Bitfinex analysts have pointed to the increasing capitalization of stablecoins and the rise in prices of several meme coins as factors indicating the imminent altcoin season.

With the price of Bitcoin nearing its all-time high, the combined capitalization of altcoins remains significantly below its peak, according to a recent market report by Bitfinex.

The TOTAL3 index, which tracks the overall capitalization of all cryptocurrencies excluding Bitcoin and Ethereum, has surged by 50% over the past two months, reaching $640 billion in early March. However, the capitalization of altcoins still lags behind its historical peak of $1.13 trillion, reached in November 2021.

Bitfinex analysts have noted a significant influx of capital into the cryptocurrency market and the rise in prices of meme coins along with tokens in the "artificial intelligence" category. Leading meme coins have brought investors hundreds of percentage points in profits over the last 30 days, with the price of PEPE alone soaring by over 250% in a week.

Trading volumes of futures contracts on meme coins such as DOGE, PEPE, or BONK on exchanges like Binance and Bybit exceeded one-third of the total futures market volume last week.

Bitfinex analysts directly attribute the increased demand for trading futures contracts of tokens like WIF and BONK to the inability to purchase these coins on the spot market on centralized exchanges.

The significant weekly growth in the prices of a range of cryptocurrencies in the meme coin category may be an early indicator of the start of the altcoin season, according to analysts at K33 Research.

Another catalyst for the rise of meme coins on Bitfinex is attributed to the increasing capitalization of stablecoins. On Monday, March 4th, the capitalization of the leading stablecoin USDT exceeded $100 billion, setting a historical record. For comparison, the capitalization of the nearest competitor, the USD Coin (USDC) from Circle, stands at $28.9 billion. The capitalization of USDT has grown by 10% since the beginning of the year.

Open interest in Bitcoin futures contracts on traditional cryptocurrency exchanges has soared to a record level of $26 billion, surpassing the November 2021 record of $24 billion when Bitcoin was priced at $69,000, according to Bitfinex citing Coinglass data.

In traditional trading, open interest refers to the total number of buy orders at the time the market opens. In futures and options trading, open interest represents the total number of contracts that have not been fulfilled at a given time. This includes futures contracts that have not yet been executed, expired, or settled by delivering the underlying assets.

Open interest serves as a metric for assessing the level of market participant involvement in a particular futures contract. Active growth in open interest combined with a rise in asset prices may indicate an active upward trend.

Since the beginning of 2024, there has been a steady increase in open interest in Bitcoin futures contracts, correlating with the rise in the price of the cryptocurrency.

The open interest indicator on the CME exchange has surged to a record $8.3 billion. The influx of interest in traditional futures contracts on the regulated American exchange, according to analysts, may indicate increased interest from institutional market participants in Bitcoin amid record trading volumes of Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs), reaching $7.64 billion, coinciding with Bitcoin reaching a price of $66,000.

In less than two months since its launch, the total inflow of funds into American Bitcoin ETFs has reached $92.4 million.