In every market cycle, the altseason is an anticipated period for investors marked by a general altcoins’ price outperformance against Bitcoin. However, there have been many doubts over an altseason in the current bull run with crypto analysts citing a surge in the number of altcoins over the last four years.

Interestingly, Bitwise Chief Investment Officer (CIO) Matt Hougan has backed the potential of a brewing crypto altseason. The key crypto figure and market pundit has stated that certain DeFi developments are pointing to a robust price surge for the crypto market.

DeFi Boom Incoming: Jupiter, Ondo, Uniswap Lead Charge To Altseason

Via an X post on February 21, Hougan listed several developments, especially in the DeFi industry that hint at an incoming altcoin bull rally. Firstly, Hougan references the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)’s latest decision to drop its lawsuit against the Coinbase Exchange.

In June 2023, the US regulator charged Coinbase to court over several alleged securities violations including serving as an unregistered exchange and broker. However, in a sharp turn of events, the SEC has decided to withdraw its complaint ending a 2-year long legal battle

The Bitwise CIO also mentions DEX aggregator Jupiter’s recent move to activate a fee structure introducing a minimum of 0.01% fees on all platform swaps which creates a more efficient operational model.

Another development raised by Hougan is Ondo Finance’s announcement of the Ondo Global Market, a tokenization platform designed to introduce on-chain exposure to US securities such as stocks, bonds, and exchange-traded funds listed on the NYSE and NASDAQ.

Finally, Hougan also spotlights the launch of the Unichain – an Ethereum-layer 2 solution designed by Uniswap labs to improve liquidity, cross-chain operatalibility and also significantly reduce transaction fees.

In reality, these are all singular developments. However, Hougan explained these developments can be attributed to the ongoing efforts by the current US Government to create a “fair regulatory environment.” In doing so, crypto companies and DeFi projects can run effectively extending their reach beyond the digital asset space.

The potential of this scenario is likely to encourage investor engagement serving as an early indicator of altseason.  In particular, Matt Hougan explains the DeFi market presents a lot of hidden potential to influence the non-crypto markets under the right conditions.

Crypto Market Overview

At press time, the crypto market cap is valued at $3.12 trillion after a 1.78% decline in the past day. Bitcoin maintains strong market influence with a dominance of 60.4%, followed by Ethereum (10.2%) and other altcoins (29.5%).  Meanwhile, the Altseason index is at 31 strongly in favor of the premier cryptocurrency.

Related Reading: Bitcoin Dominance Tipped To Hit 57% — Altseason Incoming?