Altcoin Season Index
One number answers the only question that matters in a rotation: is capital flowing into altcoins, or back into Bitcoin? We rebuild the index live from the top 50 coins by market cap, excluding stablecoins and wrapped assets.
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Where the market sits today
liveCalculating from the top 50 by market cap…
Index history
Top 50 versus Bitcoin · 90 days
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How to read the altcoin season index
Capital in crypto rotates on a fairly reliable path: into Bitcoin first, then into large-cap alts, then down the risk curve into smaller names, then back into stablecoins. This index measures where in that cycle the market sits, by counting how much of the top 50 is beating Bitcoin.
- 75–100 — altcoin season. Three quarters of the large caps are outperforming BTC. Capital is well down the risk curve.
- 25–75 — no clear season. A mixed tape. Individual narratives matter more than the broad rotation.
- 0–25 — Bitcoin season. BTC is absorbing the flows and alts are bleeding against it. Usually early in a cycle, or during risk-off.
The single most common mistake is reading this as a forecast. It is a 90-day backward-looking measure. A high reading tells you the rotation has already happened.
How this index is built
We fetch the current top 50 by market capitalisation, then pull daily closing prices for each from Binance over the selected window. For every coin we compute:
performance = (close_today / close_N_days_ago − 1) × 100
and compare it to Bitcoin's performance over the identical window. The index is the percentage of those coins that came out ahead. Stablecoins are removed because a dollar-pegged asset cannot outperform anything, and wrapped or liquid-staked derivatives (WBTC, WETH, stETH, cbBTC and similar) are removed because they duplicate an asset already counted.
The history chart recomputes the same calculation for every day in the window, so you can see how the rotation built rather than only where it ended up.
Limitations worth knowing
- The top 50 changes. Today's ranking is applied to the whole window, which means a coin that recently entered the top 50 after a large rally is included for the full period. This produces a mild upward bias in the historical series.
- One exchange's prices. Daily closes come from Binance USDT pairs; a coin without a Binance pair drops out of the sample.
- Direction, not magnitude. A coin that beats Bitcoin by 0.1% counts exactly the same as one that beats it by 400%. Check the table above for the actual dispersion.
Frequently asked questions
What is the Altcoin Season Index?
It is a single 0–100 number that measures rotation. We take the top 50 coins by market capitalisation, strip out stablecoins and wrapped assets, and count how many of them outperformed Bitcoin over the last 90 days. If 75% or more beat BTC, the market is conventionally described as being in altcoin season. If 25% or fewer beat it, it is Bitcoin season. Anything between is a neutral, mixed market.
Is it altseason right now?
The live reading is at the top of this page and updates hourly. Read it with two caveats: the index is a 90-day lookback, so it confirms a rotation that is already under way rather than predicting one, and a reading of 60 in a falling market means most alts are falling less than Bitcoin — not that anyone is making money.
How is this index calculated?
For each of the top 50 coins we pull daily closes from Binance and compute the 90-day percentage change, then compare each one to Bitcoin's change over the same window. The index is the share that beat it, rounded to a whole number. Stablecoins are excluded because they cannot meaningfully outperform, and wrapped or liquid-staked assets (WBTC, stETH, WETH and similar) are excluded because they simply track another asset already in the list.
Why does your reading differ from other altcoin season trackers?
Because there is no official definition. Trackers differ on how many coins they include, whether they exclude stablecoins and wrapped tokens, which exchange's prices they use, and what lookback they apply. Ours uses the top 50 by market cap on a 90-day window with those exclusions, recomputed from daily Binance closes — the choices are listed on our methodology page so you can see exactly what you are comparing.
Does a high index mean I should buy altcoins?
No. It is a description of what has already happened over the previous 90 days, not a signal. Historically, extreme readings above 90 have clustered near the end of rotations rather than the start, because by then the move is fully priced. Use it as context alongside Bitcoin dominance and stablecoin supply.