Chart of the Day: Ansem’s thesis — alt season while Bitcoin “chops itself to death”

Crypto trader Ansem (@blknoiz06) posted two charts on Monday, about eight hours apart, and they don’t quite agree with each other. The gap between them is a good read on where the market actually sits this week.

The first, shared just before 2am ET, is straightforwardly bearish. On an hourly Bitcoin chart, Ansem marks his line at around $73,000 — the level that lines up with 2025’s lows and what he calls the “key pivot.” If Bitcoin can’t get back above it, he sees the April low near $65,700 and the March low at $65,000 as the next stops, with “65k & then 60k” as the path lower.

That part is routine technical analysis. What makes it worth writing about is the line below it: in nine years of trading, he says, he’s never seen Bitcoin this weak while other coins are making new highs. That observation is really the whole story.

Ansem’s chart shows BTC near $71K, with $73K resistance and downside targets at $65K and $60K, Source: X

What’s actually happening

The weakness is real. Bitcoin was trading around $71,500 when he posted, down roughly 10% from its May high near $80,000, and it had broken through the support levels he’d drawn on the chart. The reason is money flow rather than anything fundamental. US spot Bitcoin ETFs ended May with about $2.3 billion in net outflows — the worst month of 2026 and the heaviest since November — at the end of the longest stretch of withdrawals on record. Laser Digital’s trading desk said the market sold off last week without a clear catalyst, which is another way of saying buyers simply stepped back.

Most of that money went into stocks, not other coins. Tech and chip names kept hitting record highs through May, and big index funds like Vanguard’s VOO and State Street’s SPYM took in more than $21 billion as the AI trade pulled in the risk money. Higher oil prices, tied to the Iran situation, didn’t help either.

But — and this is Ansem’s point — a few coins are doing the opposite. Hyperliquid’s HYPE token has been hitting record highs against Solana, Stellar is up more than 30% on the week, and the privacy coins led by Zcash have run for months while the majors went sideways. That’s real strength showing up underneath a weak Bitcoin tape, and it’s the split that’s pushing him toward a new framework.

The reframe

By mid-morning he had one. The second post — daily candles, a box drawn between roughly $60,800 and $80,000, and “ALT SZN” written in the corner — has a different feel. The thesis: an alt season can run while Bitcoin “chops itself to death,” with peak hype four to six weeks out, before the majors break down and the whole market makes new lows.

Ansem’ expects alt season while Bitcoin shops, Source: X

It’s a way of holding two opposite ideas at once. The bearish $65k–$60k target from the first chart doesn’t disappear; it just gets pushed back and given company. The next month or so is a rotation into a handful of coins with live stories — the kind of rally that happens because Bitcoin is stuck — followed by the usual cleanout when leverage unwinds.

It also fits the wider data better than a plain “alt season” headline would. By the standard measure, this is still Bitcoin’s market: dominance is near 60%, the highest of 2026, and the Altcoin Season Index is sitting in the 30s, well below the 75 reading that signals a broad rotation. So the alt season Ansem means isn’t the 2021 version where everything pumps. It’s narrow — privacy coins, perps platforms, the occasional new listing — and it’s running on leftover money rather than a flood of it.

A consistent through-line

For anyone following his calls, this isn’t really a U-turn. His 2026 thesis was already “two arrows — one down, one up”: Ethereum heading down, Zcash heading up. He’s since pushed back on people calling the top on Zcash, arguing it can’t be compared to coins that spike 10x on launch. Monday’s posts just take that same pick-your-spots approach and apply it to the whole market: bearish the broad move, long the right individual bets, and comfortable with both being true for a while.

The hard part is the trade itself. Being long select alts while bearish the majors is tough to hold through a real sell-off, because the usual pattern is brutal — when Bitcoin drops hard, money runs back to it and the smaller coins get hit worst. A clean move to $60,000 rarely leaves an alt rally standing. Ansem’s “four to six weeks” is really a bet on getting out before that happens.

What to watch

The number to watch is still $73,000. Get back above it and hold, and the bearish setup eases. Keep getting rejected there, and the path toward the May lows and $65k stays open. Underneath Bitcoin, the question is whether HYPE, Zcash and Stellar can keep making highs into June, or whether the split closes the dull way — the alts catching down to Bitcoin instead of Bitcoin catching up to them. Ansem is betting on one more push higher first. The ETF numbers suggest the steady buyer hasn’t come back yet to say otherwise. Do crypto traders really think they will get an alt season while Bitcoin struggles? We’re about to find out.