Altcoin Search Volume Skyrockets to 2021 Peak Levels—Is This the Next Crypto Surge?

Retail investors are FOMO-ing back into altcoins—search traffic just hit a four-year high.

What’s fueling the frenzy?

Bitcoin’s sideways grind has traders chasing alpha elsewhere. Memecoins, layer-2 tokens, and AI-linked projects dominate queries. Meanwhile, institutional players keep pretending they ‘only care about real-world use cases’ while quietly front-running retail.

History lesson: The last time searches spiked like this, DOGE and SHIB went parabolic. Now? A fresh batch of degens is googling ‘how to bridge to Base’ and ‘best altcoin under $1’.

Cynical take: Wall Street still won’t touch this ‘speculative garbage’—until their quant funds finish accumulating positions, of course.

In brief

• Google searches for the term “altcoin” have reached their highest level since 2021, signaling renewed public interest.
• An unprecedented wave of 31 altcoin ETF applications was filed in the United States during the first half of 2025, marking an institutional shift.
• Several companies, including Metaplanet, Upexi, and DeFi Development Corp., are diversifying their treasuries with altcoins such as ETH, SOL, and LINK.
• This dual institutional and corporate movement places altcoins at the heart of post-Bitcoin crypto strategies.

The altcoin ETF offensive: an institutional turning point

The rise of altcoins on the financial scene has materialized by the flight of capital from bitcoin to ethereum and by a wave of filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

In the first half of this year, no fewer than 31 ETF applications focused on altcoins were submitted in the United States.

Among the most notable initiatives, Canary Capital proposed in March a spot ETF backed by SUI, a first in this segment. Shortly after, Cboe BZX requested authorization to list this fund, while Nasdaq filed the necessary documents for 21Shares’ version, thus triggering the official review process.

ETF analysts see this MOVE as a major milestone for the institutional adoption of altcoins. Here are the main facts to remember :

• 31 altcoin ETF applications recorded in the United States in the first six months of the year ;

• Canary Capital intends to launch a spot ETF on the SUI token, with an application supported by Cboe BZX ;

• Nasdaq has also initiated an official procedure for 21Shares, on a similar product ;

• Other projects like Dogecoin (DOGE), Cardano (ADA), Polkadot (DOT), Hedera (HBAR) or Avalanche (AVAX) have probabilities of approval up to 90 % ;

• According to Eric Balchunas and James Seyffart (Bloomberg Intelligence), the chances of approval for ETFs on Solana (SOL), XRP, and Litecoin (LTC) are estimated at 95 %.

This regulatory supply surge suggests that altcoins are no longer seen as mere niche assets, but as viable financial products, likely to be included in institutional investors’ portfolios within a legal and structured framework.

Crypto treasuries: the discreet rise of altcoins as reserve assets

Beyond the financial markets, it is in company balance sheets’ backstage that altcoins now establish themselves as strategic assets. Several companies have evolved their treasury to include alternative assets, particularly Ethereum, solana and Chainlink.

Metaplanet, BitMine and SharpLink Gaming now collectively hold several billion dollars in ETH, part of these amounts being staked to generate passive yield.

The enthusiasm goes beyond Ethereum. Thus, DeFi Development Corp holds nearly one million SOL, valued at around 200 million dollars, while Upexi doubled its position in July, reaching 2 million SOL, mostly staked as well.

This diversification towards high-yield assets reflects an evolution in treasury management logics in the crypto universe. Staking now appears no longer as a simple technical mechanism, but as a true financial profitability lever.

Other initiatives, like chainlink Reserve, launched on August 7, go even further. The program transforms payments and usage fees into LINK tokens, which are then injected into the ecosystem to ensure its long-term sustainability. An innovative approach that illustrates the willingness of some entities to consolidate the economic foundations of their network.

The expansion of treasuries to stable or high-potential altcoins like Ethereum could signal a structural turning point in the use of these cryptos. Far from being limited to speculative trading instruments, they become tools for strategic allocation, bearing yield, technological sovereignty, and sometimes even governance. Ultimately, this dynamic could strengthen their legitimacy, including with regulators, and encourage increased adoption in sectors still reluctant today.

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