How to Tell If a Crypto Bull Run Is Actually Starting

Every bounce in a bear market looks like the bottom while it's happening. The difference between a relief rally and a genuine regime change shows up across several charts at once — not one. Most traders who get chopped up are reading a single chart and deciding the cycle turned.

Here are the four signals worth tracking together, what each one measures, and why two of them confirming is not the same as all four.

Signal 1: Total Crypto Market Cap Momentum

The total market cap chart rolls every cryptocurrency's market value into one line. It answers a simple question: is capital entering the asset class or leaving it?

Weekly MACD is the common way to read momentum here. A crossover from red to green on the weekly means momentum has shifted, and consecutive green weeks build the case. The usual objection is that MACD lags. On a weekly timeframe that's not necessarily a flaw — if the indicator lags, price was already turning before the signal printed, which strengthens rather than weakens the read.

What to watch: a weekly MACD crossover followed by sustained green weeks, not one candle.

Signal 2: The OTHERS Chart for Altcoins

The total market cap is dominated by a handful of large assets, so it tells you little about altcoins. OTHERS solves that. On TradingView, OTHERS represents the top 125 coins minus the top 10 — removing Bitcoin, Ethereum, other mega-caps and major stablecoins.

This is the chart that shows whether money is reaching smaller assets. Two things to look for: a weekly MACD crossover, and on-balance volume rising alongside price. Momentum without volume tends to fade.

Historical context helps here too. OTHERS peaked near $500 billion in the last cycle. Comparing where it sits now against that level — and adjusting for several years of inflation — gives you a sense of how much room exists rather than just whether the line is green this week. If you're new to these aggregate charts, understanding what TOTAL2 and TOTAL3 measure in crypto markets makes the OTHERS chart much easier to interpret.

Signal 3: The ETH/BTC Ratio

ETH/BTC measures relative performance, not direction. Both assets can be falling and the ratio can still rise — it simply shows which one is moving faster in percentage terms.

Why does it matter? Capital has historically rotated outward: Bitcoin first, then Ethereum, then the broader altcoin market. Ethereum outperforming Bitcoin is the traditional early tell that rotation has begun. If Bitcoin is up 1% a day and Ethereum is up 2%, money is moving down the risk curve.

Until that ratio turns, altcoin strength is usually borrowed rather than earned.

Signal 4: Bitcoin Dominance

Bitcoin dominance is Bitcoin's share of total crypto market cap. At 60%, six of every ten dollars in the market sit in Bitcoin.

A falling dominance figure during a rising total market cap means everything else is growing faster — Bitcoin up 5% while smaller assets move 20%, 50% or more. That's the classic altcoin season setup. But dominance can also fall because Bitcoin is shrinking, so it must be read alongside the total market cap, never alone.

Traders tracking this cycle closely tend to build a checklist rather than rely on gut feel. Working through a set of altcoin season indicators before rotating capital prevents the common mistake of buying alts on one green week.

Reading Bitcoin's Own Chart

Alongside the four signals, Bitcoin's daily chart provides structure. Two things matter most: the 200-day moving average, and volume profile.

Volume profile shows where the most business was transacted at given prices. Thick volume shelves act as resistance because a lot of supply changed hands there. Thin areas above them let price move quickly, because few holders are sitting at those levels waiting to break even. Identifying where volume thins out tells you where the next realistic resistance sits — and where price could travel fast.

Price reclaiming and holding above the 200-day moving average is the additional confirmation most traders want before calling the trend.

What to Do With Two of Four

Partial confirmation is not a signal to go all in. It's a signal to change how you accumulate. Dollar cost averaging exists precisely for this situation: you believe the risk-reward has improved without claiming to know the bottom.

Building these four charts once and letting alerts do the monitoring is far more practical than checking manually every Monday — using TradingView alerts and custom indicators for market signals is how most people track dominance, ETH/BTC and OTHERS without staring at screens, and it's the same platform these charts come from.

If you want to go through weekly market updates and structured courses on reading bull and bear market regimes with other traders, the daily discussions happen inside the Crypto School community at skool.com/crypto-profit.

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