Altcoin Super Metric

How it is built

1. Line up monthly closes from January 2016. Breadth and the median alt are the Breadth and Performance charts' readings (each month's Top N as ranked that day), taken at each month's last day. Macro closes are carried forward up to 2 months, because they land after the month closes.
2. Level. Each component's percentile rank, 0–100, among its own monthly values: 80 means higher than 80% of its history.
3. Momentum. Each component's change over the lookback (3 months by default), percentile-ranked the same way. A ratio's change is its log change; breadth's and PMI's are points; the median alt's is log((100 + now) / (100 + then)), so −50% → 0% counts as a doubling.
4. Weighted means. Level score = Σ wᵢ·Levelᵢ / Σ wᵢ, over the components that have a value that month; Momentum score likewise.
5. Super Metric = blend × Level + (1 − blend) × Momentum, 50/50 by default.

“Whole history” ranks every month against every other, which is what you want for comparing cycles, but it uses hindsight. “Point in time” ranks each month only against itself and the months before it, so the line shows what the metric would have said then. That mode needs 12 months of history first.

Default weights

The crypto core is 60% of the weight: breadth 25, the median alt 20 and alt dominance 15. These measure the thing itself, alts against Bitcoin. Breadth leads because it is the earliest of the three: it turns when the typical alt turns, before the big caps move dominance. OTHERS.D against SPX, NDQ and gold (15%) asks whether crypto risk is beating risk elsewhere. PMI and copper/gold (20%) describe the growth cycle that broad alt runs have needed. ETH/BTC (5%) is the large-cap bellwether: it is weighted lightly because it overlaps alt dominance.

Heat zones

• Hot — the score is at least 65 and at least two of the three crypto core checks are met.
• Warming — the score is at least 50 with momentum at least 55; or the score is Hot but the core doesn't confirm it; or four of the six checks are met with the score at 45 or more.
• Neutral — anything else.
• Cold — the score is under 35 (and the month isn't Warming).

The six checks, each over the momentum lookback:

• Breadth expanding · core
• Median alt turning up · core
• Alt dominance rising · core
• OTHERS.D gaining on SPX+NDQ+GOLD
• PMI above 50 and rising
• Copper/Gold rising

“Breadth expanding” and “Median alt turning up” read the short window. A macro close carried forward counts for Level, but not as a move: its checks and momentum are left blank until the next close lands. The ▼ markers are alt rotation peaks: months where OTHERS.D/BTC.D closed at its highest within six months either side. They come from the data, not a hand-picked list.

Why one number

BTC dominance alone is cap-weighted: ETH and the stablecoins move it, and it says nothing about the typical alt. Breadth alone can't tell a broad rally from a small one, and the median alt alone can't tell a few big winners from many. Each macro ratio is a slow, noisy confirmation on its own. Ranking every series against its own history puts them on one scale, and blending level with momentum lets the metric rise as conditions improve instead of waiting for them to be extreme. The checks keep a macro rally without crypto breadth from reading as Hot.