As the impact of trade frictions gradually diminishes, the crypto market has started to rebound. In the past week, the demand for market leverage surged: the USDT borrowing rate on OKX skyrocketed to 39% (a new high for the year), and the short-term financial yield of USDT on various platforms generally increased by 2-3 percentage points. On the surface, the market's profit effect is spreading from Bitcoin to altcoins. According to CoinMarketCap data, since April 8, the median increase of the top 100 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization has been 38%, surpassing Bitcoin's 28%, which means that the vast majority of altcoins have outperformed Bitcoin in this rebound. So, does this signal that an altcoin bull market is on the horizon?
Although the corrective trend of altcoins has not yet ended, the author believes that the possibility of a comprehensive bull market for altcoins is extremely low, for the following main reasons:
1. From past experience, when the entry threshold gradually lowers (anyone can issue coins) and the supply of target assets continues to expand, it creates dual pressure, leading to a capital concentration effect—high-quality projects not only harvest market liquidity but also create structural valuation premiums (trends towards U.S. and Hong Kong stock characteristics). Taking the Nasdaq market as a reference, its top 7 leading companies not only hold a long-term market value share of 50%-60%, but also account for 30%-40% of trading volume, while enjoying a valuation premium of 20%-30% (based on price-to-earnings ratio). Although the ranks of leading companies may also see adjustments, the 'winner takes all' characteristic has never changed.
2. According to Coinglass data, the daily transaction volume peaks in the crypto market in March 2024 and November 2024 were both around $600 billion, comparable to the levels seen during the peak of the bull market in November 2021. In other words, over the past four years, the market's maximum purchasing power has not increased. A long-term incremental dilemma in the market usually indicates that the phase of large-scale capital inflow has ended (the demographic dividend period has passed).
Of course, mature markets are not without speculative opportunities. Just like when tech giants lead the U.S. stock market, speculative targets like GME and AMC also emerge. Therefore, while BTC, ETH, SOL, and others enter a slow bull market, the speculation on themes like MEME and AI will continue. But it is certain that structural trends will become the long-term main theme of the market.
Against the backdrop of Bitcoin's continuous rebound, gold, as the leading safe-haven asset, has experienced a pullback, raising concerns in the market about the sustainability of Bitcoin's rise. However, the adjustment of gold does not signify the end of the safe-haven asset speculation logic but is a result of funds switching between different safe-haven assets.
First of all, scarcity is an important factor for gold to become an ideal safe-haven asset. However, compared to Bitcoin's fixed total supply of 21 million coins, gold's proven reserves continue to grow at a rate of 3,000 tons per year. In addition, with advancements in mining technology, gold production is steadily increasing by 1.6% per year, and mining costs are decreasing year by year. In contrast, despite the continuous improvement of Bitcoin mining technology and the ongoing increase in overall network computing power, due to the built-in difficulty adjustment mechanism, Bitcoin's output still follows the halving rule every four years and will completely stop production in 2140. This essential difference in supply characteristics makes Bitcoin the first absolutely scarce asset in history with mathematical certainty, while gold maintains a relatively scarce characteristic.
Secondly, against the backdrop of the U.S. stopping the global trade provision of dollar exports, new settlement tools will gradually fill the gap left by the dollar's exit. However, gold, as a traditional settlement tool, has many limitations: on one hand, gold delivery faces the challenge of insufficient standardization, as gold bars of different grades and purities require expert certification; on the other hand, the transportation of physical gold relies on specialized logistics and armed escort, and cross-border circulation requires customs procedures, resulting in high transaction costs. In contrast, Bitcoin, as a digital asset, perfectly solves these problems: its standards are unified (each Bitcoin is completely equivalent), delivery is instantaneous (cross-border transfers are completed within 10 minutes), and costs are low (currently between $2-8). Especially in high-frequency, large-value cross-border trade scenarios, Bitcoin has demonstrated significantly clearer advantages in cost and efficiency compared to traditional payment systems like Swift (the average cost is half that of Swift, and the speed is 100 times faster).
For a long time, Bitcoin has failed to be widely promoted as an international settlement tool, one of the main reasons being its excessive volatility: before 2024, volatility often remained between 60%-80%. However, with the increasing proportion of institutional holdings, Bitcoin's volatility has dropped to 50% during 2024-2025, and the volatility ratio of Bitcoin to gold has hit a historic low of 3.5. This indicates that Bitcoin's volatility has significantly converged over the past two years, which will help enhance its status as an international currency.
In the past week, the best-performing cryptocurrencies in the market have a common characteristic: this round of adjustment has been severely oversold. For example, the rebound in the AI Agent sector generally reached 200%-300%, but its previous decline almost exceeded 90%, making it a 'ankle chop'. This is also the reason why many investors are indifferent to the rebound. Since many altcoins are still far from the dense area of losses from November 2024, the rebound of altcoins is likely to continue for some time. However, it should be emphasized that this round of rebound is still an opportunity to clear out trash coins and switch to the top 7 cryptocurrencies composed of BTC, ETH, SOL, XRP, ADA, SUI, and BNB.