Altcoin season is cooling: 48.4% of Binance coins fell below the line

Almost half the altcoins listed on Binance trade below their 200-day average again. At the start of October fewer than one in ten did. The analyst Darkfost, writing for CryptoQuant, puts the share at 48.4% and the drop in altcoin market value at more than $134bn over fifteen days, with fast profit-taking after the run as the likely cause.

What an altcoin season is

An altcoin season is not a date on a calendar. It is a stretch of weeks or months when money leaves bitcoin and spreads across everything else, so the median coin outruns bitcoin instead of trailing it. Traders watch three readings to tell whether one is running. Bitcoin's share of total crypto value, which falls when the rest of the market gains. The season index, which counts how many of the top 50 coins beat bitcoin over 90 days, and which we last read at 64. And breadth: how many coins still hold above a long average.

The 200-day average is the plainest of the three. Add the closing prices of the last 200 days, divide by 200, and compare today's price with that line. Above it, the long trend is still up. Below it, it is not. One line gives one yes-or-no answer per coin, which is why analysts count the answers rather than argue about them.

How far the swing went

The swing this autumn has been violent. In late August 81% of Binance altcoins sat below the line. By early October the figure was under 10%, which means more than nine coins in ten had turned upward. Darkfost reckons $814bn came into altcoins across those two months. The $134bn that left over the past fifteen days gives back 16% of it.

“Market direction can change easily over a short period.”

— Darkfost, Analyst, CryptoQuant

We counted it ourselves

We ran the same test ourselves rather than take the number on trust. Binance lists 499 spot pairs against tether once stablecoins and wrapped bitcoin are set aside, and 390 of them have a full 200 days of history. Of those 390, 221 closed below their 200-day average this morning — 56.7%, worse than the published 48.4%. The gap is the 109 pairs listed less than 200 days ago, which have no 200-day line to fall below and quietly flatter any count that includes them.

A second measurement from a different angle agrees. Take the 236 largest coins that are neither bitcoin nor a stablecoin: that group has lost $97.6bn of market value in fourteen days, 10% of what it was worth, and 177 of the 236 are down over the stretch. Darkfost's $134bn covers the whole altcoin universe, thousands of tickers deep, so the long tail accounts for the rest of the difference.

None of this settles the question the headline asks. Bitcoin holds 60.2% of total crypto value this morning, well short of the levels that ended earlier altcoin runs, and breadth can turn back up as fast as it turned down. What to watch is whether the share below the line keeps climbing through the next two weeks, because a reading that passes 60% would put the market back where it started in late August.

Informational material, not investment advice. All measurements were taken on the morning of 19 October 2026, and breadth readings move with every session.