#Gate13thAnniversary Shanzhai breakout—has the bull market returned?

In the past few days of Bitcoin “stabilizing,” the altcoin season has shown a rare, intense burst of volatility. Tokens with a circulating market cap of less than 20 million USD—some have multiplied by 3x or 5x within a few days, while others have approached 10x. Without major progress, without ecosystem breakthroughs, without new institutional players entering, prices have still been pushed up like this.
This phenomenon has a ready-made explanation: altcoins are high Beta assets. When Bitcoin rises, altcoins run even faster. This claim holds statistically, but it doesn’t fully explain it.
High Beta can explain why altcoins rise more than Bitcoin, but it can’t explain gains that are dozens of times larger. Where does this multiple come from? From another matter entirely. The current altcoin season index is 34, and Bitcoin’s dominance is 58.5%. These two numbers tell you at the same time that this market is still quite far from a true altcoin season. But in this market where there is no altcoin season, some tokens are moving with the kind of magnitude that only appears during altcoin seasons.
From December 2024 to April 2026, excluding Bitcoin and Ethereum, the total market cap of altcoins shrank from a peak of about 1.16 trillion USD to about 700 billion USD, evaporating nearly 40%. When market cap shrinks to a sufficiently low level, the game rules change: prices are no longer determined by market consensus, but by who controls enough chips. This is a loophole created by oversold conditions, not a signal sent by a bull market.
Altcoins have simply fallen too much. In the blockchain space, there’s the concept of a 51% attack: if someone controls more than half of the network’s hash power, they can tamper with records, double-spend tokens, and rewrite history. The capital version of this logic is even simpler: it doesn’t need technology, doesn’t need hash power—only money. And in this round, the altcoin market has wiped out nearly 40% of its market cap, lowering the entry threshold by about the same percentage.
As of early April 2026, the total market cap of altcoins is about 700 billion USD, down roughly 40% from the December 2024 peak of about 1.16 trillion USD. If you use the end of 2025 as the cutoff, the decline is about 44%. The two measurement periods differ in timing, but the direction is consistent: the overall size of this market has already approached a “halving.”
What does a “halving” of market cap mean? In a market with a circulating market cap of 50 million USD, one million USD accounts for 2% of circulating supply; in a market with a circulating market cap of 50 million USD, one million USD accounts for 20%. The threshold drops tenfold, but the amount of money doesn’t change. After oversold conditions, the cost of controlling the market becomes calculable. If it can be calculated, it can be executed.
The altcoin surge of the SIREN token over the past two days provides a useful analysis case. $GT