In the first half of 2025, Bitcoin broke through the $100,000 mark, and the myth of getting rich 'a hundred times in three years' is rampant on social media. However, Roman Gonzalez, a cryptocurrency manager at A&G Investment Company, warned: 'All the factors for another price bubble are brewing.' These two starkly different voices reflect the most acute question in the current cryptocurrency circle—are we truly at the peak of the bull market or at its end?
Currently, the cryptocurrency circle is filled with a familiar frenzy. Data from the Robinhood platform shows that in the second quarter of 2025, cryptocurrency trading revenue surged by 98% year-on-year, with an additional 2.3 million funded accounts, and the speed of retail entry is comparable to the peak of the 2021 bull market. The meme coin myth of 'making a hundred times in two hours after opening' is spreading again, reminiscent of the madness of SHIB back in the day; even taxi drivers are discussing 'Trump trades,' as the former U.S. president has promised to list Bitcoin as a strategic reserve asset, which indeed injected a strong dose of confidence into the market.
But history is always remarkably similar. Before Bitcoin broke through $20,000 in 2017, a similar phenomenon of 'everyone trading cryptocurrencies' unfolded; when Musk called for Dogecoin in 2021, the scale of retail investors pouring in was astonishingly similar to the present. What is even more alarming is that the total market value of cryptocurrencies has surpassed $3.8 trillion, while the institutional ownership ratio is still below 20%. This means the market's main force is still the fragile retail funds, and once the sentiment reverses, the risk of a stampede is unimaginable.
Determining whether the bull market is nearing its end cannot overlook the core variable of Bitcoin halving. The halving in April 2024 will reduce the block reward to 3.125 BTC, and historical patterns show that the 12-18 months following a halving are often key phases of the bull market cycle. From the timeline perspective, the second half of 2025 falls within this window period, which is also the reason some experts insist that 'the bull market is not over,' with HashKey Group even predicting that Bitcoin could surge to $300,000.
However, this time the difference lies in the strong intervention of policy variables. Trump's supportive attitude and the popularization of the U.S. spot ETF have preemptively exhausted some of the benefits; meanwhile, Russia has completely banned mining in ten regions, and Europe is tightening stablecoin regulation, signaling that global regulatory coordination is strengthening. This complex environment of 'loosening while building dams' has diminished the historical rules of the halving effect. As PANews analyst Wang Shengyu said: 'The uncertainty of the medium to long-term trend is higher than ever.'
Whether or not the bull market is nearing its end, several facts are already clear: the characteristic of cryptocurrencies 'rising in an elevator and falling on an escalator' has not changed, the current market FOMO (fear of missing out) sentiment is close to an extreme, and the funding risk of altcoin exchanges is accumulating.
For ordinary investors, rather than guessing when the peak will arrive, it is better to do three things:
Concentrate holdings on mainstream coins like Bitcoin and Ethereum, and stay away from worthless air coins.
Choose compliant exchanges, such as the licensed HashKey Exchange in Hong Kong or top platform Binance, to avoid the risk of 'shady platforms' running away.
Strictly control positions—remember that the 2018 bear market caused 80% of traders to go bankrupt, and the lessons of leveraged players going to zero overnight during the LUNA crash in 2022 are still fresh in memory.
In the summer of 2025, the noise in the cryptocurrency circle continues. Some see it as the last carnival under Trump’s policy dividends, while others firmly believe that the golden decade of Web3 has just begun. But regardless of stance, one should remember the old saying: when even the market aunties start talking about cryptocurrencies, it might just be time to buckle up. After all, the secret to making big money in the cryptocurrency circle has never been about judging bull or bear, but about surviving to the next cycle.