Altcoin season does not announce itself. It starts when nobody is looking.
Right now the Fear & Greed index is sitting at Extreme Fear. BTC recovered from 59K to 64K and half the market is still in panic mode. Most traders are frozen, waiting for FOMC on June 18 to tell them what to think.
Meanwhile, the builders have not stopped.
$ETH Pectra is live, staking yields compounding quietly. $SOL just proposed Alpenglow — the most aggressive consensus upgrade in L1 history. $AVAX subnet infrastructure is absorbing institutional RWA flow while price bleeds.
Here is what the fear cycle gets backwards: the discount window opens when sentiment is worst, not when headlines turn green. Every major altcoin rotation in this cycle started after a capitulation flush, while the Fear index was screaming sell.
FOMC passes June 18. Clarity Act deadline is July 4. Those are not abstract catalysts — they are a countdown that compresses the current discount window by 20 days.
The infrastructure is ahead of price. That gap closes on a timeline, not a feeling.