Crypto market is showing signs of a bear market that is in its last stages as 2019 starts on a green note. While Bitcoin is up over 43 percent, top cryptocurrencies are enjoying even higher gains.

With more than 250 percent gains, Binance Coin and BAT are leading the pack while top cryptos like Litecoin, EOS, Tezos, and Ontology are up more than 100 percent. Bitcoin Cash, Cardano, Monero, Dash, and VeChain, have risen more than 50 percent during this time.

However, among the top coins, XRP and IOTA are down 7 and 10 percent respectively while Bitcoin SV is down by 34 percent, the only top coins in the red.

But some coins surge even more than these leading cryptocurrencies. PChain has skyrocketed by seeing a rise of 700 percent YTD while Ravencoin and Enjin Coin has been up more than 400 percent.

Pre-Condition For Altcoin Season

Given the gains the wide altcoin market has already started to see that are surpassing that of Bitcoin’s percentage gains by a good margin, altcoin season seems to be upon us just like Thomas Lee, the co-founder of Fundstrat Global believes to be sharing, the altcoin season could be very well underway.

In his analysis, he shares the pre condition for the start of alt season that is a drop in the correlation between Bitcoin and altcoins that has been reflected in the market since 2015.

Already, the market can see a drop in this correlation that started recently in late March where the scale is inverted when the leading cryptocurrency has been either playing neutral or comparatively riding a small percentage of gain.

Past Alt-Seasons Averaged 1,100% Gains

The “alt-season could be underway” but how much gains the altcoins will be registering after all. On the basis of past alt season, the average gains have been 1,100 percent.

During this altcoin bull cycle, in the year of 2015, a 58 percent return had been seen in the mid of the year while 80 percent surge was registered in early 2016. A significant increment of over 3,600 percent in the altcoin prices was seen in the second quarter of 2017 and then again during the bitcoin bull cycle, altcoins went up by 641 percent.

So, will we see the next alt-season be as strong as the past ones? According to Lee, the altcoin bull cycle will deliver returns similar to the massive gains of early and late 2017 cycle.

“Given there are probably only ~50mm active wallets (vs 5 billion Visa/MasterCard accts), we think crypto still early in the adoption curve. So it should be similar.”

Still early in its adoption phase is the reason why Lee thinks we will make a significant percentage of gains this time as well which we can already see happening in the market.