Bitcoin volatility drops to six-year lows as the altcoin season ascends

As the crypto market recovers with the start of 2023, bitcoin’s (BTC) volatility drops to six-year lows. The index shows that the largest cryptocurrency’s price fluctuates just over 1%, per a 30-day estimate.

According to the BTC Volatility Index, the last time bitcoin’s volatility dropped below the 1% level was in October 2016, over six years ago. At the moment, BTC’s 30-day average volatility is 1.09%, while the 60-day estimate is a bit higher, 1.24%, at the time of writing.

Per the data, bitcoin’s volatility rose to 9.68% in March 2020, the highest in the past six years. As the volatility drops, the BTC price is seeing positive action. Bitcoin is trading at $17,258, up by 0.32% in the past 24 hours.

Furthermore, data from the market intelligence platform Santiment shows a spike in altcoin prices since the start of 2023. Santiment’s report notes that lido DAO (LDO), solana (SOL), aptos (APT), hex (HEX), decentraland (MANA), and sandbox (SAND) are the top gainers among the top 100 crypto assets by market cap. 

However, among 1,119 voters, per Santiment, 44.5% expect a plummet:

“As of now, assets have continued to pump while bitcoin has crept up enough to allow smaller projects to thrive.”

Santiment report

Santiment points out the rise of words like altcoin, or altseason, on social media. The market intelligence platform previously reported on the unexpected hike of terms like buy, buying and bullish. Per the tweet, this might show the act of FOMO — fear of missing out.