Altcoins trade in the red as ‘Alt season’ searches tanks over 50% on Google

Global search interest in altcoins and the bullish mantra “alt season” plunged to below 30 in the Google search index this week, following Bitcoin and altcoin prices’ retreat in the past six days. Crypto bull run searches also dropped to 57 on Tuesday after clocking 86 at the start of the business week.

Worldwide Google searches for the term “alt season” dropped to a score of 45 on Tuesday, according to Google Trends data. The index was at a 100 reading just a week earlier, a peak that came a day before Bitcoin touched a new record of $124,128, signaling a crypto market rally.

Searches for “bull run” also pulled back after reaching 86 on Monday, sliding down to 57 yesterday, possibly caused by selling pressures stemming from negative price corrections.

Bitcoin retreated from its all-time highs and wiped over $10,000 in profits in the last six days, now consolidating at around $113,800 at the time of this publication. Its fall from the top caused a marketwide correction across altcoins, which are currently trailing behind the world’s largest crypto by market cap.

Altcoin performance under pressure

The CMC Altcoin Season Index stood at 41/100 as of early Wednesday morning. The index shows Bitcoin outperforming most other tokens, with BTC dominance holding at 58.98%, down just 0.01 percentage points in the past 24 hours.

By contrast, altcoin leader Ethereum (ETH) fell 8.43% over the past week, while Dogecoin (DOGE) dropped 13.91% and Shiba Inu (SHIB) lost 11.53%. The overall crypto market cap slipped 1.08% to $3.84 trillion.

Over the past 24 hours, every token in the top 10 by market capitalization, excluding stablecoins, Tron, and Solana, has been hemorrhaging value, recording declines north of 0.3%.

Just about a week ago, search volumes for “altcoin” hit their highest levels since 2021. Interest in “Ethereum” also rose to its strongest point in two years, against the backdrop of rallies in most of the large-cap tokens.

Dogecoin, Solana and XRP rose around 19% in the two weeks leading up to August 13, buoyed by renewed trading activity and market momentum. Both have since surrendered most of those gains, each losing roughly 9% over the past seven days, according to CoinMarketCap data.

Chart analysis mulls Q4 alt season window

Despite the market tanking in the past week, the crypto community is still seeing signs of an altcoin rally coming soon. Last week, Cryptopolitan reported that Coinbase research head David Duong, alts could outperform Bitcoin within the next 90 days.  

Analysts also insist that the alt season could still materialize later this year, pointing to similarities in the current market with cycles seen in 2020 and 2021 when alts experienced a correction in March 2020 before consolidating for four months. Market capitalization then accelerated upwards from $50 billion in December 2020 to $422 billion by May 2021.

Analysts have noticed a similar setup in 2025, with altcoins having corrected by 60% in April. They have since been trading sideways for four months, currently sitting around $300 billion. 

If there is an encore of the same sequence, a breakout above the 2021 high of $492 billion could fuel a rally toward $1 trillion in total altcoin capitalization, with a stretch target of $2 trillion by 2026.

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