Overall, the era of "everyone can make money" has become a thing of the past.
Author: RVM
Translated by: Deep Tide TechFlow
In the virtual world of "RuneScape," the Wilderness was once an area filled with danger and opportunity, and one of the most notorious strategies was known as "luring." This strategy exploited players' trust and greed, luring unsuspecting players deep into the Wilderness— a high-risk player versus player (PVP) area—through false promises of safety or generous rewards.
Specifically, lurers would disguise themselves as friendly allies, offering seemingly generous help or rewards, carefully crafting scenarios to lower the victim's guard. Once the victim entered the Wilderness, this disguise would be stripped away, and the lurer would reveal their true nature, ambushing and robbing the victim of their items, ultimately leaving them with nothing.
This strategy fully utilized psychological manipulation and the weaknesses of human nature, serving as a typical example of how social dynamics in early virtual environments were "weaponized." It reminds us that so-called promises of safety or guaranteed profits often hide unequal traps, ultimately benefiting the initiators while leaving participants to bear the losses.
Market Situation
Deep in the Wilderness I @Darkfarms1
Decentralized Liquidity and Fleeting Narratives
Oversupply of Projects and Blockchains
As the crypto market expands, an increasing number of blockchains, protocols, and tokens have emerged, leading to a dispersion of traders' attention. New projects are constantly appearing, each trying to attract capital through "hot" narratives.
Rapid Liquidity Rotation
Market funds shift from one "hotspot" to another at an extremely fast pace. Once a narrative loses its appeal, investors quickly turn to other opportunities. This phenomenon leads to short-term price surges followed by rapid declines, with many traders unable to profit before being trapped.
Key Conclusion: The excessive competition among projects and limited funds make it difficult for any single narrative to maintain a long-term upward trend.
Overlapping Interests and Divided Market Sentiment
Interest-Driven Opinions (KOLs)
KOLs often promote projects based on their own interests. Discussions on social media are largely dominated by those trying to pump their own holdings, further exacerbating the division of market narratives.
Contradictory Market Signals
Market sentiment is in a divided state: while some macro indicators show a positive trend, retail investors are generally losing money and feeling extremely negative. This contradictory situation intensifies market volatility.
Key Conclusion: Due to the inconsistency driven by interests, the market has become more fragmented, and even voices that were once trusted can shift from bullish to bearish at any time due to self-interest, and vice versa.
The Illusion of Bitcoin Dominance and Altcoin Seasons
Early Positioning in Bitcoin
In this round of the crypto market cycle, those who accurately seized the opportunity for Bitcoin's rise reaped substantial rewards. However, many retail investors expecting an altcoin season were caught off guard and did not get what they hoped for.
Retail Investors' Pursuit of High Returns
Due to Bitcoin's large market cap and limited potential for growth, retail investors often choose to avoid Bitcoin, trying to find "the next big thing." However, many invested in small altcoins only to find that the anticipated altcoin season never truly arrived.
Key Conclusion: Bitcoin's rise primarily benefits experienced traders, while retail investors attempting to achieve high profits through altcoins feel disappointed due to the absence of an altcoin season.
The Meme Wars of Solana and Ethereum: The Dilemma of Liquidity Dilution
**The Frenzy of Memes: **Pump.fun's Rise
Platforms like Pump.fun have spawned a plethora of memes, attracting the attention of retail investors. The popularity of these tokens relies more on hype and viral social media than on any actual value support.
The Nature of Memes: Speculation or Scam?
The price increases of memes typically depend on sustained market attention and continuous liquidity injection. Many investors are aware that this is a game of who can buy in faster, creating temporary price bubbles.
Ethereum: Once the Meme King
During the 2021 bull market, Ethereum became the main battleground for memes due to the NFT craze; by early 2024, memes like $PEPE and $MOG also performed relatively well compared to Bitcoin, bringing substantial returns to early participants. However, as the market began to consolidate before the Trump election, most upward momentum was exhausted. By mid-2024, opportunities for "easy profits" in the market had dwindled, and today's meme traders face the following challenges:
Entry of Professional Players—The current meme market, valued at tens of billions of dollars, is dominated by experienced traders and algorithmic market makers, significantly reducing the profit space for ordinary investors.
Pressure of Overvaluation—Memes generally have high market valuations, making the possibility of significant future price increases very slim.
Key Conclusion: Whether in the Solana or Ethereum ecosystem, there is an abundance of micro-cap tokens competing for limited funds, further diluting market liquidity. The early-stage "money-picking" opportunities are gone, and the current market is more complex, primarily controlled by professional traders.
The Pursuit of Hyperliquid and Excessive Returns
Airdrops and Speculative Frenzy
Hyperliquid has attracted a large influx of active traders and capital with its generous airdrop policies and innovative product features. However, the influx of capital has also led to high-risk speculative behavior, resulting in increased market volatility.
Most Traders Facing Losses
According to the PnL (profit and loss) data on the platform, most short-term traders on Hyperliquid have failed to make a profit, especially when chasing speculative trends. Although the platform offers many innovative opportunities, frequent trading of memes or high-risk assets often increases the risk of losses.
Key Conclusion: Even on innovative platforms, aggressive speculative behavior remains a "zero-sum game," where one party's profit inevitably results in another party's loss. Traders frequently switch between tokens in an attempt to chase high returns, but these gains often quickly disappear under competition from professional players.
PVP Games: The Showdown Between Retail and Big Players
Disadvantage of Information Asymmetry
Insiders and institutional investors often have the advantage of early positioning and access to insider information that ordinary investors cannot obtain. Retail investors typically follow the trend and buy in only after prices have surged, missing the most favorable time window.
"Listing Effect" and Market Manipulation
The so-called "listing effect" refers to the phenomenon where a token's price skyrockets after being announced for listing on mainstream exchanges. This trend further exacerbates the advantage of insiders—who can accumulate tokens at low prices before the announcement—while retail investors buy in at high prices.
Key Conclusion: The crypto market is essentially a high-risk "player versus player (PVP)" arena. Big players profit from information asymmetry and early positioning, while ordinary investors often become victims.
The Expansion of Altcoins and the Impact of Trump Tokens
Liquidity Diverted by New Tokens
The launch of Trump and Melania tokens vividly demonstrates how new tokens can siphon off remaining liquidity from an already weakened market.
Retail Investors as Bag Holders
Like many token launches driven by market frenzy, insiders reaped most of the profits during the token craze, while latecomer retail investors found themselves trapped. This phenomenon further exacerbated market pessimism, leading many investors to lose confidence in the market.
Key Conclusion: As market liquidity gradually dries up and new tokens are endlessly launched, the losses of ordinary investors are further magnified, plunging the market into a negative cycle of "no one willing to take over."
Future Market Trends
Possibility of a Rebound
Although the altcoin market currently looks bleak, the institutionalization of Bitcoin still brings some hope. At the current price level of $105,000, $BTC maintains a strong upward trend. If the government or major regulatory bodies release more supportive signals for cryptocurrencies, it could reignite bullish sentiment in the market.
Caution Towards Future Trends
If market liquidity warms up and fervor returns, investors need to remain highly vigilant. The current market is still dominated by professional trading teams and insiders, with fierce competition, putting ordinary investors at a significant disadvantage.
Short-Term Trading is Safer
In a market characterized entirely by PVP (player versus player), it is more prudent to adopt a quick in-and-out strategy rather than relying on long-term trends. The days of easily profiting by simply buying and holding memes (like in early 2024) are now history, at least in the current market environment.
Key Conclusion: If the macro environment improves and attracts more new capital, the market may usher in a more positive atmosphere. However, investors still need to act cautiously, fully recognizing the current PVP characteristics of the market and avoiding excessive chasing of short-term hotspots.
Deep Wilderness - It is especially important to remain cautious
Final Thoughts
A notable feature of the current cryptocurrency market is the high dispersion of capital and attention. This market environment, combined with the strong influence of insiders and rapidly changing market hotspots, makes it more difficult for ordinary retail investors to gain an advantage. Although there may still be opportunities for significant volatility in the future—especially in a macroeconomic environment favorable to Bitcoin—investors need to focus on strategic and strict risk management when responding to any market rebound, avoiding blind following of trends.
Practical Advice:
Set Realistic Expectations—The era of easily earning 10x returns may be over.
Cautiously Diversify Investments—Do not overly spread funds across multiple hot tokens, as it may become difficult to manage risks effectively.
Stay Flexible—Shortening holding periods and locking in profits in a timely manner can help maintain an edge in the competitive PVP market.
Choose Quality Projects—Focus on projects with actual value or solid foundations, rather than blindly chasing market hype.
Overall, the era of "everyone can make money" has become a thing of the past. Today's market is more brutal, with information advantages held by a few. However, as long as one remains highly cautious and adept at identifying real opportunities, savvy investors can still find profitable spaces in this complex market environment.
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