TL;DR
- Altcoin spot trading volume has climbed to nearly four times Bitcoin’s, reaching its highest level since September 2025, according to Glassnode.
- The Altcoin Season Index has also risen to 62%, signaling broader participation beyond BTC.
- At the same time, exchange deposits are increasing, while 87% of Binance-listed altcoins trade above their 200-day averages, creating a market with stronger breadth but rising signals to monitor.
Altcoin spot trading volume has surged to nearly four times Bitcoin’s, marking its highest level since September 2025, according to Glassnode data. The shift shows traders are allocating more activity to higher-risk digital assets as the broader crypto market expands beyond its largest coin.
Glassnode said on September 28 that spot traders were increasingly turning toward altcoins. The firm has previously observed that heavy altcoin participation can appear near local Bitcoin market peaks, although volume alone does not establish that a reversal is underway. The data also point to a deeper market rotation as liquidity reaches assets outside BTC.
Spot traders are turning to altcoins.
Total spot volume now runs close to 4x Bitcoin's, the highest since September 2025.
Demand for higher risk like this has often lined up with local tops in $BTC. pic.twitter.com/O5ySkK8Hqn
— glassnode (@glassnode) September 28, 2026
Altcoin Spot Volume Signals Broader Market Participation
The change is reflected in the Altcoin Season Index, which reached 62%, compared with 50% one week earlier and 33% one month ago. The increase indicates that a larger share of major altcoins has been outperforming Bitcoin over the period measured by the index.
Market breadth has strengthened as well. CryptoQuant analyst Darkfost reported that 87% of Binance-listed altcoins were trading above their 200-day moving averages, up sharply from roughly 20% in August. Only 13% remained below the long-term trend indicator, showing how broadly the recovery has spread across listed tokens.
The wider market capitalization measure supports that picture. TradingView currently places TOTAL2 near $1.17 trillion, tracking crypto assets excluding Bitcoin while including Ethereum. Darkfost said the measure had added more than $371 billion since June, representing an increase of roughly 45%.
Exchange Deposits Add A Second Signal
The stronger activity comes alongside rising altcoin deposits to centralized exchanges. Darkfost said weekly average deposit transactions had reached levels not seen since October 2025, exceeding 22,700 on Binance and 8,300 on Coinbase, with roughly 32,000 more across other exchanges. Depositing tokens does not prove that traders intend to sell, but it increases the amount of supply positioned for potential trading or profit-taking.
That distinction matters because stronger spot volume can reflect both buying and selling. The combination of rising participation, broader market strength and larger exchange flows gives traders several signals to track rather than a single directional indicator.
