Altseason Alert: Ethereum Perpetual Volume Shatters Bitcoin Records

Ethereum perpetual futures volume just flipped Bitcoin—and the altcoin markets are roaring.

Market Momentum Shifts

ETH perps trading surged past BTC's dominance, hitting unprecedented levels as traders pile into altcoin leverage. The move signals a classic altseason rotation—where capital floods into Ethereum and smaller caps while Bitcoin takes a backseat.

Institutional Flows Follow Retail Frenzy

Volume spikes aren’t just retail-driven. Major trading desks and crypto-native funds are increasing ETH exposure, betting on Ethereum’s ecosystem over Bitcoin’s store-of-value narrative. It’s a risky play—but one that’s paying off… for now.

Regulatory Side-Eye Intensifies

Watchdogs haven’t missed the action. Unsurprising, given that leverage always draws scrutiny—especially when it involves something regulators still barely understand. Nothing says 'healthy markets' like unchecked derivatives volume, right?

Bottom Line: Altseason isn’t coming—it’s here. And Ethereum’s leading the charge. Whether that ends in tears or triumph depends on how long the leverage lasts.

Ethereum Perpetual Futures Volume Dominance Has Hit 67%

According to data from on-chain analytics firm Glassnode, the Ethereum perpetual futures volume has shot up recently. Below is the chart cited by Glassnode, showing the trend in the perpetual futures volume dominance breakdown between Ethereum and Bitcoin.

As displayed in the above graph, Ethereum overtook Bitcoin in perpetual futures volume a while ago, indicating that speculators shifted their attention from BTC to ETH.

The two have only continued to diverge since then, meaning that trader interest in the coin ranked number two by market cap is only going up. Following the latest continuation to the increase, the ETH perpetual futures volume dominance has reached the 67% mark, which is a new all-time high (ATH).

The analytics firm explains,

Over the years, Ethereum has generally been considered a bellweather asset, with periods of its out-performance usually correlated with broader a “altseason” phase in the digital asset market.

As such, this pronounced rotation in trading activity can be a sign of growing focus on the altcoin sector among the investors. Glassnode also notes the trend could point to “an acceleration of risk appetite within this market cycle.”

Ethereum’s dominance has also grown in terms of another perpetual futures market indicator: the Open Interest. This metric measures the total amount of contracts related to a given asset that are open on all centralized derivatives exchanges.

Here is a chart that shows how ETH’s dominance of this metric has changed relative to BTC over the past few years:

As is visible in the above graph, the Ethereum perpetual futures Open Interest dominance has climbed to 43.3% recently. bitcoin remains dominant with the metric sitting at 56.7%, but compared to earlier in the year, the difference is a lot closer.

In terms of the futures sector as a whole, the combined Open Interest across major altcoins (Ethereum, Solana, XRP, and Dogecoin) set a new ATH of $60.2 billion recently.

Though, this high couldn’t last, as the indicator suffered a sharp $2.6 billion drawdown soon after. This drop in the Open Interest of the major altcoins is the tenth largest on record. The report notes,

These rapid fluctuations underscore that altcoins are currently drawing a significant amount of investor attention, and have meaningfully contributed to heightened reflexivity and fragility across digital asset markets.

ETH Price

At the time of writing, Ethereum is floating around $4,200, down almost 7% in the last seven days.