Crypto Market Update: Bitcoin & Ethereum Break the Bear Pattern & Altcoins Surge
This week's Monday market update works the way every update on the channel does: start at the forest, then walk down to the trees. That means the total crypto market cap first, then Bitcoin, then Ethereum, then everything else — and only then individual coins like Quant and Hedera. Nothing here is financial advice. It's a framework for reading weekly charts so you can make your own decisions.
Why the Weekly Close Is the Whole Argument
A bear market has a simple signature: each high is lower than the last, and each low is lower than the last. Breaking that pattern means one thing — a weekly candle closing above the previous swing high.
That's now happened on the total market chart. Two weekly closes above the prior high. It's happened on Bitcoin, which closed above its previous high on a weekly for the first time last week. And Ethereum broke its pattern first, roughly six weeks ago, back when dollar-cost averaging was the conversation.
The caveat matters: the current bar isn't finished. Until Sunday evening prints the close, it can finish higher, lower, or exactly where it sits. Past bars are set in stone. Live bars are opinions. That's why the process focuses on closes, not intraweek excitement. If you want the longer version of this setup, the walkthrough on how to spot a crypto bear market breakout covers the same pattern logic in more detail.
Bitcoin Dominance and the ETH/BTC Signal
Bitcoin's chart looks almost identical to the total market chart for an unglamorous reason: BTC is roughly 60% of a ~$2.84 trillion market. Type in BTC.D and you'll see dominance has sat near 60% for a long stretch. While that number holds, Bitcoin and the total market move proportionally.
The interesting scenario is dominance falling. If BTC drops from 60% to 50%, the remaining share of the market goes from 40% to 50% — money rotating outward. That's the same story the ETH/BTC ratio tells. When Ethereum outperforms Bitcoin, capital has historically rolled down into altcoins. ETH/BTC ran up in 2025, spent a long time falling, and has now broken its downtrend cleanly. Understanding how Bitcoin dominance shifts capital into altcoins is what turns that chart from trivia into a decision input.
Volume Has to Confirm the Move
Price breaking a pattern isn't enough. On-Balance Volume — searchable directly in the indicator list — should rise alongside price. If price climbs while volume falls, prices are running ahead of demand, and the move is hollow. On Ethereum, OBV is currently rising with price, which is what you want to see. That same volume confirmation method for crypto breakouts applied to Hedera's move this week: price jumped roughly 30%, and OBV pushed up with it.
The volume profile bars on the left side of the chart add context. Ethereum shows heavy historical activity around $1,800 and again in the $2,700–$2,800 region. Thick zones tend to slow price down; thin zones let it run. Above that congestion, the chart is relatively open water toward $3,000.
Since all of this depends on reading weekly closes, volume profiles, and MACD crosses on the same screen, the charting platform matters. Most of these views — total market, BTC.D, ETH/BTC, OTHERS — are built in one place, and setting up crypto charts and indicators on TradingView is the simplest way to replicate this workflow yourself.
Altcoins: The OTHERS Chart and Two Movers
The OTHERS chart strips out the top 10 and captures the bulk of the remaining market. It fell for a long time. Weekly MACD crosses on that chart have marked previous entry signals — never used alone, but worth noting. The latest cross is holding, and the last couple of weeks have looked like a breakout attempt.
Quant illustrated how fast this market turns: lower highs going back to 2021, then a single week from roughly $60 to $280. RSI is stretched and a retrace toward the 50% level would be normal after a move like that. Hedera did something similar this week, moving from about $9.50 to $12.50 with confirming volume.
Long-term conviction matters too. Crypto held inside a retirement account is a different decision than a swing trade, and it's worth understanding how to hold crypto in a tax-advantaged retirement account before you decide where a long-horizon position belongs.
If you want to go deeper on chart reading, position sizing, and weekly market breakdowns, the Skool community at skool.com/crypto-profit has around 30 courses and 200+ videos, and we talk through these setups daily.
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