Today, the industry has undergone several visible changes:
(1) The number of people who arbitrage and profiteer has greatly increased
In the past, everyone could only hold their own coins and speculate in the secondary market, but now about 1/5 of the users have switched to arbitrage and profiteer in the semi-primary market. This group of people has a characteristic that they are relatively averse to buying coins in the secondary market. They can profiteer, fight (inscriptions), donate (memes), and pledge, but they just don’t buy. If this proportion increases accordingly, it means that there will be fewer people buying coins in the secondary market, and more people who want to unload at a low cost
(2) Hot spots are scattered
Restake, inscriptions, NFT, Solana ecology, modularization, and second-layer network. There is no hot spot in this bull market that everyone participates in, which is very different from the past. Funds and users have no joint efforts at all. Everyone plays their own games, and it is scattered and disorderly. The reasons for this are, firstly, the development of the industry. The industry has become so large and wide that it is basically impossible for one person to play all the games in the industry. Secondly, the industry lacks truly innovative products that can arouse imagination again. It is more of an improved bull market (micro-innovation based on previous innovations).
(3) The market value of too many projects has been overdrawn in advance
Now everyone has their own judgment on which projects are good and which projects are bragging. It is difficult to buy good and cheap things. For example, Ethereum's two second-layer networks, OP and ARB, are at their peak as soon as they debuted. The current price is basically the same as when they were first launched 1-2 years ago, and even ARB is lower than the price when it was launched. Good things are not cheap, and good things and making money have become two different things.
(4) Funds have not flowed into the cryptocurrency circle
Institutions in the past investment industry are all knowledgeable people. In addition to understanding BTC, they also understand Ethereum. In addition to understanding Ethereum, they will also actively invest in various innovative coins. But this time is different. After the ETF, the funds invested in BTC are not directly circulating on the chain, but staying in other markets thousands of miles away. These funds are only circulating on BTC, and have little interest in new coins or investments outside of BTC. Let me put it this way: the institutions that entered in the last two rounds all understand the industry and bring money to invest in the industry, while many of the new institutions in this round are only interested in BTC (as a hedge configuration).Therefore, whether Ethereum can successfully pass the ETF this year is actually very important, which determines whether it can have a large amount of new funds to invest in it. If there is no ETF, it is really not that easy to rely on the existing institutions in the market to violently push the market value and unit price of Ethereum.
(5) Extremely intensified competition
The intensified competition is manifested in two aspects: one is that there are a lot of new competitors, and the other is that the strength of new competitors is very strong. In 2023, when the on-chain derivatives and restake just showed signs, a large number of competitors swarmed in. This year, many situations that go against past experience have occurred: the track is getting bigger, but the share of early players with advantages is shrinking. This situation can be said to occur in every track at the same time, not just derivatives. The result of this change is: buying the boss and holding the boss, it is not necessarily that the price will rise smoothly and significantly, because the market share and imagination have not risen accordingly. It is even possible that under the pressure of some new competitors, the status has become shaky.
This change in the industry is one cycle faster than I expected. I originally thought that it would not really come until this cycle is over, but I didn’t expect that we are already at this moment.
Look up at the stars, but also keep your feet on the ground; have dreams, but also respect reality.
In such a new development cycle (transition from the bonus period to the stable development period), we need to test our wisdom. If we handle it well and adjust it well, we can continue to grow the wealth in the bonus period smoothly (but it will become slower); if we don't handle it well, or still use the old logic to deal with future investment and speculation, we may gradually give up profits and have a wealth daydream that has lasted for many years.
