In 2025, 11.6 million crypto projects failed, while meme and AI coins briefly reached multi-billion dollar values, but then fell sharply.
Crypto YouTuber and longtime altcoin supporter Lady Of Crypto offered a very negative and reality-based view of the market in her recent video. She says that not only is alt season late, but the crypto industry no longer deserves alt season.
The main point of her video is simple: Bitcoin is setting new all-time highs, but most altcoins are still down 40% to 90% from their previous highs. According to the Lady of Crypto, this isn’t a time issue, but rather a system issue.
These days, money is only flowing into larger, safer cryptocurrencies. New coins are arriving in such large quantities that prices are being suppressed. Money that previously circulated in smaller, riskier coins has now found its way into Bitcoin’s regulated products.
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An “Extinction Event” For The Broader Altcoin Market
The creator cites a shocking number. According to her, approximately 11.6 million crypto projects will fail by 2025.
This number is so large that it’s more than the total number of projects created in the last seven years combined. She doesn’t call this a normal market cleanup, but rather an “extinction event” meaning that most things simply disappeared.
She doesn’t see the projects that survived as promising either. Meme coins, like Solana’s BAR/FAR tokens, briefly reached multi-billion dollar values. Similarly, AI agent tokens, which had exactly zero users, also rose significantly. But after a while, 99% of the coins went to zero.
On the other hand, there are still 71 layer-1 blockchains with a market value of over $100 million, but they have almost no real users. The Lady of Crypto says simply: Humans don’t need 71 layer-1 chains.
She says this whole scene is like VCs playing a game, playing musical chairs with retail investors’ money.
Structural Shift: Liquidity Can’t Rotate
An important part of their argument is based on two charts. The first chart shows the total crypto market cap, and the second chart shows “others” meaning everything except the top 10 coins.
This ratio fell in 2021, indicating that money was flowing into smaller altcoins. However, since 2022, this ratio has been steadily rising. This means, according to them, that money is moving from smaller coins to larger, more popular coins.
The issue doesn’t end there.
The supply of new tokens is making the situation even worse.
In January and February 2026 alone, $4.6 billion worth of tokens were unlocked, mostly held by VCs and early investors.
In projects like Sui and Aptos, the circulating supply has increased 6 to 7 times since launch. The math is simple: If supply is increasing this fast, it takes a lot of buyers to keep the price the same. And they say there simply isn’t enough buying in the market.
The cycle of money that used to circulate in 2021 from Bitcoin to altcoins and then to smaller coins has now virtually stopped due to regulations and new products.
She estimates that approximately $200 billion worth of Bitcoin is now held by U.S. ETFs and MicroStrategy. This money cannot legally go into altcoins, no matter how good the setup.
In her words: Larry Fink can’t just wake up one day and put a billion dollars into a bank. The mandate is clear only Bitcoin.
Regulation & Reputation Amidst a Shrinking Retail Base
The upcoming Clarity Act is also putting significant pressure on her thinking. She explains that Coinbase has withdrawn its support for this bill because they believe this legislation will divide the market into two parts.
On one side will be VIP coins like Bitcoin, Ethereum, and a few other cryptocurrencies which will receive full regulation. On the other side will be all other coins, which will be virtually excluded from the mainstream financial system.
In addition, the image of crypto has also been severely damaged. She says that whenever people outside of crypto hear about it, the first question is:
“Isn’t this a scam?”
After the FTX, Luna, Celsius, and consecutive meme-coin crashes, she says it wasn’t just regulators who killed altcoins. In her words: “We put ourselves in the hands of the wrong regulators.”
She also compares returns. In 2025:
- S&P 500 returned approximately 18%
- Palantir gained over 130%
- While the average altcoin is still down 40% to 90% from its peak price.
She also points out that gold and silver outperformed most altcoins. Now that traditional assets are yielding profits and bonds are starting to yield again, it raises the question:
Why have retail investors returned to a market that “has already bled them badly?”
Flight to Quality, or Just Leaving?
She also says that alt season isn’t completely over. She says that maybe, eventually, greed or desire could return if projects demonstrate real products, real users, and real revenue. But she considers it very difficult for an everything is a pump cycle like 2021 to return.
Her expectation is that if something happens, only top-quality coins like blue-chip coins will benefit, and the remaining “11 million zombie tokens” will remain dead for now.
Her practical advice is more about portfolio planning than crypto. She cites analyst Ben Cowen and warns that if you simply wait for the alt revival, you could miss out on gains in other assets. She doesn’t say sell directly, but suggests treating crypto as extremely high risk and focusing on other asset classes, rather than clinging to dreams of an idolized alt season in 2021.
The takeaway for investors is simple:
If this YouTuber is correct, the new market regime looks like this:
- Liquidity concentrated in just a few top coins
- Tokenomics more hostile
- Regulatory channels tight
So a broad altcoin rebound is no longer just a matter of timing, but also a question of rebuilding trust in the industry, which has largely eroded.
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People Also Ask – Alt Season:
Does she think all altcoins are finished?
No. She says a small group of blue-chip coins may still perform well. But the long tail—millions of tokens—will still be mostly worthless.
Is she still investing in alts?
She doesn’t disclose her current positions, but says she has stopped covering low-cap coins, stopped promoting specific alts, and is now seriously looking at other markets.
Role of ETFs in blocking alt season?
According to her estimates, approximately $200 billion in Bitcoin is now locked in ETFs and corporate treasuries. This money cannot legally go into altcoins under current rules.
Could regulation help alts in the future?
Possibly. But she says the current trend especially the Clarity Act only creates rails for institutions for the top few assets, and doesn’t open access to thousands of speculative tokens.
