September 11, 2026 · leading conditions, scored · data: CoinGecko + DeFiLlama, FRED
Setup score22/100NO SETUP
no setuptransitionsetup buildingstrong
No alt-rotation setup is assembling. This measures whether rotation conditions are building, not who's winning today — so it makes no claim about the current tape. 5 of 6 components live (weights renormalize over what's available). This is a conditions meter, not a probability — there have only been ~2 broad alt seasons, so no honest odds exist.
Leading conditions — what the score is made of
Breadth capitulation (contrarian)80% of top 50 beating BTCRED · 0/15
Flipped to contrarian after a leakage-free walk-forward: LOW breadth (most alts losing to BTC = capitulation) preceded HIGHER forward alt outperformance, while high recent breadth marked late, mean-reverting rallies. Full credit near 30% breadth, zero at 55%+.
ETH/BTC reversal (contrarian)0.0319, -2% from its 6-month highRED · 1/28
The strongest factor in validation (IC +0.20), flipped from momentum to mean-reversion: ETH/BTC deep below its 6-month high (washed out) preceded the best forward alt outperformance, while ETH/BTC near its high was late and faded. The clean inverse of the old momentum leg, which was robustly negative. Full credit ~35% below the high.
Stablecoin dry powder$311bn, +1.5% in 30 daysRED · 6/20
The best-evidenced leading input (stablecoin supply Granger-causes BTC, not vice versa) — kept as a meaningful lead alongside the reversal factors. Full credit at +5%/30d growth, but only in a non-falling market.
BTC dominance (ex-stablecoins)warming up — 2 of 14 daily readings loggedYELLOW · —/8
Headline BTC.D is distorted by stablecoin mints, so this trends BTC / (total minus stablecoins) from the daily run log. Activates after two weeks of readings.
Liquidity tailwind5,857bn, +61bn over 4 weeksGREEN · 12/17
Liquidity leads BTC by ~1-2 months and BTC leads rotation — the upstream driver, and the one component with a (weak) genuine forward lead in the walk-forward, so it was weighted up when the momentum legs were demoted. Still imperfect: the correlation broke for a year in 2025-26.
BTC condition-39.1% from ATH, +20.8% in 30 days — still ripping — capital concentrating in BTCRED · 0/12
Every broad rotation started with BTC strong and pausing near highs. Full credit within ~10% of ATH on a flat-to-mild 30-day tape; deep below the highs scores near zero.
Guards — can cap the score at 55, never raise it
Crypto-winter guardBTC -6% from its 6-month highclear
Contrarian 'buy washed-out alts' is a bet on mean reversion, not a structural decline. When BTC itself is more than 25% below its 6-month high, that bet is unreliable — so the score is capped at 35 (no alt-setup call mid-winter).
Euphoria guard (funding)45th percentile crowdingclear
Extreme positive funding marks crowded longs. An aligned setup with euphoric leverage is shakeout risk, so this caps the score at 55.
Narrowness guardmedian top-50 coin +14.9% vs BTC (30d)clear
Built from the September 2025 false positive: the index spiked to 78 while the median alt kept losing to BTC, then collapsed to 14. Breadth without a positive median coin = narrow participation; score capped at 55.
Track record — every fire, scored
Logging daily. A fire = score 65+ for three consecutive days. Honest caveat on the target: "the 30-day index reaches 75 within 90 days" is a NOISY bar — a jumpy index touches 75 in some fraction of all windows unconditionally, so that hit-rate partly scores luck (it will be shown next to that unconditional base rate, not alone). The bar that can't be gamed by one week of index noise is economic: did an equal-weight top-50-ex-BTC basket beat BTC over the following 90 days? Both resolutions accrue here as fires mature.
Read this before acting
The score is graded, not a trigger, because rotation conditions assemble gradually and on/off signals turn every fizzle into a "miss." Read it like the recession score: direction and band, with persistence (65+ for several days) meaning more than any single print.
And the regime may have changed. The 2024-26 cycle broke the playbook: BTC made new all-time highs with no broad rotation, the index's September 2025 spike to 78 collapsed to 14 by December, ETFs keep a structural bid under BTC dominance, and millions of new tokens fragment the capital that used to rotate into the top 50. Expect future "alt seasons" to be narrower and sector-shaped — a high score says conditions align, not that 2021 is coming back.