Analysis and Opinion: Will the Crypto Market Still Be Bullish in 2025?

By: blockbeats|2025/03/11 07:15:03

Original Title: Still Bullish? Or are we in the "Wealth Destruction" Phase Now?

Original Author: Michael Nadeau, Founder of The DeFi Report

Original Translation: Deep Tide TechFlow

Hello readers, last week we conducted some polls on X and LinkedIn, and many of you expressed interest in seeing more data/analysis about the current cycle.

Therefore, the focus of our discussion this week will be answering these questions: Is there still a bull market for cryptocurrencies in 2025? Why are there many bullish factors now, but I still feel pessimistic? How should we dialectically think about the state of the cycle?

Let's go!

Bearish Viewpoint

Before diving into on-chain data analysis, I'd like to share some qualitative analysis of how we view the cryptocurrency cycle.

Early Bull Market Phase

Roughly from January 2023 to October 2023.

This was the period when the market rebounded from the FTX crash. It was a very quiet time (low trading volume, almost silent crypto Twitter). Then the market started to rise again.

Bitcoin's price surged from around $16,500 to $33,000.

However, no one called this phase a bull market. In the "early bull market" phase, most market participants were still in a wait-and-see mode.

Wealth Creation Phase

Roughly from November 2023 to March 2024.

During this phase, we saw significant price surges and notable wealth creation effects. For example, SOL rose from $20 to $200. Jito's airdrop (December 2023) created amazing wealth effects within the Solana ecosystem and repriced Solana's DeFi projects (such as Pyth, Marinade, Raydium, Orca, etc.). The VC market also peaked during this phase.

The Bitcoin price surged from $33,000 to $72,000. Ethereum rose from $1,500 to $3,600.

Bonk's market cap increased from $90 million to $24 billion (26x). WIF's market cap rose from $60 million to $4.5 billion (75x). This phase also planted the seeds for a larger-scale "Memecoin Season."

However, despite this, this period was still relatively "quiet." Your "normie" friends may not have started asking you about cryptocurrency yet.

Wealth Distribution Phase

Roughly spanning from March 2024 to January 2025.

This phase is the "Peak Attention" phase. We often see "WAGMI" (We're All Gonna Make It), fast rotations, new hotspots (though short-lived), and blind investments that pay off. Celebrities and other "crypto tourists" often enter the market during this phase. This phase may see sensational news such as "Tesla buying Bitcoin" or "Bitcoin Strategic Reserve."

Why?

Because new investors enter the market due to this news. They fear they are "missing out on the party."

This is the second wave of "Memecoin Season," evolving into the "AI agent season." In this phase, the market turns a blind eye to many blatantly questionable behaviors. No one wants to point out the issues because everyone is making money.

And then we arrive at the current state.

Wealth Destruction Phase

We believe we entered this phase shortly after Trump took office.

This is the period the market immediately enters after experiencing a top sell-off. The catalysts of the bull market have become a thing of the past. Positive-looking news triggers bearish price actions.

In the current market environment, political actions regarding "Bitcoin Strategic Reserve" have not impacted the market — a crucial signal. In this phase, market rebounds often face critical resistance levels and ultimately fail (as we saw last week with the market's response to Trump's tweet about crypto reserves).

In the "Wealth Destruction" phase, we pay additional attention to some signals:

· Settlement and "panic" events, which disrupt the market but have not yet led to a full sobering-up of the market — we saw a similar situation in DeepSeek AI's panic and tariff uncertainty.

· Investors still hold on to "illusions." Today, we see a lot of discussions about the US dollar's decline and global M2 (broad money) growth (which will be detailed later in the report).

· "Speculators" entering the market. More people are DMing us to "check out their project," more ads are circulating in the market, well-funded projects at major conferences engaging in senseless spending, and more PvP. Moreover, the entire industry is emitting a more "dirty" atmosphere. As the "wealth destruction" period unfolds, bad actors start to show their true colors.

At this stage, hidden issues gradually surface — usually post-settlement. The last cycle started with Terra Luna, which then led to the blow-up of Three Arrows Capital. This was followed by the bankruptcies of BlockFi, Celsius, FTX, among others, ultimately resulting in Genesis's closure and CoinDesk's sale.

Currently, we have not yet seen any blow-up events. The blow-up phenomenon in this cycle should decrease — simply because the number of CeFi companies has decreased, meaning that when the market officially bottoms out, the low point may be higher.

Where will the blow-up come from?

No one knows, but I think there are some "suspects" worth monitoring:

· Exchanges: Pay attention to hidden leverage and/or potential fraudulent behavior in some overseas "B and C grade" exchanges.

· Stablecoins: We are monitoring Ethena/USDe — currently its circulating stablecoin value is close to $5.5 billion. It maintains its peg through cash and futures arbitrage (holding spot, shorting futures) to earn yield — this pattern was a major source of leverage in the last cycle (through Grayscale). Ethena's reliance on centralized exchanges adds extra counterparty risk. Additionally, MakerDAO also has some of its reserves invested in USDe, further increasing the systemic risk in DeFi.

· Protocols: Beware of frequent hacking attempts and potential liquidation cascades triggered by cryptographic asset collateral on platforms like Aave — which still has over $110 billion in active loans (although down from a peak of $150 billion).

· Strategy: We believe that Strategy has excelled in prudent debt management, with the majority of its debt being long-term unsecured debt or convertible bonds (BTC holdings will not trigger additional margin calls). Furthermore, in the last cycle, they were able to withstand a 75% price drop in BTC. However, having said that, if the BTC price experiences a significant decline, it may force Saylor to sell a large amount of BTC at the worst possible time.

The optimal re-entry point into the market is towards the end of the wealth destruction phase. We believe this moment has not yet arrived.

Bearish Data

Decentralized Exchange (DEX) Trading Volume

The trading volume on Solana's decentralized exchanges has dropped by 80% compared to the peak reached after Trump launched his Memecoin. At the same time, the number of active individual traders has also decreased by over 50%. This indicates to us that speculative fervor in the market is waning.

Analysis and Opinion: Will the Crypto Market Still Be Bullish in 2025?

Data: The DeFi Report, Dune

Token Issuance

The number of tokens issued on Solana has decreased by 72% compared to the peak. However, the chain still sees over 20,000 tokens being created daily.

Data: The DeFi Report, Dune

BTC Long-Term Holder MVRV Ratio

Data: Glassnode

Bitcoin's long-term holder MVRV (Bitcoin's "smart money") peaked at 4.4 in December of last year. This is only 35% of the 2021 cycle peak of 12.5, which itself is 35% of the 2017 cycle peak.

Bitcoin rose approximately 80x from low to high during the 2017 cycle, around 20x during the 2021 cycle, and about 6.6x in the current cycle.

The realized price of Bitcoin (i.e., the average cost basis of all circulating Bitcoins) peaked at $5,403 during the 2017 cycle, which was 15.1 times higher than the peak of the 2013 cycle; peaked at $24,530 during the 2021 cycle, which was 4.5 times higher than the 2017 cycle peak. And today's realized price is $43,240, 1.7 times the peak of the 2021 cycle.

Conclusion

· From each of the above data points, it can be observed that the peak values of different cycles exhibit symmetrical diminishing returns. These data clearly demonstrate the existence of the diminishing returns law.

· Bitcoin is now a $1.7 trillion asset. However bullish the news may be, investors should not expect to see sustainable parabolic growth as in the past—too much capital would be required at this point to drive the asset higher.

· When Bitcoin loses momentum, the rest of the tokens in the market will also suffer.

· The speculative frenzy around Solana is waning. Considering that 61% of DEX volume so far this year involved meme coins and that in the past 30 days, less than 1% of Solana users contributed over 95% of gas fees. This is worrying as it indicates that a small part of Solana's users (the "whales") are preying on other users (the "minnows"). Therefore, if the "minnows" tire of losses and opt to exit temporarily (which we believe they are), we might see the fundamentals of Solana deteriorate rapidly.

Data: The DeFi Report, Dune (base + priority fees + Jito tips on Solana)

· Bitcoin's long-term holders have realized profits twice in the past year. Their realized price (i.e., cost basis) is currently around $25,000. On the other hand, short-term holders who bought at the peak now have an average cost basis of $92,000, putting them at a loss. We believe that as the market realizes that Bitcoin's top is likely in at $109,000, these short-term holders might continue to sell at lower peaks.

Data: Glassnode

When all information is laid out like this, we believe it is undeniable that the "typical" cycle has completed, and this is not the so-called "law" at play.

In our view, the best way to process this information is to acknowledge reality and assign a probability to the possibility that the cycle has already peaked. We believe this probability clearly exceeds 50%.

After completing the fundamental analysis, we will attempt to identify any flaws in our argument and stress-test our viewpoint.

Let's get started.

Bullish Viewpoints

I still see significant opposition to bearish views in the market, and bulls are not likely to lay down their arms easily.

This raises a question: Does the bullish viewpoint further prove that we have entered the "wealth destruction phase"? Or are we too bearish and overlooking the possibility of another rally?

In this section, we will go over some observed "bullish viewpoints."

Global M2/Liquidity

Data: Bitcoin Counter Flow

The green box on the right shows: When global M2 starts to rise, BTC is falling. Some have pointed this out and mentioned the correlation between BTC and M2, as well as the 2 to 3 month lagging reaction of BTC to M2 changes.

However, the green box on the left shows: A similar dynamic occurred at the end of the last cycle: as M2 was rising, BTC was falling. In fact, M2 did not peak until early April 2022—5 months later than BTC's peak.

Since mid-January, global M2 has grown by 1.87%, mainly due to central banks shifting from tightening to easing policies.

These are favorable liquidity conditions.

However, we also need to consider the following questions:

1. What is driving M2 growth? We believe this is mainly coming from the decline in the US dollar (down 4% since February 28!), leading to an increase in foreign currency priced in USD, thereby driving global M2 growth. Additionally, the reverse repo facility has recently been drained, and China is also stimulating its economy through loose policies.

2. Will This Trend Continue? We believe the U.S. dollar will continue to decline as investors move funds overseas, but the pace of decline in the coming weeks may not be as rapid as recently experienced. We expect China to continue implementing loose monetary policies against the backdrop of a weakening dollar. However, the Federal Reserve may not take immediate easing measures as they have stated that reserves are still "ample." Additionally, we believe the Federal Reserve remains concerned about inflation.

3. How Are Current Liquidity Conditions Compared to Last Year? We believe that current liquidity conditions should be seen as headwinds compared to last year. Remember, the key is the rate of change, not just nominal growth. We strongly believe that the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department drove the markets last year through "shadow liquidity," namely "not-QE, QE," and "not Yield Curve Control, Yield Curve Control," to aid the reelection of Biden/Harris. According to Michael Howell of Cross Border Capital, the unwinding of these policies has had a significant impact on the rate of change.

Data: Cross Border Capital

It is estimated that the above-mentioned "secret stimulus" added $5.7 trillion to the U.S. markets at the beginning of 24. This was achieved by exhausting reverse repos + pre-issuing new bonds in the bills.

Finally, we believe investors should closely watch Treasury Secretary Bessent's comments in a CNBC interview last week: "The market and the economy are addicted. We have become reliant on this government spending. It's going to require a detox. It's going to require a detox."

Business Cycle/ISM

As we have previously pointed out, ISM data indicates the start of a new business cycle. We have also noted strong data on capital expenditure (Capex) purchases and small business confidence. We believe this data is real but also clearly shows growth is slowing down. The data we observed last month may have been distorted by some manufacturers engaging in "pre-tariff buying" ahead of expected tariffs. Since then, we have seen some softness in the service sector and new order data, with the February manufacturing PMI reading at 50.3, down from January's 50.9.

Strategic Bitcoin Reserve

Until last Friday, we still saw natives of the crypto space holding out hope for discussions regarding strategic cryptocurrency/bitcoin reserves—despite the market ignoring such news multiple times over the past 6 weeks.

I believe we can now collectively agree this has been a "buy the rumor, sell the news" event.

The Flaw of "Cyclical Thinking"?

We should also acknowledge that the current "cycle" has behaved differently than past cycles. For example:

· BTC hit an all-time high for the first time before a halving.

· This cycle has been shorter, with just a two-year bull run.

· The "altcoin season" has behaved very differently, with bitcoin's dominance steadily rising since early 2023.

· Bitcoin is now fully integrated into the financial system and has the backing of the US government.

If there is a flaw in "cyclical thinking," then perhaps we have not peaked yet. Instead, we might just be in a pause/adjustment/consolidation phase before the next leg up, rather than entering a year-long bear market where prices could drop 75%-80% as seen in the past.

We believe the cycle is evolving. However, we still anticipate that a bear market may take 9 to 12 months to fully unfold.

Conclusion

To summarize our view:

1. We believe we are currently in the "complacency" stage as shown in the chart above.

2. All the bullish catalysts identifiable years ago have now played out.

3. The economy may be heading towards a recession. We believe the Trump administration's stance is very clear. They are essentially telling us that the economy needs a "detox." We should believe their stance. This is very similar to Powell's statement early in 2022 about "pain coming." Our current thinking is that cryptocurrency is the canary in the coal mine. Traditional financial markets will slowly decline/oscillate in response.

4. Given the market sentiment is extremely bearish, we may see a short-term bounce to the low $90K range for BTC. However, we believe this bounce will face intense selling pressure—potentially squashing any hope of a recovery to the bull market structure.

5. As always, we remain open to the possibility of being wrong. Our analysis is based on the information we currently have. As new information emerges, we will update our views.

What would make us bullish again? We will be watching for the following:

1. Reversal of fiscal tightening/Efforts from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

2. Significant rate cuts/Quantitative Easing (QE) from the Federal Reserve.

3. Massive influx of global liquidity driven by the Federal Reserve (not just China).

4. Major correction/capitulation selling in the S&P 500/Nasdaq.

One concern we have is that the bearish view is becoming consensual. This is worrisome to us. Yet, for now, we must weigh all other factors—because signs are abundant that a cycle top is in, and a bear market is nigh.

Of course, there are many reasons to be bullish over the long term.

Cryptocurrency has truly entered its "inflection" period. It is now finally time to rebuild the financial system on a public blockchain.

Not to mention, we love bear markets. As the tide recedes, the noise from past cycles is easier to strip away, leaving the true signals—which will prepare us for the next bull run.

This is the time for us to do all our best work, and for us to create the most value for our readers.

Original Article Link

On May 13, S&P Dow Jones Indices announced that Coinbase would officially replace Discover Financial Services in the S&P 500 on May 19. While other companies like Block and MicroStrategy, closely tied to Bitcoin, were already part of the S&P 500, Coinbase became the first cryptocurrency exchange whose primary business is in the index. This also signifies that cryptocurrency is gradually moving from the fringes to the mainstream in the U.S.

On the day of the announcement, Coinbase's stock price surged by 23%, surpassing the $250 mark. However, just 3 days later, Coinbase was hit by two consecutive events: a hack where employees were bribed to steal customer data and a demand for a $20 million ransom, and an investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) into the authenticity of its claim of having over 100 million "verified users" in its securities filings and marketing materials. These two events acted as mini-bombs, and at the time of writing, Coinbase's stock had already dropped by over 7.3%.

Coincidentally, Discover Financial Services, being replaced by Coinbase, can also be considered the "Coinbase" of the previous payment era. Discover is a U.S.-based digital banking and payment services company headquartered in Illinois, founded in 1960. Its payment network, Discover Network, is the fourth largest payment network apart from Visa, Mastercard, and American Express.

In April, after the approval of the acquisition of Discover by the sixth-largest U.S. bank, Capital One, this well-established digital banking company of over 60 years smoothly handed over its S&P 500 "seat" to this emerging cryptocurrency "bank." This unexpected coincidence also portrayed the handover between the new and old eras in Coinbase's entry into the S&P 500, resembling a relay race scene. However, this relay baton also brought Coinbase's accumulated "external troubles and internal strife" to a tipping point.

Side Effects of ETFs

Over the past decade, cryptocurrency exchanges have been the most stable "profit machines." They play a role in providing liquidity to the entire industry and rely on trading fees to sustain their operations. However, with the comprehensive rollout of ETF products in the U.S. market, this profit model is facing unprecedented challenges. As the leader in the "American stack," with over 80% of its business coming from the U.S., Coinbase is most affected by this.

Starting from the approval of Bitcoin and Ethereum spot ETFs, traditional financial capital has significantly onboarded users and funds that originally belonged to exchanges in a more cost-effective, compliant, and transparent manner. The transaction fee revenue of cryptocurrency exchanges has started to decline, and this trend may further intensify in the coming months.

According to Coinbase's 2024 Q4 financial report, the platform's total trading revenue was $417 million, a 45% year-on-year decrease. The contribution of BTC and ETH's trading revenue dropped from 65% in the same period last year to less than 50%.

This decline is not a result of a decrease in market enthusiasm. In fact, since the approval of the Bitcoin ETF in January 2024, the inflow of BTC into the U.S. market has continued to reach new highs, with asset management giants like BlackRock and Fidelity rapidly expanding their management scale. Data shows that BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin ETF (IBIT) alone has surpassed $17 billion in assets under management. As of mid-May 2025, the cumulative net inflow of 11 major institutional Bitcoin spot ETFs on the market has exceeded $41.5 billion, with a total net asset value of $1214.69 billion, accounting for approximately 5.91% of the total Bitcoin market capitalization.

Chart showing the trend of net outflows for Grayscale among the 11 institutions

Institutional investors and some retail investors are shifting towards ETF products, partly due to compliance and tax considerations. On one hand, ETFs have much lower trading costs compared to cryptocurrency exchanges. While Coinbase's spot trading fee rate varies annually in a tiered manner but averages around 1.49%, for example, the management fee for IBIT ETF is only 0.25%, and the majority of ETF institution fees fluctuate around 0.15% to 0.25%.

In other words, the more rational users are, the more likely they are to move from exchanges to ETF products, especially for investors aiming for long-term holdings.

According to multiple sources, several institutions, including VanEck and Grayscale, have submitted applications to the SEC for a Solana (SOL) ETF, with some institutions also planning to submit an XRP ETF proposal. Once approved, this may trigger a new round of fund migration. According to a report submitted by Coinbase to the SEC, as of April, the platform's trading revenue from XRP and Solana accounted for 18% and 10%, nearly one-third of the platform's fee revenue.

However, the Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs passed in 2024 also reduced the fees for these two tokens on Coinbase from 30% and 15% to 26% and 10%, respectively. If the SOL and XRP ETFs are approved, it will further undermine the core fee revenue of exchanges like Coinbase.

The expansion of ETF products is gradually weakening the financial intermediary status of cryptocurrency exchanges. From their original roles as matchmakers and clearers to now gradually becoming mere "on-ramps and off-ramps" for funds, exchanges are seeing their marginal value squeezed by ETFs.

Robinhood Takes a Stand, Traditional Brokerages Join the Fray

On May 12, 2025, SEC Chairman Paul S. Atkins gave a keynote speech at the Tokenization and Cryptocurrency Working Group roundtable. The theme of his speech revolved around "It is a new day at the SEC," where he indicated that the SEC would not approach enforcement and regulation the same way as before but would instead pave the way for cryptocurrency assets in the U.S. market.

With signs of cryptocurrency compliance such as the SEC's "NEW DAY" declaration, an increasing number of traditional brokerages are attempting to enter the cryptocurrency industry. One of the most representative cases is the well-known U.S. brokerage Robinhood, which began expanding its crypto business in 2018. By the time of its IPO in 2021, Robinhood's crypto business revenue accounted for over 50% of the company, with a significant boost from the Dogecoin "moonshot" promoted by Musk.

In Q1 2025 earnings report, Robinhood showcased strong growth, especially in revenue from cryptocurrency and options trading. Fueled by Trump's Memecoin, cryptocurrency-related revenue reached $250 million, nearly doubling year-over-year. Consequently, Robinhood Gold subscription users reached 3.5 million, a 90% increase from the previous year, with the rapid growth of Robinhood Gold providing the company with a stable source of income.

Meanwhile, RobinHood is actively pursuing acquisitions in the cryptocurrency space. In 2024, it announced a $2 billion acquisition of the long-standing European cryptocurrency exchange Bitstamp. Additionally, Canada's largest cryptocurrency CEX, WonderFi, which recently went public on the Toronto Stock Exchange, also announced its integration with RobinHood Crypto. After obtaining virtual asset licenses in the UK, Canada, Singapore, and other markets, RobinHood has taken a proactive approach in the compliant cryptocurrency trading market.

Furthermore, an increasing number of brokerage firms are exploring the same path. Futu Securities, Tiger Brokers, and others are also dipping their toes into cryptocurrency trading, with some having applied for or obtained the VA license from the Hong Kong SFC. Although their user bases are currently small, traditional brokerages have a natural advantage in user trust, regulatory licenses, and low fee structures. This could pose a threat to native cryptocurrency platforms in the future.

User Data Breach: Is Coinbase Still Secure?

In April 2025, security researchers discovered that some Coinbase user data was leaked on the dark web. While the platform initially responded by attributing it to a "technical misinformation," it still raised concerns among users regarding its security and privacy protection. Just two days before Dow Jones Indexes announced Coinbase's addition to the S&P 500 Index, on May 11, 2025, Coinbase received an email from an unknown threat actor claiming to have obtained customer account information and internal documents, demanding a $20 million ransom to keep the data private. Subsequent investigations confirmed the data breach.

Cybercriminals obtained the data by bribing overseas customer service agents and support staff, mainly in "non-U.S. regions such as India." These agents abused their access to Coinbase's internal customer support system and stole customer data. As early as February this year, blockchain detective ZachXBT revealed on X platform that between December 2024 and January 2025, Coinbase users lost over $65 million to social engineering scams, with the actual amount potentially higher.

Among the victims was a well-known figure, 67-year-old Ed Suman, an established artist in the art world for nearly two decades, having been involved in the creation of artworks such as Jeff Koons' "Balloon Dog" sculpture. Earlier this year, he fell victim to an impersonation scam involving fake Coinbase customer support, resulting in a loss of over $2 million in cryptocurrency. ZachXBT critiqued Coinbase for its inadequate handling of such scams, noting that other major exchanges have not faced similar issues and recommending Coinbase to enhance its security measures.

Amidst a series of ongoing social engineering incidents, although there has not been any impact on user assets at the technical level so far, it has raised concerns among many retail and institutional investors. Especially institutions holding massive assets on Coinbase. Just considering the U.S. BTC ETF institutions, as of mid-May 2025, they collectively hold nearly 840,000 BTC, and 75% of these are custodied by Coinbase. If we price BTC at $100,000, this amount reaches a staggering $63 billion, which is equivalent to the nominal GDP of two Iceland in the year 2024.

Visualization: ChatGPT, Source: Farside

In addition, Coinbase Custody also serves over 300 institutional clients, including hedge funds, family offices, pension funds, and endowments. As of the Q1 2025 financial report, Coinbase's total assets under management (including institutional and retail clients) reached $404 billion. The specific amount of institutional custodied assets was not explicitly disclosed in the latest report, but it should still be over 50% based on the Q4 2024 report.

Visualization: ChatGPT

Once this security barrier is breached, not only could the rate of user attrition far exceed expectations, but more importantly, institutional trust in it would undermine the foundation of its business. Therefore, after a hacking event, Coinbase's stock price plummeted significantly.

CEXs are All in Self-Rescue Mode

Facing a decline in spot trading fee revenue, Coinbase is also accelerating its transformation, attempting to find growth opportunities in derivatives and emerging assets. Coinbase acquired a stake in the options platform Deribit at the end of 2024 and announced the official launch of perpetual contract products in 2025. This acquisition fills in Coinbase's gap in options trading and its relatively small global market share.

Deribit has a strong presence in non-U.S. markets, especially in Asia and Europe. The acquisition has enabled Coinbase to gain a dominant position in bitcoin and ethereum options trading on Deribit, accounting for approximately 80% of the global options trading volume, with daily trading volume remaining above $2 billion.

Meanwhile, 80-90% of Deribit's customer base consists of institutional investors, with their professionalism and liquidity in the Bitcoin and Ethereum options market highly favored by institutions. Coinbase's compliance advantage, coupled with its already robust institutional ecosystem, makes it even more suitable. By using institutions as an entry point, it can face the squeeze from giants like Binance and OKX in the derivatives market.

Facing a similar dilemma is Kraken, which is attempting to replicate Binance Futures' model in non-U.S. markets. Since the derivatives market relies more on professional users, fee rates are relatively higher and stickiness is stronger, making it a significant source of revenue for exchanges. In the first half of 2025, Kraken completed the acquisition of TradeStation Crypto and a futures exchange, aiming to build a complete derivatives trading ecosystem to hedge the risk of declining spot transaction fee income.

With the surge of Memecoin in 2024, Binance, OKX, and various CEX platforms began massively listing small-market-cap, highly volatile tokens to activate active trading users. Due to the wealth effect and trading activity of Memecoins, Coinbase was also forced to join the battle, successively listing popular tokens from the Solana ecosystem such as BOOK OF MEME and Dogwifhat. Although these coins are controversial, they are frequently traded, with fee rates several times higher than mainstream coins, serving as a "blood-boosting" method for spot trading.

However, due to its status as a publicly traded company, this practice is a riskier endeavor for Coinbase. Even in the current crypto-friendly environment, the SEC is still investigating whether tokens like SOL, ADA, and SAND constitute securities.

In addition to the forced transformation strategies carried out by the aforementioned CEXs, they are also starting to lay out RWAs and the most talked-about stablecoin payment fields, such as the PYUSD launched through a collaboration between Coinbase and Paypal, Coinbase's support for the Euro stablecoin EURC by Circle that complies with EU MiCA regulatory requirements, or the USD1 launched through a collaboration between Binance and WIFL. In the increasingly crowded trading field, many CEXs have shifted their focus from just the trading market to the application field.

The golden age of transaction fees has quietly ended, and the second half of the crypto exchange platform game has silently begun.

STARTUP's Price Surges 40x in 30 Minutes: How did he become the Emotion King of Believe?

He is both a KOL and understands the market script, playing a game where attention is the currency.

Key Market Intelligence on May 14th, how much did you miss out on?

Within 24 hours, GOONC's market cap soared to 70 million, could GOONC be the next billion-dollar dog on the Believe platform?

Bitcoin has broken $100,000, Ethereum has surpassed 2500, and is Solana's hot streak about to make a comeback?

The current market is in a state of macro euphoria, with GOONC riding the wave today, skyrocketing 10x in just a few hours, reaching a market cap of tens of millions of dollars, trading volume soaring past 50 million, and rumors swirling that the developer may be from OpenAI (unconfirmed but intriguing enough).

The "gooning" Culture in Forums

A ludicrous and absurd Solana meme that some actually buy into.

GOONC is a meme coin that has sprouted from the "gooning" subculture, offering no technological innovation or practical use, its sole function being speculation.

It takes inspiration from an NSFW term "gooning," which refers to a person being deeply immersed in certain content (you know what), eventually entering a nearly religious-like trance.

In Reddit (such as r/GOONED, r/GoonCaves) and some counterculture media outlets (such as MEL Magazine in 2020), "gooning" has gradually transitioned from an adult label to a meme-addicted, digital content and virtual self-indulgence synonym, arguably the epitome of Degen spirit.

GOONC is playing around with this concept, packaging the addictive nature, uselessness, and irony of gooning into a tradable financial product. The project team has made it clear: "We do not solve blockchain problems, we only trade absurdity." Blunt but oddly genuine.

GOONC launched on May 13, 2025, using the meme coin launch platform Believe App's LaunchCoin module on Solana. This tool is highly Degen: zero technical barriers, a few clicks to create a coin, perfect for projects like GOONC that can come up with ideas out of the blue.

The mastermind behind GOONC is also quite something and is the most talked-about, with KOL @basedalexandoor on X platform (alias "Pata van Goon") personally involved. His profile even caught the attention of Marc Andreessen, co-founder of a16z, making onlookers unable to resist speculating if GOONC has a hint of OpenAI lineage.

While this 'OpenAI Endorsement' is currently just community speculation, it is definitely a good card to play to fuel hype. Saying "we are pure speculation" on one hand, while tagging a few "AI + a16z" on the other.

From Wasteland to Moon in One Night

GOONC took off as soon as it launched. After its launch on May 13, 2025, its market capitalization skyrocketed to $22 million within 4 hours, with a trading volume exceeding $25.6 million in 24 hours. According to platform data, the first day of trading saw an astonishing +41,100% surge, soaring from $0.0000001 to $0.02, becoming a "missed-the-boat" situation.

GOONC quickly formed an active trading community post-launch, with a lot of discussion and trading signals appearing on X platform (such as the 292x return signal provided by DeBot). Liquidity pools on exchanges like Raydium and Meteora grew rapidly, supporting high trading volumes and price increases.

The real climax occurred between May 13 and May 14, with the market cap rising to $5.5 million in the morning and directly surpassing $55 million in the afternoon. By the 14th, it briefly approached a $70 million market cap, with the trading volume soaring to $59 million. Some community members even posted screenshots claiming an increase of +85,000%, creating a new myth out of the ruins.

As of 1:30 pm on May 14, the price stabilized around $0.039, with a total market cap and FDV both around $39.6 million, and a 24-hour trading volume of $5.43 million. Active platforms include XT.COM, LBank, Meteora, and others.

Although there was a slight pullback from the peak ($0.07), the coin's popularity remains strong. For a coin that relies purely on "irony + community + X post" to thrive, this performance is already at a stellar level.

Currently, the background of the token's development team is not transparent, increasing the potential risk of a rug pull. Rugcheck.xyz warns that the creator of the GOONC contract may have permission to modify the contract (e.g., change fees or mint additional tokens), posing certain security risks.

Community members speculate that the meteoric rise of GOONC may be the "last hurrah".

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Whether you are an insider or an outsider, these days you must be familiar with the news about Ethereum. The reason is simple, causing Ethereum enthusiasts to sigh with emotion and almost throwing off-guard those who defend Ethereum, Ethereum, with a "3-day surge of 40%," climbed to the top of the Douyin Hot List.

Where Does the Rally Come From?

As we all know, Ethereum launched the Pectra upgrade on May 7th. This most significant network upgrade since early 2024 integrates the Prague execution layer hard fork and the Electra consensus layer upgrade, significantly improving Ethereum's performance through 11 improvement proposals. The account abstraction feature (EIP-7702) allows users to flexibly manage wallets through social media accounts or multi-signature schemes, reducing the user threshold, attracting more users and developers. The staking mechanism optimization increases the validator ETH cap from 32ETH to 2048ETH and introduces a flexible withdrawal method, making it easier for institutions and individuals to participate in network security, enhancing the market's confidence in Ethereum's long-term value.

At the same time, Pectra optimized the interaction efficiency of Layer 2 networks such as Arbitrum and Optimism, making transactions faster and cheaper, leading to a surge in on-chain activity. As a crucial step for Ethereum's transition from "2G" to "5G," the Pectra upgrade not only enhances network vitality but also "recharges confidence" in the market, directly driving the price increase.

Related Reading: "Ethereum Skyrockets 22% in One Day, E Enthusiasts Rejoice"

It's not just Ethereum itself, as Wall Street also brought important bullish news.

The world's largest asset management company, BlackRock, proposed to the SEC allowing Ethereum ETFs for staking. This proposal is expected to elevate Ethereum ETFs from a mere investment tool to a bond-like "interest-bearing asset," bringing investors both capital appreciation and passive income, igniting market optimism about Ethereum's future potential.

Specifically, BlackRock has proposed to amend its S-1 filing to allow investors to create and redeem ETF shares directly with Ethereum instead of the U.S. dollar (i.e., in-kind redemption). This move, combined with its $2.9 billion BUIDL Fund launched in March 2024, aims to deepen the integration of traditional finance with blockchain. The BUIDL Fund is a tokenized fund operating on the Ethereum network, investing in traditional assets such as U.S. Treasury bonds. This setup is highly attractive to institutional investors, as they can not only benefit from Ethereum's price appreciation but also earn stable cash flow through staking.

Robert Mitchnick, BlackRock's Head of Digital Assets, stated in a CNBC interview in March 2025 that the addition of staking functionality will significantly enhance the appeal of the Ethereum ETF. He admitted that when the Ethereum spot ETF was launched in July 2024 without staking functionality, the market demand was lackluster, and staking could be the key to reversing this trend.

Meanwhile, the SEC's shifting stance on cryptocurrency regulation has also fueled this upward trend. During the tenure of the previous SEC chairman, the regulatory approach was tough, and staking was strictly viewed through the Howey test as a potential unregistered security. Therefore, when approving the Ethereum spot ETF in May 2024, staking functionality was explicitly prohibited.

However, with Trump back in the White House and Paul Atkins taking over the SEC, there has been a noticeable relaxation in crypto regulation. Apart from BlackRock, ETF issuers such as Invesco Galaxy, VanEck, WisdomTree, and 21Shares have also submitted applications for similar staking and in-kind redemption.

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If staking ETFs are approved, the benefits are likely to go beyond price appreciation. The introduction of staking functionality could redefine the role of crypto assets, making them more similar to traditional financial products that provide returns and value appreciation, thereby driving Ethereum closer to mainstream finance.

Currently, the SEC still needs to address several decisions related to crypto ETFs, including whether to approve ETFs for Solana, XRP, Litecoin, and even Dogecoin. With the calls for an "altcoin season" growing louder, Ethereum's strong performance may just be the beginning of a larger crypto market frenzy.

In addition, the Trump family-related DeFi project WLFI is also bullish on this wave of rise, with frequent on-chain activities. According to on-chain data analyst @ai_9684xtpa's monitoring, a WLFI-related address is currently borrowing coins to go long on ETH, borrowing 4 million U from Aave to buy 1590 ETH at an average price of $2515 per ETH.

Has Ethereum's Price Peaked in This Wave?

For this epic surge of Ethereum after half a year of silence, the community has indeed gained more confidence and hope, which has also led to a revival of the entire altcoin market. However, amidst the joy, there are also voices of pessimism. Below is a summary conducted by BlockBeats based on community discussions.

The optimists point out that the current market structure is similar to the eve of the bull markets in 2016 and 2020, predicting a life-changing surge in the next 3-6 months, where some altcoins may even achieve astonishing single-day gains of up to 40%.

@liuwei16602825 stated that this surge signifies the return of the bull market as a sure thing. There is no need to worry about a pullback. The driving force behind the surge uses a high-cost isolated operation, fearing a drop more than any retail investor and will definitely do everything to support the price.

Related Reading: "Ethereum Leads the Surge Triggering the 'Altcoin Season' Speculation, How Do Traders View the Future Market?"

The bears mainly believe that this surge is different from the bull market of 2021, as the current market lacks the confidence of large-scale retail investors entering and holding positions for the long term, with funds rotating too quickly.

@market_beggar observed that a Bitfinex E/B whale has started to close positions and believes that if this whale maintains its high-speed position-closing operation for the next few days, it can be inferred that the whale no longer sees the upside potential of ETH, preparing to take profits and exit. The closing time will be a key focus going forward.

@FLS_OTC stated that there are still many uncertainties at the macro level, and the liquidity cannot support a major bull market. At this stage, it is a "last hurrah," not a complete reversal, and will continue to remain in a short position.

@off_thetarget believes that after ETH transitioned from POW to POS, it lost the "gold standard" of mining machine power cost support. The staking economic model led to a breakdown in value anchoring. Additionally, the L2 ecosystem (such as Starknet, zkSync, etc.) suffered from liquidity fragmentation, failing to establish an effective capital inflow mechanism, causing the collapse of the split disc pattern. Furthermore, the ETH community's excessive pursuit of technical narratives divorced from real-world needs resulted in a weak ecosystem growth. Therefore, he believes that ETH's intrinsic value system has crumbled, and the price is bound to plummet to the 800-1200 range, with a decisive short position at 1800.

@Airdrop_Guard, based on the core logic of the "High Probability Trading Strategy," where three sets of underlying logic different trading systems (such as volume depletion, price supply-demand, long/short position funding rate, etc.) simultaneously issue a short signal at the same point (2580), creating a high-probability trading opportunity. He emphasizes that these systems must be based on different algorithms and logics (rather than mere technical indicator overlays). The current ETH trend aligns with the short conditions in multiple independent dimensions of his trading system, hence the decision to short.

Overall, Bitcoin still maintains over 54% market dominance, and institutional funds' continued preference for it may limit the altcoin's upward potential. The market's future direction will depend on multiple factors, such as Bitcoin's price trend, global macroeconomic conditions, and whether funds can effectively rotate from Bitcoin to the altcoin sector.

Although Ethereum's recent leadership in the market has brought about optimistic sentiment, investors still need to remain rational as different sectors of altcoins are likely to show divergence in trends. Whether this round of Ethereum's rise will usher in a true altcoin frenzy may require more time and conducive conditions.

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