Hyblock Capital CEO: Most Possible Between $5 XRP and $1 DOGE

Crypto traders have long held out for altcoin season, but Shubh Varma, CEO and co-founder of Hyblock Capital, believes it’s not coming.

In a recent CoinDesk interview with market analyst Ray Salmond, Varma agreed the altcoin season that could send XRP to $5 and DOGE to $1 won’t happen.

He laid out why the structure of the crypto market has changed in ways that make the classic altcoin rally the market is familiar with increasingly unlikely.

$1 DOGE? $5 XRP? Don’t count on it.@hyblockcapital CEO Shubh Varma says alt season isn’t coming back: “There’s so much other demand.” pic.twitter.com/lagL0esmf0

— CoinDesk (@CoinDesk) November 6, 2026

What Hyblock’s Data Shows

Varma’s position is rooted in data, not sentiment. He explained that altcoin season is typically defined by a large share of altcoins outperforming Bitcoin over a sustained period. “If you track 100 altcoins, usually if 75% of them are outperforming Bitcoin, you can call that as an altcoin season,” he said.

By that definition, altcoin season has been absent for the past year and a half to two years, even during Bitcoin’s recent price increases. That absence is not a temporary lull in Varma’s view. He sees it as a structural shift.

Where the Capital is Going

The core of Varma’s argument is that capital now has more destinations than it once did. In earlier cycles, money flowing into crypto had a limited number of places to go. When markets rose, funds rotated into a small pool of altcoins simply because few other options existed on crypto platforms.

That is no longer the case. “On these crypto exchanges, you can buy RWAs and you can buy AI equity perks,” Varma said. Real-world assets and AI-linked instruments now compete directly with altcoins for investor capital. The old dynamic, where gains in Bitcoin would eventually rotate into smaller coins, no longer operates the same way.

A Structural Shift

Varma stopped short of saying altcoins will collapse, but he was clear about what he does not expect. “I personally don’t see it happening because there’s so much other demand,” he said, referring to the $5 XRP and $1 DOGE price targets Ray Salmond raised in the interview.

The argument is not that altcoins are weak or that sentiment is poor. It is that the pool of available investment products has expanded, and capital that once had no choice but to cycle through established altcoins now has viable alternatives within the same platforms.

What This Means for Investors

Varma’s analysis signals that investors still operating on a cycle-based playbook from 2020 or 2021 may be working with an outdated model.

The market has changed structurally, and the assumption that Bitcoin dominance eventually gives way to a broad altcoin rally no longer holds the same weight it once did.