On Thursday Filecoin (FIL) began trading across major exchanges over three years after its initial coin offering.
Upon listing, the token traded at wildly different prices across multiple exchanges and while the premium shows there is still an appetite for altcoins, investors interpreting the rallies from FIL and Polkadot (DOT) as the beginning of an altseason may be disappointed.
Hours after trading began, top cryptocurrency exchanges including FTX, Binance, and Gemini announced that they would swiftly list the altcoin. Consequently, the token saw significantly different prices across platforms due to a combination of limited liquidity and supply.
The 15-minute chart of Filecoin (FIL) after the FTX listing. Source: TradingView.com
Hours after the FTX integration, the FIL futures contract processed $150 million in trading volume. FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried said:
“$FIL has traded about $150m so far. Roughly 60% of the volume has been on FTX! Started around $30, went up to $80 on FTX and $200 on other exchanges, now around $40-$80 on various exchanges.”
Traders expect a boring fourth quarter
Historically, the fourth quarter has been relatively slow for the entire crypto market and in 2018 and 2019 BTC saw losses against the U.S. dollar during Q4.
Based on historical trends and what appears to be the end of an explosive multi-month rally, traders expect a drawn out consolidation phase as the next step for the crypto market.
Michael van de Poppe, a full-time trader at the Amsterdam Stock Exchange, suggested that an altseason in early 2021 is most likely. He wrote:
“I do believe we'll be seeing a relatively boring and corrective quarter on the cryptomarkets. In history; $ETH frequently bottoms out in December, to start running the quarter after. $BTC dominance to run up, to have an altseason in Q1 2021. Continuing the patience.”
Bitcoin dominance is rising
According to the data from CoinMarketCap, the Bitcoin’s dominance against the rest of the cryptocurrency market has been climbing.
Since Sept. 21, the Bitcoin dominance index increased from 58.28% to 58.6%. Although this is not a major increase, it shows a clear recovery from an extended downturn throughout the past year.
The Bitcoin dominance index. Source: CoinMarketCap.com
The dominance index is typically an accurate measurement to assess the trend of the altcoin market and many traders believe that a decline in Bitcoin dominance if followed by increasing bullish momentum in the altcoin market.
DeFi tokens are still struggling to rebound
In early October, researchers at Santiment said the key to evaluating the prospect of an altseason is the volume of decentralized exchanges. They said:
“Are we anywhere close to #altseason yet? The key may very well be in #DEX trading volumes. Taking a look at #Uniswap's trading volume, this trendline breaking may very well be the leading indicator to foreshadow the next #alt boom.”
Uniswap daily volume since July. Source: Uniswap
As shown above, Uniswap volume has been in a steady decline. At the same time, altcoins remain flat and the altcoin total market cap index shows a similar decrease in volume.