Altcoins have been staging a significant rally against Bitcoin in the past couple of days. However, Bitcoin’s own gains in May mean they may have trouble maintaining the month’s positive historical trend.
May Historically Altcoins’ Third Best Month Against Bitcoin
According to figures from Binance Research, May has been a good month for altcoins, with an average 18.7% gain against BTC since 2014.
The only better months historically have been March and December, both posting average gains of around 30%. Altcoins have made ground on Bitcoin during May in 3 of the past 5 years, so another win this year would give them a 67% hit rate.
Past 48 Hours Have Seen Some Altcoins Gain 21%
True to form, altcoins have been rallying and rallying hard. Led by charges from Ethereum, Binance Coin, Stellar Lumens, and Litecoin, the past few days have seen many alt coin/BTC pairs turn bullish.
Whilst there have been minor breakouts on individual tokens, we haven’t seen this sort of general trend in the altcoin market for over 9 months. Which should mean that we are on course for another positive May for altcoins, thus cementing the month’s reputation.
However, whilst the alts have had a decidedly good month in isolation, Bitcoin has also had…
Let’s Just Say Bitcoin Hasn’t Done Too Badly In May
In fact, Bitcoin [coin_price] has been pretty healthy since the end of March, thank you very much. In fact, over the last 44 days the total altcoin market cap has fallen as much as 44% in BTC terms. This has caused a bullish divergence for Bitcoin, where price was rising but altcoins fell behind in BTC terms.
However, a bullish divergence is another pretty good indicator that Bitcoin is once more in a bull market. Historically, this type of divergence has occurred significantly more frequently in bull markets than bear markets. A whopping 371 days out the 410 which have witnessed it (or over 90%) have correlated with bullish action.
Yesterday, Bitcoinist market analyst Filb Filb noted that if BTC/USD can maintain these levels, particularly above $8,200, then it’s game on to over $9,000.
Assuming that bitcoin can regain $8200, it would be reasonable to assume that the bulls will make it their intention to test around this region.
As we come to the final phase of the parabola, which can offer the highest returns but also carries the biggest risk, all eyes will be on bitcoin once again.
This, of course, would also be good news for altcoins and would likely signal a continuation of ‘altseason.’
Are the cryptocurrency markets now entering altseason? Share your thoughts below!
Images via Binance Research, Shutterstock
