Bitcoin breaks through $87,000.
Returning to the cryptocurrency market, Bitcoin, after a narrow fluctuation between $84,000 and $85,000 over the recently concluded weekend, broke through last week's resistance level after 8 a.m. today (21st), reaching a high of $87,280, marking a peak since early April.
Due to the current market being in a period of low liquidity, and with no particularly favorable news coming out, this may be a short-term rapid increase driven by short-sellers' liquidations; whether it can continue to strengthen remains to be seen.
According to Coinglass data, the total liquidation amount across the network in the last 24 hours reached $220 million, with over 120,000 people liquidated.
Among the other top ten tokens, Ethereum also simultaneously broke through $1,600, and XRP stood back above $2... the best performer in the past seven days was SOL, which rose by 7.55%.
The main theme of this market is to take an 'unusual' path, with the largest gains coming from small-cap altcoins (with market values under $30 million).
Coins like VOXEL, NKN, MAGIC, and GMT were just low-cap MEME coins with market values of a few million just a couple of days ago.
Besides these, there are also the coins that Binance voted to delist. Due to panic selling during the voting, they experienced significant declines. However, Binance has not announced a delisting list in the past few days, so these coins have also welcomed a rebound, and the rebound is not small.
Bitcoin and Ethereum both slightly increased, with mainstream altcoins almost having a 10% increase this week.
This small-cap cryptocurrency and Binance's monitoring token's local market has sent a signal to the market — the bull market seems to have returned.
However, seizing these small-cap coins is still quite challenging. Because these coins have fallen for too long before rising, with significant declines, the risk of buying in is higher, so most retail investors enter with small positions.
So it's still too early to say the bull market has returned. The cyclical rise of many small-cap altcoins is not sustainable, such as the previous AIdoge, which rose quickly and then fell back down.
Ultimately, whether the bull market can be truly confirmed still depends on major liquidity changes and macro fundamentals.
Increased liquidity requires interest rate cuts.
Macro fundamentals need to address tariff issues.
Currently, mainstream coins are also experiencing a cyclical rise. Therefore, if you are an investor diversifying into mainstream coins, you might consider patiently waiting. Sell in batches when one rises, and continue to wait when one does not rise; mainstream coins generally have better capital protection.
Additionally, platform tokens can also provide some protection for retail investors and are quite competitive.
For retail investors, the best protection from platform tokens is actually from Zhimakaimen, followed by Binance, Bitget, and OK. Zhimakaimen and OK coins are relatively 'lying flat,' with no additional returns, so I do not highly recommend them. Binance has reached a bottleneck, and the potential of platform tokens is also limited; only BGB has not completely lost momentum and still has room for growth in the future.
Actually, Huobi's platform token is also quite stable. Although the holdings are relatively concentrated, there is still some potential.
If we're talking about long-term holdings and the driving factors for the next bull market, I believe there are two key points:
1. The often-discussed American projects, starting with SOL and TON, stimulate on-chain activity, thereby promoting the entire altcoin sector.
2. Mainstream coins like Ethereum, Litecoin, and DOGE.
Ethereum and Litecoin may drive the rise of altcoins, while DOGE will revive old MEME coins. If mainstream VC coins want to rise significantly, they must rely on Ethereum's strong resurgence. Recently, Ethereum's weakness has affected the performance of mainstream VC coins. As for Litecoin, I believe it still has competitiveness because it is POW (Proof of Work), sufficiently decentralized and secure, has a long washout period, and can also benefit from the speculation space of ETFs.
When trading cryptocurrencies, you must choose a method that suits you.
If you prefer short-term operations and guerrilla tactics, then mainstream coins are not very suitable, as the time cost is too high. If you plan to buy some stable coins that won't go to zero during a bear market, although slow, the first choice must be to dollar-cost average into mainstream altcoins during the bear market.
The trend of Bitcoin can be described as weak or stable, consolidating sideways, which actually benefits the cyclical rise of altcoins; in the short term, it may be an altcoin market. But the risk still concentrates on Bitcoin rising to $87,000-$88,000; if it can break through and stabilize, it will need support from the larger environment. As long as it stabilizes, a wave of mainstream coins' market will certainly arrive.
