Altcoin Season in Sight? Crypto analysts observe capitulation signals, strong support levels, and opportunities, but liquidity, unlocks, and dominance remain risks.

Bitcoin failed to sustain a break above 90,000 and slipped back into a retracement over the past 24 hours, while most majors traded lower. BTC is down about 2.5% near $87,5000; liquidations total roughly $250 million with nearly $200 million from longs, according to Coinglass, and altcoins from ETH to BNB also declined.

In the month leading up to December 15, Bitcoin's network hashrate fell by 4%, a development VanEck analysts Matt Sigel and Patrick Bush characterize as a historically bullish contrarian signal for future price action. Since 2014, Bitcoin has recorded positive 90-day forward returns 65% of the time after a 30-day hashrate decline, compared with 54% when hashrate rose, and negative 90-day hashrate growth has preceded positive 180-day returns 77% of the time with an average gain of 72%. Bitcoin trades around $88,400, while mining profitability is shifting as electricity breakeven costs drop and roughly 1.3 gigawatts of capacity in China allegedly shut down, with some energy potentially redirected toward artificial intelligence demand.

ETHZilla, backed by Peter Thiel, said it sold $74.5 million (24,291 ETH) to reduce debt and will discontinue its mNAV metric while pivoting to tokenization. The reversal follows mNAV slipping below 1 in early December and an October effort to prop it up with $40 million in ETH sales, as broader ETH treasuries and ETFs posted sizable outflows.

Hyperliquid's HYPE token is trading near the $24.00 support area after retreating from a recent local peak around $25.4–$25.5, with the chart showing a series of lower highs and lower lows. The token remains well below its 50-day SMA at $33.78 and 200-day SMA at $34.47, while volatility at 11.70% and a 14-day RSI of 37.93 underline fragile, bearish market conditions. If $24.00 breaks decisively, price could extend lower, whereas a move back above the $24.80–$25.00 band would be needed to ease downside pressure.

On December 23, 2025, BitMine said in a filing it acquired 98,852 ETH over the past week, bringing its holdings to 4,066,062 ETH at an average cost of $2,991 per ether. The same day, onchain watchers reported about 29,462 ETH, worth roughly $88 million, moved via BitGo and Kraken. The firm aims to accumulate up to 5% of Ethereum's circulating supply.

As the year 2025 nears its end, the Altcoin Season Index has slid to a reading of 17 while Bitcoin trades well below its $126,000 high. Major altcoins are now down between 30% and 80% from their peak values, signaling that only a small fraction of the top 100 coins have outperformed Bitcoin over the last 90 days. This low index level points to altcoins remaining in a bear phase, with even Ethereum lagging behind Bitcoin’s recent performance.

U.S. spot Ether ETFs snapped a seven‑day outflow run with $84.6 million in net purchases on Monday. XRP funds also drew $43.9 million, their strongest daily intake since early December, while Solana, Chainlink and Dogecoin products showed mixed momentum, with the former two seeing steady accumulation and DOGE activity fading.