TLDR:

• Altcoins have broken above a multi-year falling wedge on the TOTAL2 chart, signaling a potential trend reversal.
• The MACD indicator is nearing a bullish crossover that closely mirrors the setup seen before the 2020 altcoin rally.
• Tokens including Zcash, LayerZero, Ethena, and Arbitrum posted gains above 10% within a single 24-hour window.
• Over 40% of altcoins were near all-time lows in March, yet open interest has since climbed past $113 billion.

Altcoin season 2026 is showing technical signals not seen since 2020. A multi-year falling wedge breakout on the TOTAL2 chart, combined with a looming MACD bullish crossover, has analysts watching closely. 

With several tokens already posting double-digit gains and open interest climbing past $113 billion, the broader altcoin market appears to be building momentum for a potential trend reversal.

Wedge Breakout and MACD Signal Raise Altcoin Hopes

A falling wedge structure has been forming on the TOTAL2 chart since the 2021 market peak. This chart tracks the combined market cap of all altcoins, excluding Bitcoin. 

The pattern reflects a prolonged downtrend with steadily weakening selling pressure over several years.

Analyst Mark Chadwick flagged the development in an April 8 post on X, stating that altcoins were “starting to look insane.” He noted that altcoins had broken above the upper boundary of this wedge. 

That kind of breakout is generally viewed as a reversal signal among market analysts. Beyond the wedge, Chadwick also pointed to the MACD indicator as a secondary signal worth watching. 

The MACD line is moving closer to the signal line, and a crossover to the upside may follow in the coming weeks. “If MACD flips green and confirms the crossover in the coming weeks… Follow the arrow for directions. Higher,” he wrote.

That 2020 MACD crossover marked the start of a broad altcoin rally where many tokens outpaced Bitcoin by wide margins. Crypto Patel separately noted on April 8 that altcoins are bouncing off a long-term trendline stretching back to 2022 lows, adding that “the bottom is in.”

Short-Term Gains Emerge Against a Mixed Market Backdrop

Several altcoins recorded gains above 10% within a 24-hour window earlier this week. Tokens including Zcash, LayerZero, Ethena, and Arbitrum were among those moving higher. 

The total crypto market cap rose more than 4%, reaching around $2.5 trillion, while Bitcoin climbed back above $72,000. Open interest across crypto markets rose over 7% to $113 billion, according to CoinGlass. 

That increase came alongside rising liquidations, pointing to growing speculative activity in the market. However, conditions remain uneven across the broader altcoin space.

Data from late March showed more than 40% of tokens trading near all-time lows, a deeper drawdown than in the prior bear market. Analyst Ash Crypto noted that ALT/BTC charts are showing multiple green MACD bars for the first time in years. 

They stopped short of calling a full altcoin cycle underway, stating that Bitcoin dominance and broader liquidity conditions still need to shift before that call can be confirmed.

European banks and corporates are moving from research to rollout in the stablecoin market. 

New comments from industry executives show that firms are now choosing partners and preparing live use cases under MiCA rules.

Lamine Brahimi, co-founder and managing partner at Taurus, said stablecoin talks in Europe have changed over the past 18 months. Earlier discussions focused on education, risk, and compliance, but firms are now moving with board approval and launch plans.

He told Cointelegraph MiCA helped speed up that shift by replacing separate national rules with one framework across the region. Brahimi said some of Europe’s toughest financial institutions now see digital assets and stablecoins as part of the current banking stack, not something outside it.

Corporate treasury demand shapes use cases

Corporate treasury teams are driving much of the new stablecoin demand in Europe. Companies want faster fund movement, lower payment costs, and access to settlement outside normal banking hours.

Brahimi said the shift now comes from direct client needs rather than long-range planning. He said that when clients ask for better settlement and smoother cross-border transfers, the discussion becomes more immediate and practical.

Several European institutions have already moved ahead with stablecoin plans. ClearBank Europe said it became the first Dutch credit institution approved under MiCA to operate as a crypto asset service provider.

Other groups are also building new products. A consortium that includes ING, UniCredit, CaixaBank, and BBVA is working on Qivalis, a euro stablecoin project for regulated onchain payments and settlement, while other banks are preparing Swiss-franc and euro stablecoin offerings for 2026.

Data shows stronger business interest

Konstantin Vasilenko, co-founder and chief business development officer at Paybis, said the platform recorded sharp growth in EU stablecoin use. Between October 2025 and March 2026, USDC volume in the EU rose about 109%, while its share of stablecoin activity increased from about 13% to 32%.

He also said buy volume stayed about five to six times above sell volume during that period. Average stablecoin transactions were also larger than typical Bitcoin or Ether trades, which he said points to working capital, settlement use, and more deliberate business flows.

Bitcoin’s fifth halving is roughly two years away, and the mining sector is heading into it with far less margin for error than in 2024, as higher costs, tighter energy markets and clearer regulation reshape the industry.

At the last halving in April 2024, Bitcoin (BTC) traded at around $63,000 as rewards fell from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC per block, according to Coingecko. In April 2028, at the next halving, miners face higher input costs for half the new coins, as rewards drop to 1.5625 BTC. That looks tougher in a world of record hashrate, higher energy prices and more selective capital.

Energy security has also become a strategic concern after geopolitical shocks jolted fuel and power markets, while regulators from Washington to Europe move from ad-hoc guidance to formal regimes for custody and licensed institutional platforms.

Those pressures are forcing miners to behave less like pure Bitcoin proxies and more like energy and infrastructure companies, monetizing reserves, cutting costs and rethinking capital allocation ahead of the April 2028 Halving.

The shift is also changing how investors assess the sector, with capital increasingly flowing toward operators that can secure long-term power and build infrastructure that extends beyond mining alone.

Balance sheets show tougher pre-halving cycle

Miners are already adjusting. MARA Holdings sold more than 15,000 Bitcoin in March to reduce leverage, Riot Platforms sold over 3,700 BTC in the first quarter, Cango sold 2,000 BTC to pay down Bitcoin-backed debt, and Bitdeer said its Bitcoin holdings had fallen to zero as of Feb. 20.

Behind those sales is a broader reset in how miners think about hardware, power and capital. The 2028 halving arrives in “an environment that looks almost nothing like 2024,” Juliet Ye, head of communications at Cango, told Cointelegraph.

She pointed to a widening efficiency gap that is “forcing real decisions around fleet upgrades” and a shift toward long-term energy contracts across multiple regions rather than chasing cheaper tariffs.

“There is less room in the middle now,” she said. “Operators with scale and diversification will be fine. Those without will find the next halving very difficult.”

GoMining struck a similar note. CEO Mark Zalan told Cointelegraph that “capital discipline now matters more than hashrate maximalism” and that new deployments now have to clear tougher return thresholds.

Related: Mining companies move deeper into AI, HPC as MARA may sell Bitcoin

From a mining pool’s perspective, some of the underlying dynamics remain familiar even as the pressure grows. “There is actually very little fundamental difference between this mining cycle and previous ones,” Alejandro de la Torre, co-founder and CEO of Stratum V2 pool DMND, told Cointelegraph. “The same dynamics repeat.”

He expects mining hotspots to reach their peak, then realign, as “no region keeps dominance for long,” opening the door for more decentralization as mid-size miners expand into new energy partnerships.

Related: Genius Group liquidates Bitcoin treasury to pay $8.5M of debt

Business models shift beyond pure block rewards

The economics around the next halving are also shifting away from pure block rewards, which is a “thinner business than it used to be,” Zalan said. He predicted stronger operators will look closer to power and data center businesses, and earn additional revenue through curtailment, grid services and heat reuse.

Cango is already building toward that model. “The facilities that will matter in five years are the ones that can do more than one thing,” Ye said, using mining to fill capacity while positioning sites to toggle between AI workloads and hashpower.

Regulation, once viewed mainly as an overhang, is increasingly part of the investment case. Zalan pointed to more specific rules on custody and banking access in the United States, alongside the European Union’s Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) regime and new exchange-traded funds (ETFs), derivatives and settlement rails out of Hong Kong, arguing “capital moves faster when those rules are clear and usable.”

Zalan said that backdrop is shaping both how miners finance themselves and how institutions position for the next issuance cut. He said he does not believe the market has “fully priced the next halving,” arguing that scarcity will meet a “much stronger ecosystem around Bitcoin by the time 2028 arrives.”

Ye sees investors already re-rating miners that lock in high-performance compute contracts, with those operators trading at “more than double the revenue multiple of pure-play miners,” while de la Torre believes supporting large established operators is “no longer the only logical path.”

If the 2024 cycle rewarded miners that rode Bitcoin’s price strength, the run into 2028 may favor operators that can manage debt, lock in power and build infrastructure that earns beyond block subsidies.

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