Just checked the altcoin season index and it's sitting at 37 right now. For those not familiar with this metric, it basically measures how many of the top 100 cryptos are outperforming Bitcoin over the last 90 days. The lower the number, the harder Bitcoin is dominating the market.

So what does 37 actually mean? It's telling us we're nowhere near an altcoin season yet. You'd need to hit 75 or higher for that to kick in. When you look back at 2021 or parts of 2018, the index was regularly above 80. We're basically in the opposite situation right now - Bitcoin's still calling the shots, and most alts are lagging behind. The index calculation excludes stablecoins and wrapped tokens to focus on actual speculative assets, so it's a pretty clean read of market sentiment.

What's interesting is how this shapes strategy. A 37 reading suggests that broad altcoin plays might be early, but it's also the kind of environment where you can start spotting individual alts that are quietly outperforming despite the overall trend. Those could be the early movers when capital finally rotates. Keep an eye on whether this index breaks above 50 - that's usually the first signal that sentiment's shifting. Right now though, Bitcoin dominance is the name of the game.