CoinMarketCap’s Quarterly Altcoin Index rose to 64 from 48 last week, indicating a shift in investor interest toward altcoin projects with income potential and real use cases while remaining below the 75-point level used to define an altcoin quarter. The gauge compares Bitcoin’s 90-day performance with that of the top 100 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, excluding stablecoins and wrapped coins. Over the past 30 days, PONS gained more than 350%, UNI more than 110%, ARB more than 150% and NEAR approximately 180%; ZEC briefly topped $1,600 last week. Talos data shows the top 10 altcoins now account for about 80% of total altcoin market capitalization, up from roughly 70% at the end of 2024. Market participants cited income-generating tokens, yield-generating protocols, on-chain perpetual futures platforms and DeFi projects as key areas of interest, alongside privacy, artificial intelligence, tokenized assets and meme tokens. The market is increasingly being approached through selective bets on specific themes and ecosystems rather than as one broad altcoin category.