'Whales are preparing for the next altcoin rally' — CryptoQuant founder

CryptoQuant founder Ki Young Ju believes that crypto whales are positioning themselves in anticipation of the next altcoin rally as traders hotly debate when alt season will begin.

Ju's analysis centered around the 1-Year Cumulative Buy/Sell Quote Volume Difference for Altcoins, a metric that measures the differential between buy and sell limit orders using a one-year timespan.

The analyst explained that whales prefer limit orders to avoid slippage, and the rising level of the metric suggests an increasin number of buy-limit orders among large crypto investors and institutions, which represent "strong buy walls" of future demand for altcoins.

Not all altcoins are poised to capitalize

According to the CryproQuant founder, certain altcoins like Solana (SOL), Polygon (MATIC), Cardano (ADA), Cosmos (ATOM), PancakeSwap (CAKE), My Neighbor Alice (ALICE), Ampera (AMP), Ankr Protocol (ANKR), and the Chilliz token (CHZ)? are set to benefit the most from the increased level of future buy orders.

Conversely, tokens like XRP (XRP), Chainlink (LINK), the Binance token (BNB), Compound Finance (COMP), Bancor Network (BNT), and lending protocol Aave (AAVE), are currently seeing shortfalls in the number of future buy orders.

Time for altcoin season?

Crypto analyst Jamie Coutts recently shared a corroborating altcoin market prediction. The analyst cited the Top 200 Equal Weight Index as evidence that we have reached a market bottom, signaling a potential rally in  altcoins.

The Top 200 Equal Weight Index tracks the price performance of the top 200 altcoins by market capitalization and compares them to the price performance of Bitcoin (BTC). A lower numerical reading from this metric indicates that only a small number of altcoins are outperforming Bitcoin on a percentage basis, while a higher reading indicates that more altcoins are outperforming Bitcoin on a percentage basis. At the time Coutts made his prediction, the metric was between 10-20%.

More recently, popular crypto trader "Mags" claimed that the altcoin market is currently in a re-accumulation phase. The trader argued that altcoins were only up 58% on average since they broke out from a lengthy accumulation phase, suggesting that the digital assets were experiencing a relatively minor pullback before recording more gains.