Altcoin Season Is Just Getting Started – And These Alts Are About to Break Out

Wen altseason? Now. Right now. After waiting patiently all year while BTC and ETH have soared, altcoin traders are about to be rewarded as the market shifts towards small and mid-cap assets. Everywhere you look, altcoins are gaining ground on majors. It’s subtle so far, but it adds to the thesis that altcoin season has begun. As the saying goes, slowly then all at once.

In past cycles, the imminent arrival of altseason was as much a guessing game than anything due to the limitations of onchain data. Bitcoin's share of the total crypto market cap dropping below 50% has empirically been indicative of capital shifting to altcoins, and while this benchmark still holds weight, it’s since been complemented by more sophisticated indicators.

Investors are now more prone to chart altcoin indexes that measure the total market cap of alts versus other crypto assets as well as examining metrics like stablecon dominance. Graded to 100, the altcoin index determines altseason to have started when the dial hits 70. And guess what? Right now we’re sitting right there or thereabouts. As the season gets up to speed, most altcoins will prosper – but the following five will fare particularly well for reasons that will soon become apparent.

COTI

COTI should need no introduction, having been around for a few years before gaining a new lease of life in 2025 following its transformation into an EVM Layer 2 with privacy at its core. And therein lies the clues as to why the native COTI token should fare well this altseason: privacy is a hot topic right now, with the Ethereum Foundation recently making it a key component of its 3-5-month roadmap. Privacy is coming to the EVM ecosystem – although it was already here of course courtesy of COTI.

You don’t need to be a galaxy brain to deduce that in an environment where everyone’s talking about privacy (from Vitalik down), Ethereum’s adding it, and other networks are devising their own implementations, a privacy-focused EVM-based altcoin is gonna do well. Step up, COTI, your time has come. It helps that the underlying privacy tech is also top-drawer stuff: using a technology called Garbled Circuits, it enables smart contracts to run computations on encrypted data. Lightweight and scalable, it’s going places – and so too is the COTI token.

SUI

Sui’s network has been quietly building momentum as a high-performance Layer 1, and with altseason underway, it's primed to surge thanks to its focus on speed and scalability in areas like NFTs and gaming. Designed with a parallel execution model, SUI enables faster transactions and lower costs compared to most so-called “next-gen” chains, making it attractive for developers building dapps in high-throughput environments. But enough about the tech: let’s talk token.

As the altcoin market heats up, Sui’s status as the “biggest smart contract chain after Solana” – based on usage and innovation at least – make its token the likeliest to pump after SOL. Given that SOL’s just done that, whereas SUI has been sitting flat for the last 30 days, it’s clear that its time has yet to come. The token has 2x’d over the past year, admittedly, but seeing how its market cap still sits under $13 billi versus SOL’s $137B, there’s clearly more room to grow. Much more.

HBAR

Hedera’s network is geared for enterprise adoption and altseason will send it scurrying upward as sure as ETH follows BTC. The bull case for Hedera’s blockchain ecosystem is well documented: backed by a governance council including heavyweights like Google, IBM, and Boeing, Hedera is already powering real-world applications in supply chain management and carbon credits. While this distinguishes its blockchain from the bulk of other smart contract chains, which are generally either DeFi, degen, or RWA-focused, the real thing that stands out here from an investment perspective is HBAR.

There are two grounds for having confidence that HBAR will do well this altseason, one ideological and the other technical. From an ideological perspective, the thesis goes like this: as energy efficiency becomes a bigger focus amid regulatory scrutiny, Hedera’s low-carbon footprint and high throughput make it a magnet for institutional inflows, likely leading to outsized gains. Of course, there’s not time for this prophecy to pass during altseason itself, but as a narrative it’s highly compelling. As for HBAR itself, the TA goes something like this: yes, it’s up bigly this year but it’s down slightly over the past month despite significant volume. In short, it’s destined for greater things.

ENA

Ethena is reinventing stablecoins by making yield-bearing stables DeFi’s new unit of account. This altseason could see it explode as DeFi seeks innovative yield sources. By offering a synthetic dollar in USDe backed by staking yields, ENA is tapping into demand for protocols that can provide stable and sustainable returns. With billions in total value locked and strong VC backing, it’s riding the wave of synthetic asset narratives, positioning ENA as a DeFi darling ready to outperform in a bullish alt market.

ENA is up more than 2x over the last year admittedly, but like some of the other alts featured here, it’s gone nowhere over the last 30 days. Did someone say “consolidation phase”? Naturally, there are more compelling reasons as to why ENA is destined for greater things: USDe is the largest yield-bearing stablecoin by market cap and the sector has been gaining increasing attention of late, driven by new players entering the market and greater integration with RWAs for collateralization and yield sourcing. Ethena remains the king, however, and ENA the prince regent that will assume the throne come altseason.

F

Sometimes, one letter is all you need in a coin ticker. F is the native currency of SynFutures, and if you fancy lining up a smaller cap bet, this one ticks a lot of the right boxes. SynFutures is in the onchain perps business of course, which means the left-curve thesis for buying it is “Hyperliquid.” If HYPE can become a top 15 asset by market cap, surely F with its sub-$50M market cap is worth a flutter? It’s a top 10 asset within CoinGecko’s perps category and with daily volume that’s 2.5x its market cap, something’s going on.

As a closer look into SynFutures suggests, that something includes a major upgrade that will enhance the platform’s decentralization, add new features, and integrate support for RWAs. Sounds bullish. And when you check its performance over the last 30 days, there’s even greater grounds for being bullish. F was already going north and the commencement of altseason will merely accelerate the inevitable. Long-term? Who knows. Short to mid-term? F’s a goer. 

Prepare Your Bags

The data is clear: BTC dominance is waning and altcoin market caps are climbing. There’s just enough time to pack your bags by loading up on the altcoins you believe will outperform the chasing pack in this next phase of the market cycle. Don't wait for the pump to hit before you commit: do your research now, pick your winners, and prepare for lift-off.