đźš« Altseason seems cancelled (for now)

PLUS: Leverage wipeout ends the party, UK takes on $7B BTC fraud, Binance’s Giggle token chaos, and Vitalik dreams of boring-but-rich Ethereum.

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Cryptopolitan News
September 22, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 10 minutes

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Alt season, the much-hyped event that would ultimately lead to new all-time highs across a variety of altcoins, didn’t even get a chance to take its first breath.

Unprecedented BTC move to $114K over the weekend triggered a cascade of forced liquidations. There was $441M in positions liquidated in the last 24 hours and nearly $1B flushed in just one hour.

But, the catch: it wasn’t BTC that suffered the biggest damage: it was altcoins.

ETH longs are bleeding $465M when the token slipped below $4,140. Some smaller-cap darlings like ASTER, WLFI and PUMP all got whacked. BNB also pulled back after rising above $1,077. Taken together, non-BTC assets shed over $260M from longs.

The Altseason that wasn’t

The altcoin season index dipped from a peak of 100 points to 67 points, ending the official altcoin season. | Source: Altcoin aSeason Index.

Just days prior, the Altcoin Season Index was strucking a perfect 100: a textbook sign that altseason had begun. But the party was over before it even began. The index was fallen back to 67, BTC dominance has raised to 56.2% and ETH dominance dropped down to 12.8%.

Why it matters

Rather than initiating an actual rotation, the wipeout revealed how fragile altcoin rallies could be, and how “Altseason“ hype can turn into leveraged realities. There was optimism, but it became brittle with leverage. With ETH open interest down from $30B to $27B, this could further spiral down.

Quick Explainer: What are liquidations?

  • In crypto derivatives, traders use leverage (borrowed funds) to amplify bets.

  • Long liquidation: happens when the price drops and long positions (betting on the asset going up) are forced to close.

  • Short liquidation: happens when the price rises and short bets (betting on a drop) are closed at a loss.

  • When markets move fast, liquidations can cascade: one trigger knocks out others, amplifying the crash (or rally).

👉 Takeaway: Altseason wasn’t slain: it never existed. And the next run, whenever it comes, will require sturdier fuel than over-leveraged longs.

⚖️ Regulation Watch

A blockbuster crypto trial is set to start in London on Sept. 29. Prosecutors claim that one Chinese national, Zhimin Qian orchestrated a vast investment scheme in China, transferred the proceeds to Bitcoin and then moved them to and around the UK right now worth some $7B since.

The UK is not charging her with the actual fraud in China. Instead, the authorities are targeting the possession and invovement of criminal property under UK law.

Why this case matters

  • Exercise in jurisdiction: The fraud is alleged to have occurred in China, the evidence is abroad and the coins are stored in the UK. The case will be a major test of British courts’ approach to cross-border crypto crime.

  • Roadmap for future cases: If the Crown Prosecution Service wins when it doesn’t itself prove that a foreign fraud occurred, look for more to follow this “proceeds of crime” route.

  • The $7 Billion question: Beyond the criminal case, a fight in civil court is playing out over who gets repaid, and how much. This could end up at the UK Supreme Court due to its scale and complexity, lawyers say.

 đź¤Ż This blew our mind: Giggles for Millions

Binance’s Giggle Academy, an educational initiative, was recently besieged with donations from an informal meme token by the same name: GIGGLE. Within hours of launch, the coin funneled almost $1M to the Academy’s wallet, which lifted up its market cap above $26M.

Here’s the catch: Binance never actually did a token. CZ went so far as to predict that even the Academy won’t take GIGGLE, only BNB, USDC and USDT. But the meme coin rode the hype to turn speculation into a rally.

Quick Explainer: What is Giggle Academy?

  • Launched by Binance: Giggle Academy is a non-profit project of Binance to provide free, gamified crypto and financial education..

  • How it works: Kind of like Duolingo for financial literacy. Children advance through interactive modules on saving, blockchain basics and entrepreneurship.

  • Goal: Binance said the mission of the Academy is to provide accessible financial education to more than 1.4 billion people who currently do not have it today.

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🎭 Culture Corner

Vitalik Buterin believes that Ethereum can provide its own version of Google Search: a boring, but a reliable cash cow. In a recent blog post, he said that low risk Defi protocols could bring sustainable cash flow to Ethereum; benefit the network with long-term stability, while adhering to Ethereum’s cultural values.

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