Crypto analyst Merlijn The Trader has resurfaced one of his most-followed indicators, the Altcoin Cheat Sheet, and says the market is repeating a pattern seen before every major altseason in the last cycle.
According to him, the recent rejection at a key resistance, followed by compression, mirrors the setups from 2019, 2020, and early 2021, all of which preceded explosive altcoin rallies. This time, he believes the configuration is pointing toward a new wave: Altseason 2025.
What the Altcoin Cheat Sheet Shows
Merlijn’s chart compares total altcoin market performance (excluding Bitcoin and stablecoins) over several years. The model identifies a recurring structure: a period of rejection at the same horizontal resistance, followed by a pullback and a compression phase. Historically, this sequence has preceded sharp upside breakouts.
In 2019 and 2020, altcoins stalled at this resistance zone before dipping and consolidating. Once compression resolved, the market surged into what became the full 2021 altseason, delivering some of the largest returns in crypto history. The chart now shows altcoins hitting that same ceiling again in 2025, with the price reacting almost identically to prior cycles.
The current rejection zone is highlighted in red on the chart. Directly beneath it is the green “ignition zone,” which represents the area where previous breakouts began. Merlijn suggests the market is now entering this critical compression period, a stage where price grinds sideways, liquidity tightens, and volatility vanishes before the cycle’s next major expansion.
Why Merlijn Believes Altseason 2025 Is Loading
The reasoning behind Merlijn’s call is straightforward: the market structure is following an almost perfect fractal of previous cycles. Altcoins repeatedly fail to break a long-term ceiling, retreat, compress, and then erupt into a major season once Bitcoin stabilizes. According to the chart, the current setup mirrors that playbook more closely than at any point since 2020.
He emphasizes that the pullback is not a bearish shift but rather a necessary reset before momentum returns. His message, “I hope your bags are packed”, makes it clear that he views the current conditions as accumulation-friendly rather than capitulation-worthy.
How the Chart Frames the Road to 2025
A closer inspection of Merlijn’s chart shows several repeating elements:
- •The rejection zone in every cycle occurs at the same horizontal resistance.
- •The pullback phase always retraces to the mid-range support box.
- •The compression region is followed by a steep vertical move marked in green, the historical altseason phase.
On the far-right side, Merlijn marks a similar green expansion box titled “Altseason 2025”, with an upward arrow reflecting potential trajectory if the fractal continues. The implication is not merely a modest rebound, but a market-wide revaluation of altcoins.
Conclusion
Merlijn’s Altcoin Cheat Sheet is one of the most widely referenced long-term models in the altcoin community, and the latest update signals that history may be repeating yet again. With the market rejecting the same long-term level and now entering a compression zone, his view is that conditions are aligning for Altseason 2025.
Whether the pattern plays out exactly as before remains to be seen, but the structural similarity to prior cycles has caught the eye of traders watching for the moment when altcoins finally reclaim momentum from Bitcoin.