Arthur Hayes says altcoin season never ended as new crypto narratives reward selective winners while backward-looking traders fall behind globally.
Altcoin season never truly ended, but many traders failed to spot its real leaders. Arthur Hayes said re-narrating narratives changed crypto performances quietly. Therefore, selective assets surged and broad markets remained uneven. As a result, expectations built on the previous cycles were misleading to many participants.
New Crypto Narratives Reshape Altcoin Performance
Historically, altcoin rallies occurred after predictable rotations after a Bitcoin peak. However, Hayes contended that those patterns no longer characterize existing markets. Instead, new themes are now at the forefront of investor minds and capital flows. As a result, traders who were holding and waiting for familiar signals were left out of the picking in key moves.
Speaking in a podcast, Hayes voiced some withering criticism of nostalgia-driven trading strategies: He said investors were expecting the same assets to outperform again. Yet, repetition is not usually what characterizes evolving crypto cycles. Therefore, adaptiveness became the key benefit during this time.
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Hayes explained that previous altcoin seasons brought up most tokens together. In contrast, recent gains seemed to be very concentrated. Only those projects with strong narratives and real activity were able to move forward with any real significance. Thus, the results of passive exposure strategies were weaker this cycle.
BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes said the altcoin season “never ended”—many traders simply missed the winners. Speaking on a podcast, he argued investors expect past narratives to repeat, but this cycle is about new themes and new assets, citing Hyperliquid’s HYPE token surge and…
— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) December 21, 2025
Hyperliquid’s HYPE token was a good example of this structural change. HYPE reportedly went from low single digits to almost $60. Meanwhile, Solana had a dramatic recovery from the FTX collapse. SOL moved from barely $7 to nearly $300 earlier this year.
Hayes Sees Liquidity and Policy Driving Future Crypto Gains
In addition, Hayes counselled traders to shed backward-looking assumptions. He warned against buying assets because they pumped previously. Instead, he advocated the hypothesis of analyzing current activity and emerging demand. Accordingly, now flexibility can be allowed to supersede rigid cycle-based thought.
Looking toward the future, Hayes cited blockchains focused on privacy as potential opportunities. Specifically, he referenced Zcash as an underappreciated segment. Privacy narratives, he argued, could regain significance in the face of regulatory scrutiny. Thus, selective positioning may determine future gains.
However, not all analysts fully agree with the outlook of Hayes. Some are still expecting traditional capital rotation to resume. They predict that Bitcoin will take the lead, Ethereum and smaller altcoins to follow. Others believe wider rallies need more altcoin ETF approvals.
Despite the disagreements, Hayes still is bullish on the crypto market as a whole. His grounds for optimism are Federal Reserve liquidity policies. He referred to Reserve Management Purchases as indirect monetary expansion. Therefore, additional liquidity could boost asset prices in general.
Arthur Hayes Predicts Bitcoin May Reach $200,000 by March 2026
Hayes predicted Bitcoin could touch $200,000 by March of 2026. Such projections are based on continuing liquidity injections and stable sentiment. Consequently, altcoins with great narratives are potentially advantaged. Weaker projects, however, could continue lagging.
Market data is one reason for the support of Hayes’s selective thesis regarding. On-chain activity increasingly becomes concentrated around lesser ecosystems. Development metrics are also in favor of platforms that demonstrate consistent growth of usage. Therefore, capital more observant than in previous cycles.
Ultimately, Hayes put altcoin season into the perspective of a process. He reasoned that it never comes uniformly and never declares itself clearly. Instead, what it rewards is awareness, timing and narrative fit. Traders who ignore these shifts run the risk of missing out on future winners yet again.
