The “Death” of Altseason? 4th Straight Year of Losses vs Bitcoin

Altcoins have now underperformed Bitcoin for four consecutive years, marking a historic break from previous crypto market cycles and raising serious questions about whether the classic “altseason” still exists.

According to long-term market data from TradingView, the TOTAL3/BTC ratio (which tracks the total crypto market capitalization excluding Bitcoin and Ethereum relative to Bitcoin) closed lower in 2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025. This is the first time altcoins have logged four straight annual losses against Bitcoin.

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What the Data Shows

The TOTAL3/BTC ratio is widely used to measure whether altcoins, as a group, are gaining or losing purchasing power relative to Bitcoin.

Year-by-year, the trend seems clear:

• 2022: Altcoins collapsed harder than Bitcoin during the bear market
• 2023: Bitcoin led the recovery while altcoins lagged
• 2024: Spot Bitcoin ETFs captured the bulk of new institutional inflows
• 2025: Bitcoin dominance held firm as altcoins continued to bleed relative value

This pattern was highlighted by analyst Benjamin Cowen and is fully verifiable via public TradingView data.

In contrast, previous cycles showed sharp altcoin outperformance following Bitcoin halving years, most notably in 2017 and 2021, when TOTAL3/BTC printed strong green yearly candles.

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Why This Matters

For years, retail investors have been conditioned to expect an automatic rotation of capital from Bitcoin into altcoins. The data now suggests that assumption may no longer hold.

Instead, the market appears to be operating under a new regime:

• Institutional capital gravitates toward Bitcoin, not the broader altcoin market
• Token dilution has exploded, with thousands of new venture-backed assets competing for liquidity
• Capital efficiency favors Bitcoin, as diversified altcoin baskets have underperformed BTC for nearly half a decade

From a portfolio perspective, holding altcoins instead of Bitcoin has statistically resulted in lost relative value since 2022.

What Comes Next

While early 2026 has opened with a modest green candle for TOTAL3/BTC, analysts caution that a true trend reversal would likely require a significant shift in global liquidity conditions, something that has yet to materialize.

Until then, the data challenges one of crypto’s most enduring beliefs: that altseason is inevitable.

For the first time, the numbers suggest it may no longer be structural, but conditional.