Altcoin market capitalization excluding Bitcoin and Ethereum, measured by CryptoQuant’s Total3 metric, reclaimed $800 billion after more than eight months below that level as Bitcoin rose 5% to $81,914 on Sept. 19 and total cryptocurrency market capitalization topped $2.8 trillion. Market breadth improved, with 70% of Binance-traded altcoins above their 200-day averages on Sept. 20, while Hyperliquid reached $94.48 and Zcash rose 36% to $1,590. However, Blockchaincenter’s Altcoin Season Index fell to 41 from about 67 in August, and Bitcoin dominance rose 0.5% in three days to 59.34%, indicating that the recovery has not yet produced broad, sustained outperformance against Bitcoin. Analysts identified an ETH/BTC breakout from a five-year downtrend as a possible early signal, while cautioning that any altseason could favor higher-quality tokens and that the improving structure could reverse quickly.