A trader’s biggest mistake can be being bearish in a bull market and bullish in a bear market. The problem is, by the time we realize whether it’s a bull or bear market, it’s often too late.
The last bull market peaked in November 2021, and prices started declining from there. But most of us only realized it around February 2022 or even later.
Take Solana, one of the best projects in the crypto space. When its price dropped from $250 to $90, traders thought, “This is the lowest point, buy the dip!” But in reality, Solana fell another 90%, reaching as low as $8. Imagine the pain of those who held onto it!
FTM, MATIC, ADA—all of these were priced around $3 during the bull market. When they dropped to $1, I bought in, thinking, “There’s no way they can go lower.” But they still fell another 80%!
Then there was Dogecoin—whenever Elon Musk tweeted, Doge would pump. Many believed Elon would push Doge to $1, the only meme coin worth holding. Some even thought he might make Doge the second-best crypto after Bitcoin. But in the bear market, Doge crashed from $0.7 to 95% down.
During that bull run, the hot narrative was NFT & Metaverse—just like how today, every project is adding “AI” to its name. Back then, even if people didn’t understand the projects, just mentioning “NFT & Metaverse” would attract public interest. Every project started adding NFT/Metaverse elements just to lure in investors. But in the bear market, the moment anyone mentioned NFT or Metaverse, people would practically throw up!
For the 2024 bull market, the dominant narrative was MEMECOINS! Many think this meme season started with SOL’s Pump.fun, but actually, it began earlier with BTC Ordinals. ORDI and other ordinals-related meme coins were the first to take off, and later, Solana took the trend to the next level.
Solana made meme coin creation tools freely available, and this pushed SOL and its DEX projects to insane heights. For example, RAY surged from $0.22 to $8! Those who caught the narrative made big moves. Justin Sun capitalized on this by creating a Pump.fun-style meme coin machine, pumping SUN coin 10x. Even TRX performed well. Meme coins emerged from ETH L2 (Base/ARB/OP), and BNB tried joining the trend later, but by then, the narrative was already fading.
The main lesson? In a bear market, there’s no such thing as a “good” project! Prices can drop to unimaginable levels. Even top projects fell 90-95%, while weaker ones kept crashing another 90% even after already losing 90%!
Now, the big question: Are we still in a bull market, or has the bear market begun?
Long-term indicators, which estimated BTC tops in 2013, 2017, and 2021, suggest BTC hasn’t hit its peak yet in this cycle. But simpler indicators like EMA show that BTC has fallen below the 200 EMA on the daily timeframe.
I see it differently—just as the 2021 bear market started when the NFT & Metaverse hype died, this bull market’s key driver was MEME tokens. Now that they are falling, the bear market might already be here. The final nail in the meme narrative’s coffin was when U.S. President Trump launched a meme coin in his own name—that was the absolute peak.
So, what should we do now?
I’m confused myself. Looking at U.S. market actions, it seems there’s room for further downside. But at the same time, maybe this bull run isn’t over yet!
For example, in May 2021, BTC peaked at $64K, then dumped 60% to $28K. It stayed there for 3-4 months, then started a second run from August to November, hitting a new ATH.
Maybe we’re about to see something similar!
I couldn’t resist buying some alts seeing their current prices. Luckily, I bought at a point where most coins have already gone up ~10%. If there’s another short-term bounce, I believe two narratives will dominate:
1️⃣ DEFI
2️⃣ De-AI
L1s will rise if BTC goes up, but the best performers will likely be DEFI & De-AI projects. That’s where I’ve placed most of my investments! 🚀
