Will the future of altcoins be saved during the 618 promotion in the cryptocurrency circle

Original | Odaily Planet Daily
Author | Azuma


On the day of the 618 “big sale,” the decline of cryptocurrencies continues.
With Bitcoin dropping below 65,000 USDT this morning, ETH and many other mainstream altcoins once again experienced a collective downturn. The real-time market interface of Oyi OKX can be described as “rivers of blood”:
ETH dropped to a low of 3350 USDT, currently trading at 3402.44 USDT, with a 24-hour decline of 5.64%;
SOL dropped to a low of 127.22 USDT, currently trading at 132.03 USDT, with a 24-hour decline of 10.98%;
PEPE dropped to a low of 0.000009573 USDT, currently trading at 0.00001013 USDT, with a 24-hour decline of 16.18%;
OP dropped to a low of 1.67 USDT, currently trading at 1.74 USDT, with a 24-hour decline of 15.85%;
STRK dropped to a low of 0.6614 USDT, currently trading at 0.71 USDT, with a 24-hour decline of 22.62%;
TIA dropped to a low of 6.007 USDT, currently trading at 6.38 USDT, with a 24-hour decline of 21.04%;
In addition, the newly launched ZK fell below 0.2 USDT yesterday, dropping to a low of 0.1906 USDT, currently trading at 0.1935 USDT, with a 24-hour decline of 36.4% (based on pre-market prices)…… Some users even joked, “ZK is indeed the Endgame……”
Affected by the overall market downturn, the total market value of cryptocurrencies continues to shrink. CoinGecko data shows that the current total cryptocurrency market value has dropped to $2.46 trillion, a 4.5% decrease in 24 hours.
In terms of derivative trading, Coinglass data shows that in just the past 1 hour, the total amount of liquidation on the network has reached $178 million, with the vast majority being long liquidations, totaling $173 million. Looking at the types of coins, BTC and ETH have been rare pushed to second place by “other” coins, which rank first with $41.2 million.


Bull market unrelated to altcoins
Looking back at the overall market changes in this round of the bull market, although BTC once again reached historic highs, altcoins (except for a few sectors like meme) have consistently failed to meet investor expectations.
Especially since BTC entered a correction phase in March, the altcoin market has been in a continuous decline. The cumulative maximum decline of many popular altcoins like ORDI, OP, ARB, and TIA has even exceeded 70%.
From the current market situation, the overall trend of altcoins seems to have completely decoupled from BTC and ETH. Considering that the positions of most retail investors are mainly in altcoins, this has led to many retail investors complaining, “Watching the big coin hit new highs while their own positions continue to shrink.”
Yesterday, Odaily Planet Daily published two analysis articles on market liquidity and the trend of altcoins: “Data Extraction: ETF is delaying the real bull market” and “Times are changing, this round of altcoin season is going to be absent.”
Based on the expectations given in the two articles and other market analyses, the main reasons for the decoupling of altcoin trends include:
1. The approval of ETFs has changed the liquidity transmission model of the market. In the past, the entry path for incremental funds was generally “stable coins – BTC, ETH – altcoins.” But now, incremental funds from traditional markets are more likely to directly invest in BTC through ETFs, which hinders the continued transmission of funds, leading to a lack of liquidity in the altcoin market.
2. The continuous massive unlocking of “VC tokens” has brought continuous selling pressure, leading to a market situation where supply exceeds demand. Looking closely at the circulation changes of some altcoins, you will find that although the prices of some tokens continue to decline, their market cap continues to hit new highs.
3. The high-priced new projects are continuously draining the remaining liquidity in the market. Projects like io.net, ZKsync, LayerZero, Blast…a bunch of long-awaited popular projects are queuing up for listing, with FDV generally reaching the level of tens of billions of dollars, further exacerbating the lack of liquidity in the altcoin market.
Altcoins at their darkest moment, institutions show differing opinions
In the current darkest moment, predictions about the future market of altcoins seem to have come to a crossroads, with various institutions even giving completely opposite judgments.
Quinn Thompson, the founder of the cryptocurrency hedge fund Lekker Capital, directly advised against investing in altcoins at this time.
Thompson pointed out several indicators of market instability, including high leverage and open positions, lack of panic buying, and stagnant stablecoin supply. He believes that the market is experiencing increasing selling pressure, especially from venture capital funds in need of raising funds, leading to more selling than buying. This situation, coupled with low summer trading volumes, makes it difficult for altcoins to attract funds.
Andrei Grachev, co-founder of DWF Labs, predicts that there will be a wave of altcoin bull market in the next few months, but the premise is that BTC must stabilize.
Grachev stated that since March 2024, the Google search volume for altcoins has been declining. A stable Bitcoin price can inject confidence into the market, but it cannot increase by 50 times, at least not now, while altcoins can. If the Bitcoin price can remain stable, a wave of (altcoin) bull market is expected to appear in a few months.
What are the whales doing?
After this morning’s short-term decline, Lin Chen, the Asia-Pacific business manager of Deribit, revealed that the largest single bulk options transaction today was when a whale sold 70,000 call options at the end of July and bought 70,000 call options at the end of the year, totaling 100 BTC, paying $883,000.


Lin explained that this means the whale’s current stance is “short-term bearish, long-term bullish”, probably thinking that everyone is on vacation in the summer, but expecting a big market rally by the end of the year, with the price of Bitcoin once again breaking $70,000.
Combining with the institutional forecast article “A Big Swing is Coming, How Institutions View the Future Market?” that Odaily Planet Daily compiled last week, this also coincides with the judgments of most institutions such as Bitfinex on the future market of BTC.
However, considering the current decoupling situation between altcoins and BTC, these predictions are difficult to apply to altcoins.
For now, the only effective advice we can give at the operational level is not to leverage altcoins, control risks, and avoid impulsivity.