Altcoins just repeated a move that could launch them 27,000% higher

The altcoin market cap has flipped its previous cycle high to support — and the last time that happened, it gained 27,623% in a year.

Altcoins have delivered huge gains this year, but if they repeat their 2017 moves, hodlers may be looking at an insane 27,000% moonshot.

According to popular trader Rekt Capital, those are the potential combined returns for altcoin investors if history repeats itself this year. 

One trader sees "just the beginning" for altcoins' 2021

In a tweet on May 3, Rekt Capital noted that at the start of 2017, the market capitalization of altcoins flipped its previous cycle high to support. That high had come in late 2013, and as a new floor level, it launched the market cap to a peak no less than 27,623% above it.

All it took was a single year, and Rekt Capital suggested that although almost unimaginable, the same thing could happen by the end of 2021. In the past two months alone, the altcoin market cap is up 119% after flipping that same 2017 peak to support.

How much would an altcoin market be worth were it to reach 27,623% of its 2017 height? A princely $152.6 trillion.

"This is just the beginning," he commented.

Bitcoin gets shown up despite own rally

The figures come as the largest altcoin, Ether (ETH), became a talking point in its own right on May 3, having passed $3,000 to go on to see dizzying new all-time highs.

As Cointelegraph reported, Bitcoin (BTC) is comparatively lackluster, managing roughly 11% gains over the past week compared with Ether's 28%.

Many of the other major cap altcoins have also outperformed Bitcoin in terms of weekly gains, with analysts predicting new all-time highs to appear elsewhere. 

Arguing in defence of BTC, however, fellow analyst Scott Melker looked to higher time frames for signs of a predictable uptick incoming.

"There have been quite a few 'bad' weekly candles on the Bitcoin chart in the past year," he noted.