Just finished chatting with a few big names in the industry, and everyone is discussing the same thing...
The theory of "a four-year cycle" is completely outdated!
If you're still holding onto the idea of getting rich quickly, still fantasizing about "the opportunities to effortlessly win in a bull market by tenfold or hundredfold," you may have already been completely abandoned by the market. Why?
Because smart money has long discovered a secret: the current Crypto does not apply a single strategy, but rather four completely different gameplay cycles are running simultaneously 🧵:
The rhythm, gameplay, and logic of profit-making for each gameplay cycle are completely different.
—— Bitcoin Super Cycle: Retail investors exit, a decade-long slow bull market may become the norm
The "script" of the traditional halving cycle? Completely ineffective! BTC has evolved from being a "speculative target" to an "institutional allocation asset". The funding volume and allocation logic from Wall Street, publicly listed companies, and ETFs are fundamentally different from the retail investors' approach of "bull-bear switching".
Where is the key change? Retail chips are being handed over on a large scale, while institutional funds, represented by MicroStrategy, are flooding in. This fundamental restructuring of the chip structure is redefining the price discovery mechanism and volatility characteristics of BTC.
What are retail investors facing? The dual squeeze of "time cost" and "opportunity cost". Institutions can endure a holding period of 3-5 years to wait for the long-term value of BTC to be realized, but what about retail investors? Obviously, they cannot have such patience and financial strength for layout.
In my view, we may very well see a BTC super slow bull market lasting more than ten years. The annualized return rate remains stable in the range of 20-30%, but the intraday volatility is significantly reduced, resembling a steadily growing tech stock. As for how high BTC's price ceiling will reach? From the current retail investors' perspective, it is even difficult to predict.
—— MEME Attention Short Wave Cycle: From Slum Paradise to Professional Harvesting Grounds
The MEME long bull theory is actually valid; during the window of technical narrative performance, MEME narratives will always fill the market's "boredom vacuum" with the rhythm of emotion, capital, and attention.
What is the essence of MEME? It is a speculative vehicle for "instant gratification". No need for white papers, no need for technical validation, no need for roadmaps, just a symbol that can make people smile or resonate is enough. From cat and dog culture to political MEMEs, from AI concept packaging to community IP incubation, MEME has evolved into a complete "emotional monetization" industrial chain.
The deadly reality is that MEME's "short, flat, and fast" characteristic has made it a barometer of market sentiment and a reservoir for capital. When funds are abundant, MEME becomes the first choice testing ground for hot money; when funds are scarce, MEME turns into the last refuge for speculation.
However, reality is harsh; the MEME market is evolving from "grassroots carnival" to "professional competition". The difficulty for ordinary retail investors to profit in this high-frequency rotation is increasing exponentially.
The story of P Xiao sitting idly to create legends may become increasingly rare, as the entry of studios, scientists, and large players will cause this once "slum paradise" to become overly competitive.
—— Technological Narrative Leap Long Cycle: Bottom fishing in the Valley of Death, starting at ten times in three years?
Has the technical narrative disappeared? Not at all. Innovations with real technical barriers, such as Layer 2 scaling, ZK technology, AI infrastructure, etc., require 2-3 years or even longer Build time to see actual results. These types of projects follow the technology maturity curve (Gartner Hype Cycle), rather than the emotional cycle of the capital market—there is a fundamental time misalignment between the two.
The market's criticism of the technical narrative is entirely due to overvaluation when the project is still in the concept stage, and then undervaluation occurs during the "Valley of Death" phase when the technology truly begins to take shape. This determines that the value release of technical projects presents a non-linear leap characteristic.
For patient investors with technical judgment, laying out truly valuable technical projects in the "Valley of Death" phase may be the best strategy for obtaining excess returns. But the prerequisite is that you must endure a long waiting period and market trials, as well as potential mockery and ridicule.
—— Innovative Small Hotspot Short Cycle: 1-3 Month Window Period, Brewing the Major Uptrend Narrative
Before the mainline technical narrative takes shape, various small narratives rotate quickly, from RWA to DePIN, from AI Agent to AI Infra (MCP + A2A), each small hotspot may only have a 1-3 month window.
This fragmentation of narratives and high-frequency rotation reflects the current dual constraints of market attention scarcity and capital rent-seeking efficiency.
In fact, it is not difficult to find that typical small narrative cycles follow a six-stage model: "Concept Validation → Capital Testing → Public Opinion Amplification → FOMO Entry → Valuation Overdraft → Capital Withdrawal". Want to profit in this model?
The key is to enter at the "Concept Validation" to "Capital Testing" stage and exit at the peak of "FOMO Entry".
The competition between small narratives is essentially a zero-sum game for attention resources. However, there are technological correlations and conceptual progression relationships between narratives. For example, the MCP (Model Context Protocol) in AI Infra and the A2A (Agent-to-Agent) interaction standards are actually a technical underlying reconstruction of the AI Agent narrative. If subsequent narratives can continue the previous hotspots, forming systemic upgrade linkages, and truly sediment a sustainable value closed loop during the linkage process, it is highly likely that a super narrative at the level of a major uptrend similar to DeFi Summer will emerge.
From the existing small narrative pattern, the AI infrastructure layer is most likely to achieve breakthroughs first. If MCP protocols, A2A communication standards, distributed computing, inference, data networks, and other underlying technologies can be organically integrated, there is indeed the potential to construct a super narrative similar to "AI Summer".
That's all.
In summary, recognizing the essence of these four parallel gameplay cycles is essential to finding suitable strategies within their respective rhythms. Undoubtedly, the single-minded "four-year cycle" thinking has completely failed to keep up with the complexity of the current market.
Adapting to the new normal of "multiple gameplay cycles running in parallel" may be the key to truly profiting in this bull market.
