Bitcoin is up roughly 24% over the past week to near $79,000, marking its best run since 2023, while the altcoin market has risen by less even during the sharpest part of the rally.

Bitcoin dominance, or its share of the total crypto market, has climbed to around 61%, the opposite of what typically happens when altcoins are genuinely outperforming.

The CoinMarketCap Altcoin Season Index, which measures how many of the top 100 coins have beaten Bitcoin’s price over 90 days, stands at 46, well below the 75 threshold that defines a real altcoin season.

Bitcoin is trading near $79,000, up roughly 24% over the past week and on pace for its strongest move since 2023. Altcoins, the rest of the crypto market after Bitcoin, are usually the more volatile side of the trade, swinging more sharply than Bitcoin in both directions. This week, that pattern did not hold: the broader market advanced, but not enough to catch up.

Ethereum led the altcoin basket, rising about 30% over the same week to above $2,500. But Total3, the index that excludes both Bitcoin and Ethereum to isolate the rest of the market, cooled after an early burst and now sits around $753 billion, down for the week even as Bitcoin pushed toward $80,000.

Total2, which tracks the full altcoin market, showed a similar pattern. It jumped more than 24% between August 19 and 22 as the initial rally spread beyond Bitcoin, pushing it back above $1 trillion. Since then, it has given back some of those gains, trading near $1.05 trillion and down over the past two days while Bitcoin kept rising.

That trend is most visible in Bitcoin dominance, a measure of Bitcoin’s share of the entire crypto market. If altcoins were truly outperforming, dominance would fall as money spread into smaller coins. Instead, it climbed to around 61% this week before easing to about 59%, near its highest level of the year.

The CoinMarketCap Altcoin Season Index supports that reading. The index tracks how many of the top 100 coins have outperformed Bitcoin over the trailing 90 days on a scale where a reading above 75 signals altcoin season and a reading near 25 signals Bitcoin season. At 46, most altcoins are still losing that race.

What is actually driving Bitcoin

The move traces to last Wednesday, when the U.S. Treasury said it would double its long-bond buybacks from $2 billion to $4 billion per operation starting September 9. Long-bond buybacks are purchases of the government’s own debt intended to support demand and ease borrowing costs. The announcement weakened the dollar and pushed investors toward Bitcoin as an inflation hedge, the same trade that has helped drive gold to record highs this year.

President Donald Trump added pressure two days later, meeting crypto executives at the White House and urging Congress to pass the Clarity Act, a bill designed to determine which U.S. regulator oversees which crypto assets.

As Bitcoin broke through $70,000, traders who had bet against it were forced to buy back in at a loss to close those positions, a short squeeze. Bitget Wallet research analyst Lacie Zhang estimated that more than $4 billion in crypto shorts were liquidated over two to three days. That kind of forced repositioning can amplify a move already underway, but it also helps explain why the rally has been led by Bitcoin rather than by a broad altcoin rotation.

A sustained move above $80,000 could open the way toward $82,000 to $87,000, with $75,000 to $76,000 serving as the main pullback zone. The Senate is scheduled to take up the Clarity Act again in mid-September, adding a policy milestone for traders to watch alongside the market’s reaction to the Treasury’s bond-buyback shift.

The views and opinions expressed by the author are for informational purposes only and do not constitute financial, investment, or other advice.

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