Any industry, from wild growth to maturity, must inevitably go through the phases of bull market, development phase, saturation phase, low-profit phase, and decline phase.
In the cryptocurrency space, the real bull market was in 2017; before 2017, very few people knew about it. Although there were complete bull markets, the volumes were painfully small, and even the three major exchanges had not yet been established. If you want to find historical K-lines from 2013-14-15-16, only a few foreign exchanges like Bitfinex could show them.
The time that truly allowed more ordinary people to enter was 2017. During this process, countless Ponzi schemes played a crucial role; if you ask today, how many people entered the cryptocurrency space because of various Ponzi schemes, you'll know.
The characteristics of the bull market are that anyone, even those completely ignorant of the industry, will become rich passively the moment they step into the industry when the tide comes in. During the 2017 bull market, there were around 100 coins in the entire market; today, the total number of coins has exceeded 10 million.
At that time, randomly buying any coin would attract investment cycles. None did not increase by ten or twenty times; the dark horses of that time were all hundredfold, such as EOS. The highest was a thousandfold, like Antshares (later Neo). It required little cognitive effort; as long as the hype was significant enough, they all experienced huge increases.
By 2021, it was the development phase of this industry, where developers were trying to implement more possibilities on Ethereum. This led to DeFi, bringing a second wave of wealth explosion, but by this time, the glory of 2017 was no longer present; rare were the hundredfold coins, and more often, new coins went from seed rounds to exchanges with 10-20 times returns. During this period, high-quality coins like SOL emerged, which could scale through two rounds and still reach new heights.
The overall trend of the development phase compared to the bull market shows a decline; looking at the average growth of DeFi and the average growth of most coins in 2017 can lead to this conclusion.
By 2025, the market enters the saturation phase, which shows a more obvious downward trend compared to the development phase. The number of coins grows exponentially, while the global population remains roughly unchanged, making it impossible for fresh blood to flow in at the same rate. By this time, Bitcoin is almost a household name; those who should have entered have already done so, and the influx of new participants has sharply declined. According to incomplete statistics, the total number of coins on the market has already exceeded 10 million, diluting the market to the point where it can no longer support the spring of altcoins.
The logic of making money by holding small coins to become a hundredfold or thousandfold has become invalid after this bull market. Meanwhile, 80% of people in the cryptocurrency space profit by holding small coins, waiting for an explosion; this group will be eliminated first.
As a side note, many who believed that 'holding and allocating' could make big money in 2017, and had four-digit Bitcoin amounts, have come back this year to harvest again.
The essence of this matter is that the thinking of holding coins has developed to a point where it can no longer make money in the cryptocurrency space; in fact, it has led to zero returns or significant losses. However, these people, due to their luck or opportunities back then, invested their earned Bitcoin in numerous so-called valuable potential coins before each round of bull markets.
The greatest ability of this group is reading various project technical white papers. When they allocate altcoins with Bitcoin during the bull market and exchange Bitcoin for innovative concept coins during the growth phase, they succeed in both rounds and habitually use the same mindset during the saturation phase, even increasing their stakes to exchange a pile of altcoins as allocation...
Finally, the bull market of 2025 taught them a harsh lesson, awakening them to the reality that this market cannot always rely on altcoins for wealth. This bull market sent many four-digit Bitcoin holders back to their original forms because, under their habitual thinking, each round of using Bitcoin to allocate various altcoins would ultimately yield more Bitcoin. Therefore, in this bull market, these altcoins harvested them.
One can only say that the only constant in this world is change.
The second group: New investment group
The new investment group relies on information to find those that have not yet started trading on exchanges, or projects just beginning to raise funds, participating early in project issuance. This group has a certain level of technical knowledge; they must be proficient in using various wallets and decentralized exchanges. Currently, this group is also starting to lose money, as most new projects crash upon launch, and this group is not large due to technical barriers.
There is another group of people who put coins on exchanges to earn interest, but during bull markets, many people look down on such returns.
Pure trading technicians, this type of person tests the head effect more rigorously; those who do not perform well are eliminated early. They experience the market with real money, needing to at least reach breakeven to survive.
The groups mentioned above account for 99% of individual investors in the cryptocurrency space, while the remaining 1% are at the top of the food chain, such as exchange operators and technical experts (those issuing coins).
The change in the underlying logic of making money in this circle will leave a large group of people who previously relied on holding coins and new investments at a loss. However, they will have to seek a way out in the cryptocurrency space, ultimately left with only one path: to return to focusing on technical skills.
At first, this group was the most skeptical of the technical path; they believed that studying technology was useless. Most of this group adheres to the random walk theory or simply lacks patience, and they attribute their profits to the era's bull market, crediting their ability for the enormous profits brought by riding the elevator of the times, forming a path dependency. They believe that pursuing the technical path is too slow and simply accept that the market is random, with successful trading techniques forever belonging to the top 1%. This group thinks that immersing themselves in technical research is a waste of time because they subconsciously do not believe they can become that 1%. The road to the top 1% is arduous; they cannot endure this hardship. Ultimately, after the market enters the development phase, those who want to continue making money in the market must endure all the hardships they have not experienced and retrace all the paths they have not walked.
In the end, the market will prove their real strength; these are people sitting in the elevator of the times, rather than relying on personal ability.
With more and more professional institutions participating, the market will become more complex and smoother. The competitors have shifted from individuals in the past to professional institutions, making the challenges grow exponentially. Just look at the surge in this bull market to understand.
Moreover, the vast majority (over 99%) of individual investors in the cryptocurrency space are people of the types mentioned above.
Those who rode the wave of the times in 2017 walked a domineering path, which has begun to backfire today. In contrast, those who focused on studying technology from that time, through years of practical experience in the market, have taken a kingly road; the longer it lasts, the greater the value.
In the future market, the spring of altcoins blooming all over will never return; the probability of simply holding coins and betting on a hundredfold or thousandfold return is decreasing. The methods used by main operators are becoming more professional and sophisticated; the opponents have transformed from simple and crude lifting to complex and diverse confusing operations. The market will only become increasingly complicated and harder to grasp, leading the cryptocurrency space gradually into a low-profit era.
I will start from the bear market and end with the next bull market, using a complete bull market to prove that the technical path is the most powerful path for ordinary people to progress.
In these four years, miraculous operations were completed in two stages: one was holding short positions for a year during the bear market, and the other was holding long positions for three years when the bull market started. Without a deep understanding of the overall market situation, this is absolutely impossible.
I have many disciples; one of them trained face-to-face for more than a month and is now independently running a studio in Guangzhou, providing services to clients.
Anyone could rely on luck to get a long position in a bull or bear market, but I can assure you that the two major issues of adding positions and setting stop losses are certainly not something that can be done by luck. Those who have read my previous articles know that the stop-loss given will not be hit, and adding positions must be precise, requiring a strategy layout in which you add and then leave; this is a complete strategic arrangement...
If you are also a tech enthusiast studying techniques in the cryptocurrency space, you might want to follow @加密大师兄888 , and you will gain more!
