layer-2 entity. The CryptoQuant CEO said this development is being pushed by Bitcoin spot and futures exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and the stocks of Bitcoin-friendly companies like MicroStrategy (MSTR).

Unfortunately, bridging from the paper-based L2 Bitcoin ecosystem to altcoins is impossible. Ju explained that altcoins used to move together due to their correlation with BTC; however, that pattern has broken, and only a handful of cryptocurrencies are showing independent traits because they are attracting new liquidity.

“Alt season is no longer defined by asset rotation from #Bitcoin. The surge in altcoin trading volume isn’t driven by $BTC pairs but by stablecoin and fiat pairs, reflecting real market growth rather than asset rotation,” the crypto analyst clarified in a separate tweet.

Following Bitcoin’s Path

The CryptoQuant founder’s opinion is substantiated by altcoin market dynamics over the past 24 hours. While most large-cap altcoins have been in the red, others, like Ripple’s native token, XRP, and Chainlink (LINK), have skyrocketed to levels not seen in years.

Meanwhile, Ju asserted that altcoins now have two options: build a real internet money ecosystem using stablecoins and BTC or create paper-wrapped versions like Bitcoin. He then suggested that altcoin investors find cryptocurrencies that can work on one of the two options and hold them long-term.