Economist and investor Raoul Pal, founder and CEO of the Real Vision media platform, shared a super-optimistic forecast for crypto. One overlooked indicator of cryptocurrency capitalization might be close to a historical breakout.

Raoul Pal on altcoins: "Big game is yet to be played"

TOTAL3, a metric of cryptocurrency market capitalization excluding Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH), is demonstrating a bullish pattern. The breakout can be massive, so the "big game is yet to be played," investor and analyst Raoul Pal said in a tweet yesterday, on Aug. 22, 2025.

As demonstrated by Pal's chart, an ascending triangle pattern started taking its shape in early 2021 or about five and a half years ago. In technical analysis, the ascending triangle is a bullish pattern that forms when the price breaches the upper horizontal trendline with rising volume.

The pattern has already touched the trendlines six times. Should this pattern play out, the breakout might happen in mid-2026.

Star investor Dan Tapiero, the founder, CEO and CIO of 1RoundTable Partners (1RT) and 10T Holdings (10T) managing over $1.5 billion in digital asset investments, agreed with his colleague:

Oh goodness... Insanely bullish chart. Gonna be one hell of an alt season

As displayed by Pal, the level of $1.06 trillion in equivalent is crucial for TOTAL3 to reach its breakout phase.

Ethereum (ETH) ATH signals start of altseason?

Commenting on the chart by Pal, seasoned trader Michael van der Poppe indicated that the big breakout is around the corner for altcoins.

Yesterday, on Aug. 22, 2025, Ethereum (ETH), the largest altcoin, finally set its new all-time high on CoinGecko at $4,889. Meanwhile, for CoinMarketCap, the 2021 ATH was registered at $4,891.

Normally, the Ethereum (ETH) price revisiting historic highs hints at liquidity flow from Bitcoin (BTC) to altcoins. With BNB and Solana (SOL) gearing up toward new records, the market might either be on the verge of altcoin season or already in the middle of it.

As of press time, Ethereum's (ETH) price slightly retraced to $4,721 on insane trading volume of $73 billion. Ether's price added 11% overnight, while the trading volume more than doubled.