After two years of waiting for an “altcoin season” that never came, retail crypto traders have missed out on roughly $800 billion in potential gains by betting against Bitcoin’s dominance.

A new report from 10x Research shows that altcoins have lagged Bitcoin by that amount this cycle, marking one of the largest relative underperformances since 2017.

The data highlights a profound shift in market structure, which is now increasingly defined by institutional flows, Bitcoin ETFs, and risk aversion rather than the speculative rotation patterns that fueled prior bull runs.

Retail waits for a ‘ghost season’

Traditionally, an altcoin season describes a period when smaller cryptocurrencies dramatically outperform Bitcoin, absorbing capital from the benchmark asset and delivering short-term outsized returns.

In past cycles, most notably 2017 and 2021, Bitcoin profits cascaded into Ethereum, then into mid-caps and meme tokens.

However, 10x Research noted that this cycle has inverted that pattern. Instead of rotation, liquidity has consolidated around Bitcoin.

According to the firm, data shows investors have re-allocated heavily toward BTC-denominated products and away from higher-risk tokens.

It noted:

“Over the past 30 days, our tactical altcoin model has favored Bitcoin over altcoins, reflecting a bottoming out in Bitcoin dominance. This shift follows a 75-day period in which the model preferred altcoins, a phase that coincided with Ethereum’s rally, but that trend has clearly ended.”

Moreover, 10X Research stated that Korean retail traders, long considered the engine of altcoin speculation, have also abandoned the trade.

For context, Messari data shows that Upbit, the largest crypto exchange in South Korea, has seen its trading volume decline significantly this year as traders pivot to US-listed crypto equities such as Coinbase and MicroStrategy.