---
title: 'The Only Chart That Matters for Altcoins in 2026'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=E17yE0XzlOY'
video_id: 'E17yE0XzlOY'
date: 2026-07-31
duration_sec: 1374
---

# The Only Chart That Matters for Altcoins in 2026

> Source: [The Only Chart That Matters for Altcoins in 2026](https://youtube.com/watch?v=E17yE0XzlOY)

## Summary

The video argues that, despite altcoins' brutal performance in 2025, 2026 is set up to be a massive alt season. The creator bases this on the ISM chart crossing above 50, which historically triggers parabolic altcoin moves, and on M2 money-supply momentum as a leading indicator. He also factors in political incentives, cheap energy from Venezuela, and growing institutional adoption.

### Key Points

- **Altcoin pain in 2025** [00:01] — 2025 was brutal for altcoins, one of the worst asset classes, but the creator is extremely bullish for 2026.
- **All-in on the thesis** [00:53] — The creator sold his house and put all his savings into crypto, betting on a 2026 alt season that could approach or exceed 2021.
- **Alts are last to eat** [01:05] — Altcoins sit at the far end of the risk curve; they only go parabolic when liquidity overflow reaches them.
- **The ISM rhythm died after 2021** [03:35] — The ISM chart had a distinct rhythm since 1948, but it flatlined after 2021 — like a heartbeat that flatlined — explaining why altcoins felt dead.
- **2024 mini alt season preview** [05:03] — When the ISM first crossed above 50 in October 2024, altcoins exploded; examples include Reserve, Una, Virtuals, and Pole.
- **Real projects vs memecoins** [07:46] — There are only a couple thousand real altcoin projects; the millions of tokens are mostly memecoins, so dilution fears are overstated.
- **2025 is medicine, 2026 is the feast** [09:21] — Trump and Bessent set expectations: 2025 was for taking bitter economic medicine; 2026 is the celebration/banquet fueled by policy.
- **M2 momentum leads the ISM** [10:15] — M2 year-over-year momentum is a leading indicator for the ISM; it bottomed in 2015 before the ISM bottomed in 2016, and it also led in 2019-20.
- **M2 surged past previous peaks** [14:19] — By mid-2025, M2 momentum exceeded prior cycle highs, signaling that the ISM should climb into 2026 — but plumbing issues delayed the impact.
- **Venezuela oil as inflation repression** [16:08] — With the US controlling Venezuela's 300 billion barrels of oil, cheap energy could suppress inflation, giving the Fed room to cut rates and juice the economy.
- **Alts moving down the risk curve** [19:50] — Institutional adoption (BlackRock, Clarity Act) makes alts less risky, so a smaller liquidity spillover is needed for alt season.

### Conclusion

The creator's bottom line is that 2026 should deliver the bull run that 2025 failed to provide, driven by a combination of macro, political, and liquidity factors.

## Transcript

right now, you're probably at your wit's end. 2025 was absolutely brutal for alts, and they were by and far one of the worst assets you could have held over the course of last year. However, if you guys have been watching me for a
while, you guys know I'm extremely bullish on altcoins going into 2026. In fact, I believe that 2026 will be something like, you know, maybe approaching or possibly even exceeding 2021 cycle all season where we saw it
just all exploding off the charts. you know, this allout mania around altcoins, crypto, etc. I believe we're going to see something similar in 2026 and have some very good reasons as to why um even though I don't think we're going to have
anywhere near the abundance of liquidity that we did in 2021 and 2026, we could still see alt season exceed um the the size and scope of 2020 uh due to some other factors that are at play. In fact, I believe this so much that I ended up
selling my house and putting every dime I have, every, you know, my entire life savings into crypto and specifically altcoins because I believe we are about to head into an insane, absolutely unhinged alt season. And what most
people misunderstand about alts is that alts are the last to eat at the table. Alts sit at like the furthest corners, the farthest out on the risk curve. Okay? So, you got to have a market that has abundance, that has froth in order
for altcoins to go bananas because that froth spills over into alts. Alts are really small. They set these like hyper, you know, tiny market caps. So, when that froth spills over, it causes this parabolic move up in altcoins. And you
order to do it. And there is one chart that has stood the test of time as like the single best indicator of like when this chart passes a certain threshold. That is when altcoins go bananas. And in this video, I'm going to be sharing that
that chart, but why most people misunderstand that chart and what it means and why, you know, all the fears about, you know, retail's never going to crypto or, you know, there's too many altcoins, you know, so we're not going
to have a broad alt season like in the past. All those fears are unfounded. And in fact, we've had an example of what alt season will probably look like in this new regime already. and it shows us that it it is very likely to play out
exactly as we expect. And I'm going to dive into that and point to that a chart that I'm talking about is a chart that I've been talking about for a long while now, but it feels like maybe in the last 6 months, suddenly everyone
all the time, but they don't seem to know what they're talking about when is the ISM. And that's this chart right here. You've probably seen it in quite a know that everyone in their mom talks about the ISM because of Ralph Paul
be like, "Oh my gosh, the the ISM says this or says that, but a lot of those they're talking about when they're referencing this chart. They're just the ISM needs to peak up and that's, you know, going to be what causes crypto to
go higher, which which is true and definitely kind of in line with what I I want to reference today. I want to really highlight this line. This is this is the 50 mark for the ISM. And usually when you're above the 50 mark, that is a
starting to accelerate. You're starting to see booming growth as we've seen in I've shown this, but it's worth a quick recap because I do have a point that I'm driving towards. You can see going all the way back till to 1948 that the ISM
has worked as sort of like this rhythm, right? It goes up, it goes down, it goes up, it goes down. It's it's a very distinct, very obvious rhythm that is has gone all the way back to 1948. And I've highlighted this a lot and I've
highlighted a lot that this rhythm was intact all the way up until 2021. After 2021, the rhythm died. And if you look at it, if you zoom out and you look at the chart, there's there's literally nothing like this on this entire chart
going back to 1948. It's literally like a heartbeat that flatlined is what I often compare it to. And this has been the market that we have been trading in, so it's no wonder altcoins have felt dead because the the patient is dead. By
that typically historically front runs this chart. Okay? So it's like a leading headed that I'm going to talk about in just a second. And I have uh on my chart here, you can see 2013's uh al all season and cryptocycle bull run. You can
see 2017's altcoin uh all season cryptocycle bull run and 2021's all these are very distinct. And and you notice that this is distinctly missing the four-year cycle right here, right? And it's gone. It's completely changed.
This is one piece of evidence that I I talk about when I say the four cycle is chart. You can see it on other charts, but clearly things are not as they used to be. It this is a very different thing. Maybe it's not as obvious to
all day. But I it feels obvious. this. I feel like a a third grader could look at it looks like things have maybe changed and are a little bit different than they were in the past." Now, I want to really highlight right here what happened back
highlight right here what happened back in 2024. You can see right here in 2024, the ISM started picking up in October and it went all the way up just above the 50 mark. the first time this entire cycle we see the ISM peak above the 50
mark and it goes up here till about January uh 1st 2025. So look look at this huge move up in the ISM and if you guys remember what happened between October and January of 20 2024 going to 2025 altcoins went absolutely bananas
during that exact same time period. That is when you know AI agent tokens were taking off. Altcoins were going bananas. I reference it sometimes as o season or like a mini alt season. We definitely saw that happen between October and
January 1st where altcoins went bananas on just this tiny tiny move up in the ISM. Just, you know, just barely taking a breath above the 50 mark. And we'll use uh Research Coin as a little example here. You can see Research Coin was at
20 cents uh at the start of November and it climbed all the way to a peak of a$148. Um, by the start of January, you can see Una climbed from 0.007 cents all the way to a peak uh at the start of January of
eight cents. That's a massive runup. You can see Virtuals was basically flat all the way up until about November where it ran up from basically 56 all the way to And you can see even Pole climbed from 29 all the way to a peak of around 73.
And this was perfectly in line with the ISM heading higher and then peaking up above the 50 mark. So we can see an example, a really small mini example of what it might look like in the future once the ISM begins to reacelerate, once
you start to see the economy running hot, once that froth starts spilling over. And this was just a tiny tiny example. You saw that alt responded violently. They head it higher. If you remember and you were around during the
It It was insane. It was like every day you woke up and you just felt like you were missing out because everything, all these tokens were like doing 10x, 20x. They were going crazy. And this wasn't an alt season. This was in late 2024 and
was simply a taste, a mini example of what happens once things align and the right conditions are set for alts to go up. And you know, at that time, it It didn't matter that there was too many, you know, altcoins or or whatever.
like it that stuff didn't matter when you had the proper conditions. Alts went crazy. Obviously, it wasn't, you know, the long tail of every single altcoin or memecoin, etc. You know, there's like millions of tokens. The vast majority,
99.9% of those are memecoins. Yeah. Like all of those didn't go bananas. But if real team. They're building a real project. You're talking about a couple thousand tokens. There's really not that many. People blow it way, you know, way
out of proportion. Obviously, if anyone can, you know, launch a token, there's a lot of tokens out there, but if you're talking about real projects building least trying. You know, they might suck and fail, but at least trying. You're
projects. So, there's more than enough to go around uh, for those couple guarantee that had this line kept going higher, you would have seen retail jumping on board, celebrities jumping on board, and everything going crazy. I
of this right here. And this went in line with the economy accelerating just like it did in 2021, just like it did in 2017, and just like it did in 2013. Now, Trump getting elected, but remember, he didn't actually come into office in
November. There was sentiment around the, you know, it is going to be bullish around then. Um, and that's probably why the ISM peaked up too. This is a a measure of sentiment about the economy. Okay? And so, um, this probably peaked
everything coming with the Trump administration and since then is head know, everything else that's happened over 2025. That doesn't change the conclusion and the result of like when the ISM peaks up above that line, that's
when you see alts go bananas. So, that's what we're looking for going into the been talking about since the start of the year. And that's that Trump and Bessant were very clear that 2025 is when they, you know, you get the
medicine and 2026 is when you get the celebration or as he says it here, 2025 is setting the table. The feast and banquet will be 2026. Um, their plan was always that it's politically untenable to do a lot of the things that they feel
going to shove all those things into 2025 and then, you know, course correct in 2026 toward abundance so that they could win midterms and continue doing what they want to do. Which means the expectation that you see right here in
the ISM that, you know, the the thing that everyone expected here is more likely to come right here. And that is what I'm betting on. I'm betting on, you know, they want to win midterms and you're going to see the ISM really
accelerate going into 2026. Um, and it it should be on par or on course with something like one of these years, which means it'll be a really meaningful move up. And that should we should see a very meaningful alt season. And to show you
chart that's predictive of the ISM. It's actually a front leading indicator of where the ISM is headed. And that's this chart that I show all the time. That's M year-over-year momentum of M2. That's not the same thing as, you know, what
chart, which is just the global M2 chart. As I say, there's no signal in It just kind of goes up and to the right, as you can see. Um, that's which is this chart. This is the momentum of M2. And it is a leading
indicator, not a lagging indicator of the ISM. The ISM more shows you where you're going. For example, you can see that around July of 2015 is when year-over-year bottoms, and it started heading higher into August, September,
October, November, and December. So you can see that a very distinct move up here. If you look at the ISM chart, you can see that its bottom is around January 1st, 2016. And it starts to head higher from there. And in this chart, we
could already see this move higher in growth all the way back in August. Okay? indicator. Another example, you can see right here during the 2017 cycle, uh that global M2 year-over-year started to head lower around, uh let's say you
could tell that this curve was lower around April 2018. However, on this chart right here, April 2018 was still pretty much around the peak of uh the ISM, right? And you couldn't really tell we were making a meaningful uh leg lower
until around December of 2018. Another example for the 2021 cycle, you could see that year-over-year momentum was heading higher all the way back in uh April of 2019. You could really tell it had gotten going by, you know, October
and November of 2019. Like, you could clearly see that year-over-year momentum was climbing. However, you didn't see that it was heading higher until after April 2020 on the ISM chart. So, that completely front ran that even in the a
situation where a lot of this was again sentiment driven by COVID, right? So, this huge dip was COVID driven and then this huge surge was co COVID driven telling you that we were likely heading
anyways uh because year-over-year momentum was picking up. My point is momentum was picking up. My point is that global M2 tends to frontr run ISM. ISM is heading. Obviously, when you have a lot of momentum of money moving
economy and you're going to see that, you know, later down the line, later in like to think about it, and I've highlighted this before, is I like to think these as big balls of Play-Doh. Okay? So, don't think of them as
stuff. Just kind of imagine taking all this green stuff and turning it into a you the size and scope of how big that cycle will be and kind of the stored out. It's not like this move necessarily means alt season. It's this whole thing.
it doesn't come out till later and you know as the pressure builds you see this kind of explosive you know big move up in in asset prices. So it doesn't always play out right here but this momentum kind of stores uh for later. That's
again you know you had this building into 2019 and you didn't see it play out you know yet. You saw it play out later in the cycle and it got exasperated Um but that momentum was already building pre that and it kind of
cycle has been really interesting as you can see after 2021 uh you know cliff. It went negative uh and then it just kind of flatlined. It's really similar to the ISM chart which again flatlined and you can see basically the
same thing here. It flatlined and really the the first meaningful push up. you saw something in 2023, but the first really big move up was right here in uh late late 2024 where you saw year-over-year uh M2 climb higher
year-over-year uh M2 climb higher starting in July and and peaking around September. Okay. Um so again, this is another example of M2 year-over-year front running the ISM, which ended up peaking around January. And so this was
actually predictive of that ISM move up and predictive of what was to come with the, you know, crazy mania uh oat season as I like to call it in late 2024. Now,
happened after this. Okay, so this is this is back in 2024 and what's happened since is is literally absolutely insane in terms of, you know, being predictive of where we're going to head. And remember my example of the playable ball
and that stored up momentum. Okay. Um what we saw after was M2 started to head what we saw after was M2 started to head higher and in fact um by July of 2025 it had already surpassed um what we were seeing here. The problem is uh with 2025
because of the plumbing issues in the financial system especially globally. M2 the plumbing. It hasn't really found its way into the markets. Okay. Um and we saw that that trend continue um where
thought it might head lower because this is what it's been doing. has been going up, down, up, down, up. I I was thinking down um you know, because that was the trend. But what we saw was the exact opposite. It started to head higher and
higher to where today we've even surpassed this peak and we're sitting way up here. Uh which is actually pretty crazy and somewhat comparable to what first time this cycle we've seen anything comparable to past cycles. And
again, think of it as play-doh ball. Think of it as stored up momentum um that has this kind of big blowoff moment at some point. um you know when things get there's too much pressure built up in the system. And so what this tells me
right here is again this tends to predict where the ISM is headed. And right now you can see the ISM has been heading lower. But my my bet is that seeing right here, this is likely to head higher going into 2026. And and
I was saying earlier with Scott Besset. You know, um 2025 is setting the table. They got to win midterms. They they need rich. All of this comes together to to form the thesis of the 2026 will be
absolutely unhinged, insane bullish for altcoins, for for the ISM, for liquidity, etc. And the final nail in the coffin is what happened over the the coffin is what happened over the weekend with Venezuela, oil, etc. The
inflation. If inflation gets out of control, all of this is dead. Uh, you know, they they have to start, you know, pause cutting rates. They won't have the or whatever. Inflation could kill
everything. Um, but as uh gamut gamma chan says right here, um I'm with Stow on this one. US just acquired an inflation repression machine. Juice the cheap plus the whole AI productivity boom thing. Basically what happened is
as you probably heard um with Venezuela, the US currently controls Venezuela and Venezuela holds the largest oil reserves in the world at 300 billion barrels. Energy is baked into the cost of everything. Like energy is one of the
biggest components of inflation because it's baked into the cost of everything. energy, you need a power business that needs energy. And so really cheap oil prices is really bullish for inflation. It means inflation should fall. And um
Trump has been pushing to get oil prices down. And right now the US is in control of Venezuela, which holds the largest oil reserves in the world. And according to Trump, we have large US oil companies moving in. Um, and a lot of this oil is
like um it needs to be refined. But we do have massive refineries in the US Also, you can see this shocking stat of the day. Venezuela's oil production is just 15 years ago. We could easily see another 3 million barrels of oil hit the
daily consumption of all but six countries in the world. Basically, it's like the ultra bullcase for like super cheap energy, which is an ultra bullcase for inflation, which is why again in the first uh post I showed you, they said
the US has acquired an inflation repression machine. Uh and that's true. Okay, so going into 2026, Trump has all the components needed uh to keep inflation low. There's no excuse for the Fed to not cut rates uh and to juice the
economy. And that's exactly what he's going to do. that I to me this is like so obvious that like why do you think he doesn't want to win like yeah obviously people get they get weird with politics they they throw out ah Trump's doing
whatever. I'm not talking like that. I'm just talking about market focus. Um Trump definitely wants to win the midterms. He's going to do everything in his power that he can to win those. Anyone in that situation would do it.
The the difference is Trump is a little bit bolder than than most people. And so hold back. Like he's he's going to do what it takes to win the midterms. And that means juicing the economy, getting things flowing, running the economy hot,
that's his plan all along. Like it's not like it's like a secret plan. Bessin says it all the time where you know we're the feast is in 2026. Global M2 is telling you the feast is in 2026. Like that that is where we are headed and and
that's why I'm bullish on alts going into 2026. that that's why I'm bullish on my bags going into 2026. You know, it didn't happen. I I thought it was going know, the four-year cycle kind of adding it its own narrative into that momentum
of like um you know, having that parabolic move up late 2025. That did shutdown, the liquidation day event, and all that kind of stuff. But that's a in the coffin. It's not going to happen. The bigger setup still holds and and is
a lot more powerful than you know, one liquidation day event in the government shutdown. And as I mentioned earlier, alts also have something else going for them in 2026, and that's that they should move down the risk curve. Um, and
closer to where we are. Historically, traditionally, alts are so far out there, they're like on the edges of of civilization, okay? And so, you got to really have the pot boil over in order for that liquidity to spill over into
Got to have a little bit of volcano action going on. But the closer alts move towards the center of the the financial system, the less risky they are on that risk curve, the the less you have to have that volcano action and
spill into alts. And the reason they're moving closer is because of all this institutional legitimization, the Clarity Act. Black Rockck's number one And they're going to just continue to legitimize crypto because they want to
really clear incentives. It's not like I have, you know, I you don't have to do they want to make more money? Yes. They're making a crazy amount of money want to make more money from crypto. So, the closer alts move, the less boil over
action you have have to have. And alts are tiny today. They're they're so so financial system. They are so tiny. So, you don't need a lot of liquidity. That's why I say you could have a 2021 style um you know uh cycle with with
alts uh without having as much liquidity because you know the vast majority of the vast majority of that liquidity went into stocks and money market funds and wasn't going into crypto. Crypto went up to, you know, a couple trillion dollars
in in in market cap. Okay. Um, and remember that there's singular companies that have a higher market cap than that. Black Rockck has more assets under management by like 3x than crypto's entire market cap. So, you don't need a
just need the direction of liquidity to look more at crypto. So, more of that liquidity, however much is made. let's say half as much liquidity as 2021, you say half as much liquidity as 2021, you know, comes into place in in 2026. Um,
goes into crypto, let's say last time it was like 3% that went into crypto. And let's say this time, you know, we get half as much liquidity, but like 2% of to have a way bigger alt season, way, you know, way more liquidity splashed
around in crypto, even though half as much was produced, you know, globally as as the entire market. That is my point, especially as it gets closer in that risk curve. Uh because you you're having all these talking heads go on CNBC or
like, "By the way, altra the future. Crypto is the future." You even have Jamie Diamond going on and saying, you know, throwing in the towel and saying, it's obviously at this point, etc." So, it's so yeah, 2025, huge disappointment.
End of 2025, big slap to the face. But that doesn't change where we're headed. 2026 is going to be the bull run everyone expected out of 2025. I'm heading. As always, no, this is investment advice. This is me telling
obviously not your financial adviser. And if you're curious about seeing my every time I buy and sell various tokens, as well as different weekly Obsidian Council is closed to new members, but you can sign up for the
video. If you want to see more videos like this, make sure to hit that next to it to be notified each time I release new videos. Thanks for watching release new videos. Thanks for watching and I'll see you next