On April 23rd, as Trump announced a reduction in tariffs on China, this news reignited market sentiment.
Investor confidence in risk assets quickly rebounded, with BTC silently rising 7% and returning to $94,000.
Everything seemed to come back overnight.
BTC moved closer to the historical high of $100,000 at the beginning of the year, with Twitter filled with expectations of a new bull market. Secondary market traders were busy chasing gains and cutting losses, and the market seemed to return to the passionate spring of 2021.
However, this emotional return did not belong to everyone.
While the scene was lively, primary investors might have remained silent in the face of bull market signs.
Bull Market Dies in Lockup
The good news of BTC returning to $94,000 made secondary market investors cheer, but for primary market investors, this celebration seemed like a distant dream.
Most of their tokens were in a locked state, unable to be traded freely, and the market performance of the past year had caused them severe losses.
A chart from STIX (@stix_co) revealed this cruel reality.
@stix_co is a platform focusing on cryptocurrency OTC (over-the-counter) trading, providing liquidity support for locked tokens.
The chart compared the valuation changes of multiple tokens in May 2024 and April 2025: May 2024 represents the OTC valuation (the price primary investors could sell during lockup), while April 2025 represents the actual market valuation (current market price).
The results showed that these tokens' valuations dropped by an average of 50% in one year.
Let's look at a few specific examples.
BLAST's OTC valuation last year was $250 million, now reduced to $30 million, a drop of 88%; EIGEN fell from $600 million to $150 million, a 75% decline; SCR was even worse, dropping from $170 million to $25.5 million, a staggering 85% decline.
Almost all tokens saw significant drops, with JTO being the only exception, rising from $100 million to $175 million, a 75% increase.
But this was just an outlier that couldn't mask the overall bleak situation.
Simply put, if these primary investors didn't sell their tokens through OTC trading last year, their average token value was directly halved, with some reduced to just 10-20%.
As background knowledge, OTC trading allows primary investors to sell tokens before unlocking, usually at a discounted price.
Taran mentioned in the post that these tokens were priced at about 80-90% of their valuation during OTC trading last year.
This means if they had sold last year, they might have only lost 10-20%, or possibly nothing. However, some investors chose to hold for a year, waiting for unlocking, only to find token values dropped by an average of 50%, with some falling 70-80%, significantly reducing their wealth.
You might say their investment cost was low, so even with such a drop, they could still profit.
But the issue lies in opportunity cost in economics. For an investor, the theoretical loss of opportunity cost is more painful than earning less (or possibly losing money).
In the theoretically optimal scenario, Bitcoin (BTC) rose 45% in the past 12 months.
If primary investors had sold their tokens last year and converted to BTC, their money might have grown to 1.45 times the original amount.
But now, their token value is only 0.5 times, and might even be further discounted to 0.25 times after unlocking.
In other words, compared to BTC's appreciation, their actual loss is as high as 82.8%; even calculated in dollars, they've lost 75%.
It's like watching others make big money while their own assets shrink.
The "bull market" might have died in lockup for them.
Locked up for a year and losing half the value is most frustrating because:
After researching, comparing, identifying, and investing in projects, and putting in effort, it's not as profitable as simply holding BTC.
In the classic investment book "A Random Walk Down Wall Street," there's a famous "Monkey Throwing Darts Theory."
Author Burton Malkiel suggested that a blindfolded monkey randomly throwing darts to select stock portfolios might not perform worse than professional investors' carefully selected portfolios.
This theory originally mocked the ineffectiveness of over-analysis in stock markets, but today, applied to the cryptocurrency market, it feels particularly ironic.
Primary investors spend significant time and effort researching whitepapers, analyzing project prospects, and even locking up for a year to seek high returns, but the result might be: they might as well randomly throw a dart at Bitcoin.
BTC rose 45% in the past year, while their locked tokens dropped by an average of 50% or more.
The valuation and investment logic of Altcoins may urgently need reshaping.
Spring Won't Come Back
Will the next wave of crypto Altcoins still use this lockup mechanism?
VCs entering at low prices originally designed lockup to protect early-stage projects and prevent early investors from massive selling that could cause price collapse. However, data from the past year shows this mechanism exposes primary investors to enormous risks.
The original chart post mentioned over $40 billion in locked tokens will be unlocked in the future, meaning the market might face greater selling pressure. If new tokens continue to be locked at high valuations, investors might again fall into the vicious cycle of "locked for a year, losing half."
Clearly, this lockup approach no longer suits the current market environment.
Will crypto primary investments remain hot? Will the spring of primary investment return? Based on current circumstances, the answer might not be optimistic.
In recent years, Altcoins' high valuations were often built on market frenzy and liquidity premiums, but as the market matures, investors are beginning to focus more on project actual value and liquidity.
The high risks of locked tokens make primary investors hesitant, and more people might choose more transparent, more liquid projects.
Some emerging trends are already appearing: such as shorter lockup cycles, lower valuation multiples, or even directly issuing MEME to reduce primary investment bubbles;
Of course, it might still be a case of old wine in a new bottle, where under the seemingly fairer appearance of meme coins, the first-level logic still exists, creating market manipulation to make you unaware of its existence.
For the entire crypto market, more transparent mechanisms have become particularly important. The lock-up mechanism also needs to find a better balance point, protecting the project in its early stages while not exposing investors to excessively high risks.
However, the question arises: if the first level doesn't lose, the second level doesn't lose, and retail investors don't lose, then who will lose?
Crypto tokens do not produce value, but rather transfer value; where someone gains, someone must necessarily lose.
The spring of one group of people will inevitably be the winter of another.
