Article source: Talk Li Talk Outside
Recently, many partners seem to have been attracted by the heat of US and Hong Kong stocks, as crypto concept stocks have indeed been rising more aggressively compared to the crypto market's own trend. The topic of crypto's "Americanization" appears to continue to be hyped for some time.
However, since I no longer play US/Hong Kong stocks and only focus on some daily fundamental aspects, I won't elaborate too much on this topic. Interested partners can conduct necessary research based on the following image. As we mentioned in previous articles, the market is always full of opportunities but also full of uncertainties, which is one of the reasons why most individual investors (retail investors) easily lose direction.
In terms of the crypto market, as Bitcoin's recent upward momentum slows down and Altcoins seem to have hit bottom again, coupled with the neighboring stock market's liveliness, many people now seem to be pessimistic about this field, believing that its dividend period has passed.
I remember previously reading that any industry goes through approximately 5 development stages: technology-driven, product-driven, marketing-driven, cost-driven, and innovation-driven stages. If we apply this to the crypto market, we would roughly get the following results:
Technology-Driven Stage (2008–2012): Bitcoin's emergence and blockchain concept, primarily focused on initial innovation and technological inventions.
Product-Driven Stage (2013–2017): Various tokens appeared, with smart contracts represented by ETH. During this period, market competition was mainly concentrated on product functionality, entering a product exploration phase.
Marketing-Driven Stage (2017–2021): The crypto bull market began, with various concepts like ICO, DeFi, Non-Fungible Token starting to be hyped. User scale began expanding, and products started differentiating competitively.
Cost-Driven Stage (Starting from 2022 to now): Major CEX and DEX are competing for users, with various L1 and L2 chains flourishing (actually all trying to lower gas fees). During this period, the crypto market began pursuing economic scale, project parties started competing for user scale, and institutions began studying cost control... everything seemed oriented towards interests.
Innovation-Driven Stage (Currently in budding or partially starting): This period will see crypto industry entering a comprehensive popularization stage (except in some countries/regions), with policies and regulations (mainly from the US) becoming relatively refined, giants beginning to monopolize (with institutions like MicroStrategy and BlackRock entering), and the industry facing new bottlenecks (though the development trend remains slowly upward), requiring innovation or transformation to break through these bottlenecks (such as AI and RWA directions seemingly attempting to break some development bottlenecks in recent years).
Regardless of the market's development stage, opportunities will always exist, just differing in scale and our ability to consistently capture them. As for the future of the crypto market, we don't know, but no matter how others view it now, we will continue to remain in this field and maintain a long-term optimistic view.
While looking forward to the future, let's focus on the present. Comprehensively considering the current situation, the main reasons causing the crypto market's stagnation and unclear short-term trend roughly include:
1) Tense situations in some countries/regions (such as the local war between Iran and Israel)
In previous articles, we speculated that Bitcoin might continue trying to approach or break its historical high in June. However, the Middle East's armed conflict has impacted the market like a black swan. Regarding this, we'll maintain the viewpoint from our article a few days ago (June 15th): If the situation gets out of control, the market might continue to experience significant volatility in the short term.
But considering the previous conflicts between Iran and Israel, and with the current US military threats and intervention, the probability of a comprehensive Middle Eastern war is low. Iran seems more skilled at verbal warfare (lacking actual capability). As long as the US asks Israel to be slightly restrained and both sides provide a way out, it will likely end in "negotiations".
If this new Middle Eastern crisis can be temporarily declared over, Bitcoin might continue to rebound and attempt to break new highs again. Of course, we don't rule out similar black swan events in other countries/regions continuing to affect the market, as geopolitics can indeed be an effective catalyst for deleveraging.
2) Uncertainty in the Federal Reserve's interest rate policy
Based on Powell's latest remarks (on the first day of the congressional hearing on June 25th Beijing time), regarding rate cuts, he hinted in the Q&A session that officials are more likely to wait until the September meeting to see if tariff-driven price increases are lower than expected before resuming rate cuts.
In plain language, this seems to mean: The Federal Reserve is currently observing and doesn't rule out a July rate cut but is more likely to wait until at least September.
Market expectations show that the probability of the Federal Reserve cutting rates in September this year has risen to 68.8%, as shown in the following image.
However, compared to the Federal Reserve's continued wait-and-see attitude, Trump seems very proactive about rate cuts, trying to directly push the Federal Reserve to lower rates. This is understandable from Trump's perspective, as lowering rates can significantly reduce government debt repayment costs and enhance the attractiveness of various risk assets.
Regardless, based on the current situation, we seem to be getting closer to a clear expected outcome regarding rate cuts, which will inevitably become an important market catalyst. We mentioned this in our previous article (April 14th): The Federal Reserve's rate cut will definitely happen; it's just a matter of timing. We also reminded in that article that while rate cuts are positive for the market, one shouldn't directly equate rate cuts with price increases, as the market is always dynamic and volatile.
3) Various new uncertainties brought by Trump regarding issues like tariffs
Regarding the topic of Trump, we seem to have never stopped discussing him since he started running for office, as shown in the image below.
This is not just because he (including his family group) is deeply intervening in the crypto market, promoting Bitcoin's national strategic reserve plan, and even personally issuing coins to harvest users. His every word and action can directly influence global market trends (including stock markets).
Of course, besides the 3 aspects we listed, the reasons affecting market trends are multifaceted (known and unknown), which is the main reason why short-term markets cannot be accurately predicted. Here's the sentence we mentioned in our previous article (June 23rd): All we can do is manage our positions well and find suitable trading opportunities in this complex "game" of geopolitical negotiations + market structure changes + macroeconomic expectations.
Additionally, in the previous article (June 23rd), we also mentioned: For the current crypto market, we should implement two separate plans, meaning investment plans for BTC and Altcoins should no longer be mixed.
Although our investment strategy currently leans towards BTC, based on backend comments, many people still prefer investing in Altcoins, which is understandable. Compared to BTC's theoretically limited appreciation, Altcoins seem to offer more potential upside, which is a matter of balancing returns with personal risk appetite.
Actually, regarding the Altcoin season topic, we have already shared quite a bit in previous articles. To summarize in one sentence: We estimate traditional Altcoin season is unlikely to return, but mini Altcoin seasons will continue to have opportunities.
Although traditional experiences, rules, or indicators may no longer fully apply to mini Altcoin seasons, the market's underlying logic (liquidity rules) remains unchanged. Funds will always seek profit and won't develop a so-called "belief" in BTC or any other cryptocurrency; they will only flow to potentially profitable areas.
In other words, currently most institutional investors are mainly injecting funds into BTC, but everything has a phased nature. When BTC reaches a certain price level that makes it temporarily less investment-worthy, funds may potentially flow back to some Altcoins, such as those that have passed or might pass ETF approval, or crypto-related companies that have or might go IPO.
If you still want to discover potential opportunities in Altcoins, our current recommendation remains unchanged: continue assessing your risk appetite and closely monitor BTC.D indicator and market sentiment changes, which will help you better determine the right entry timing.
For instance, crypto concepts in US/Hong Kong stocks are currently being hyped. Chasing such hot trends now seems to involve higher risks. Instead, consider an alternative perspective: if funds finish speculating in the stock market, might they continue speculating in related crypto market concepts? If you believe so, consider which crypto sectors are related to the currently hyped stablecoin concept.
We've partially outlined this in previous articles, such as the two opportunities mentioned in the March 28th article: first, participating in institutions or projects related to stablecoin issuance. Second, participating in on-chain DeFi, RWA, and similar projects, as shown in the following image.
In summary, rather than passively chasing whatever is trending, it's better to calmly find 1-2 specific fields of interest, maintain continuous focus and in-depth research, and combine tracking indicators you consider necessary (such as candlestick charts), policy trends, or on-chain data like fund flows, which can improve your chances of discovering potential opportunities in advance.
Here's a simple example: during the 22-23 bear market, if you could firmly believe BTC would definitely reach $100,000, you wouldn't have thought BTC at $20,000, $30,000, or $50,000 was expensive. Similarly, if you only chase in when BTC breaks $100,000 due to the hype, without understanding what BTC is and having no clear personal view or expectation about its future, you'll find it difficult to hold.
Another example: if you believe ETH ETF will increase staking in Q3 this year and SOL ETF will be officially approved, you can still accumulate ETH and SOL, including top projects/protocol tokens in their respective ecosystems.
This is also applicable in the stock market. For instance, when we discussed CRCL stock a few days ago (June 15th) at $133, its price soon rose to nearly $300, then pulled back to $198 in recent days. If you chase CRCL at $300 because crypto concept stocks are trending, without a clear view or expectation about Circle's future, you'll find it hard to hold, potentially even causing account losses. However, if you firmly believe Circle will rise to $1000 in the future, you can buy and hold anytime.
Of course, expectations aside, there's still a risk consideration issue, which is the position management we've mentioned multiple times. Since everyone's situation differs, taking BTC as an example: although BTC is now at $100,000 and we believe it might rise to $300,000 in the next 5 years, we won't directly All In, but continue to execute our existing hodling strategy in phases.
Investment thinking essentially has 3 types: ordinary logic, expert logic, and super expert logic. Simply put, ordinary logic means being greedy when others are greedy (typically FOMO chasing high trends), expert logic means being fearful when others are greedy (selling at highs to realize profits), and super expert logic means being even greedier when others are greedy (requiring extremely strong channels, capabilities, or techniques). However, for most ordinary investors, if you can understand and follow expert logic, you'll basically be ahead of over 90% of retail investors.
