BTC’s 50% drop could lead to a 2017-style altcoin rally

Comparisons are being drawn to 2017, when altcoins surged after BTC stabilized following a sharp decline from its all-time high.

Bitcoin (BTC) fell below $62,000 on June 4, and the move coincided with the first tangible decline in the major cryptocurrency’s dominance in nearly eight months, according to analyst CrediBULL Crypto.

This has led many observers to reconsider the possibility of an altcoin-led market phase, as assets have shown unusual resilience during Bitcoin’s decline, a pattern that has appeared in the past near major turning points in cryptocurrency market cycles.

What the graphs show

According to CrediBULL, this is the biggest altcoin rally in the 2017 cycle He started Only after Bitcoin had already fallen 50% from its peak, stabilized, and then embarked on a recovery journey. That’s when the altcoin’s market capitalization tripled from its lows and surged to all-time highs.

They believe a similar setup may be developing now with Bitcoin trading more than 50% below the all-time high it hit in October 2025, and many altcoins have avoided the type of collapse seen in previous bear markets.

“Many are noticing the relative strength in altcoins at these levels as Bitcoin melts, but many altcoins remain relatively ‘flat’, leading to a decline in Bitcoin dominance in the first major pullback on Bitcoin’s dom we have seen in nearly 8 months,” he wrote.

In a follow-up exchange, the analyst suggested that there may be a series of “alternate mini-seasons” leading up to a larger series that will arrive after the Bitcoin peak that has not yet happened.

There was a similar assessment of the market earlier this week from another analyst, Psychodelik described It is “an exhausted market in which alternatives no longer respond to weakness.” They also noted that the OTHERS.D chart closed above the 200-day moving average, a level that has helped spark big moves in the small coins in the past.

However, Daan Crypto Trades offered a more cautious reading, Saying That the total altcoin market cap excluding stablecoins has been range-bound for over two years, and that the recent strength in the category that everyone has been talking about has been mostly carried by a few tokens.

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“For this to bounce back properly, it will need more life outside of the likes of ETH and other majors,” he said.

In fact, only ETH touched The 14-month low is near $1,700, with others in the top 10 losing between 8% and 4% in the past 24 hours. Over the course of seven days, only Hyperliquid’s HYPE token held up, rising over 18% in that period while all other cryptocurrencies with a market cap of 11 figures and above stumbled badly.

What about Bitcoin?

At the time of writing, Bitcoin itself has fallen almost 7% in one day and more than 13% in the past week. It was trading about $500 below $63,000, as it was earlier He fell to a four-month low of around $61,000.

The move wiped out more than 270,000 leveraged traders within 24 hours, with more than $1.6 billion in total liquidations, most of which were long positions. The situation is just as bad for Bitcoin ETFs, which have already seen $1.4 billion in outflows in the first three days of June, according to data from SoSoValue.