Alt-Season, Crypto Winter, and BTC's Prospects in 2025
Date: 2025-09-25 Author: Gabriel Deangelo Categories: CRYPTO PAYMENTS
The crypto community is actively discussing the possibility of a new alt-season, Bitcoin's future performance, and the potential onset of a crypto winter. MEXC Strategy Director Cecilia Hsueh shared her perspective on the current situation and market development prospects.
In her opinion, the main obstacle to the massive growth of altcoins remains the concentration of liquidity in BTC and ETH. Institutional capital investing through ETFs and regulated platforms prefers assets with high transparency and market capitalization. This limits the flow of funds into smaller tokens.
However, the growth of DeFi, Layer 2 solutions, and real-world asset-backed tokens (RWAs) creates the potential for a "partial" alt-season. It will be selective and structured, unlike the chaotic growth of 2017 and 2021. Capital will be redistributed to projects with clear economics, rather than to all coins at once.
Regarding Bitcoin cycles, Hsueh noted that halving remains an important factor influencing the coin supply. However, institutions are mitigating sharp price fluctuations, making cycles smoother. Macroeconomic conditions—Fed policy, bond yields, and the dollar index—are now more strongly impacting the market. Correlation with the Nasdaq and S&P 500 has increased, making cycles more macro-driven, but not eliminating them entirely.
Crypto winters, she said, will not disappear, but will change their structure. The market will become more resilient: even if prices fall, the infrastructure, regulated exchanges, and institutional funds will remain. Such periods will likely be prolonged corrections that weed out weak projects and strengthen initiatives with real economic value. The next crypto winter is likely to occur in 2026–2027, after BTC reaches peaks of $150,000–$180,000 and ETH peaks of $8,000–$12,000, especially if monetary policy tightens or institutions begin taking profits.
Hsueh also noted the potential for a rally in Q4 2025. This period is traditionally strong for the market, and the combination of high institutional activity, rising on-chain metrics, and positive expectations around ETFs creates conditions for selective growth in BTC, ETH, and individual altcoins with real utility.
Among undervalued assets, the expert highlighted L2 tokens (Arbitrum, Optimism, zkSync), RWA projects, and gaming/social tokens with Web3 integration. They have the potential to attract institutional funds and replicate the hype, but in a more mature format.
Thus, the crypto market in 2025 is moving toward a new balance: volatility and speculative activity remain, but a mature infrastructure with an institutional presence is emerging, making the market both predictable and challenging for investors.
