Introduction
In June 2025, Circle's successful listing on the US stock market marked an important turning point in the cryptocurrency market—the altcoin bull market is over, and the cryptocurrency bull market is rushing toward Wall Street!
Since its listing, its stock price has surged nearly 390% in just ten days, rising from an IPO price of $31 to a peak of $165.60, with a market value approaching $36.7 billion.
Circle's legalization breakthrough as the 'first public stock of stablecoins' indicates that the focus of the cryptocurrency market is shifting from the traditional Token market to the secondary market on Wall Street. Unlike previous speculative booms driven by altcoin prices, this so-called bull market has quietly occurred in the traditional capital market of financial infrastructure over the past month. This article will analyze in depth why funds no longer favor altcoins but instead turn to cryptocurrency concept stocks in the US stock market, revealing the underlying logic behind this structural shift.
Why do funds shy away from altcoins: The collapse of trust under the burst of bubbles and the return to rationality
Once upon a time, altcoins were the engine of the cryptocurrency market bull market, attracting countless speculative funds with their astonishing price increases. However, times have changed, and funds now have sharply reduced interest in this area, leading to a drastic decline in enthusiasm.
Fundamentally, the lack of compliance and transparency is the primary reason. Altcoins often emerge from regulatory gray areas, with project teams hiding their identities, mysterious fund flows, and financial disclosures and asset reserves being a luxury. Investors find it difficult to discern value from risk, like looking at flowers in the fog. This 'barbaric growth' model has become increasingly incompatible in the context of tightening global regulatory iron curtains.
The premise of capital entry is compliance, which altcoins clearly cannot meet.
The recent Binance Alpha platform incident is a clear example: the tokens ZKJ and KOGE launched on it plummeted over 80% within hours due to the project team not locking treasury funds and large addresses detected selling in batches, causing over $100 million in funds to evaporate instantly, exposing the flaws in the anonymous team's operations and liquidity pool design.
Secondly, the market has clearly recognized the extreme high risks and pure speculative nature contained within.
Altcoins are known for their extreme price volatility, which can bring dizzying returns in the short term, but their value foundations are exceptionally fragile and can be easily manipulated by market sentiment or precisely controlled by 'whales,' leading to abrupt crashes. This high level of uncertainty has made investors increasingly inclined to choose assets with controllable risks and relatively stable returns, rather than betting their fortunes on a high-risk gamble.
Let me give an example from the project circle. The collapse of the Porsche token is a brutal footnote: after the operator (Pangu community) suddenly withdrew funds, the price plummeted.
Whether it's the president of Argentina or the MEME endorsed by Yua Mikami, celebrities cannot provide a credibility guarantee, cannot prevent large orders from crashing, and even celebrities seem to be cursed, making deals with the devil.
Recently, even seemingly selected tokens on Binance Alpha, with their narrow liquidity pool price range design, have become a fatal flaw, easily breached by operators using a 'chain smash' strategy, causing the market's receiving funds to quickly dry up, exacerbating investors' losses.
The deeper reason lies in the fact that most altcoins lack clear and sustainable profit models, and their value support is nearly nonexistent. Their price booms often rely on fervent speculation and the fleeting illusion created by liquidity pools. Once market enthusiasm wanes and the halo fades, these Tokens, lacking intrinsic earning ability, quickly enter a path towards zero. This essentially 'pass the parcel' game fails to attract institutional funds that focus on long-term value investment and increasingly mature retail participants, making capital withdrawal an inevitable trend. The fall of the star project in the blockchain gaming field, Treasure DAO (token MAGIC), profoundly illustrates this point: its annual operating cost of up to $8.3 million far exceeded the remaining treasury funds of only $2.4 million at the time, making project shutdown inevitable.
Similarly, even the blockchain game Matrix, which raised a massive $37.5 million, became an utterly worthless 'air coin' due to the final lack of mainstream exchange support and practical application scenarios. An even worse model is a pure Ponzi scheme, such as PlusToken in the past, followed by Radar, and then mainstream VCs have also openly engaged in scams in recent years, whether it is last year's Blast with several fraudulent gaming projects or SA claiming to develop social platforms, whose profits are fundamentally reliant on referral rewards, lacking any actual technology or business model support.
Why is Wall Street so keen on cryptocurrency concept stocks?
In stark contrast to the coldness of altcoins, cryptocurrency concept stocks in the Wall Street secondary market have become the new favorites of capital. From Circle's explosive rise to the collective activation of other crypto-related companies, there are deep reasons behind this trend.
The success of Circle: A benchmark for compliance and transparency
Circle's stock performance is the highlight of this round of market activity. From an initial closing price of about $115 on June 7 to a closing price of $151.06 on June 16, with an intraday high of $165.60, the cumulative increase exceeded 31%. If calculated from the IPO issuance price of $31, the increase reached as high as 387.3%.
At $147.45, its market value has jumped from $21 billion last week to approximately $36.7 billion. Yahoo Finance's chart shows that the stock price began to rise in the afternoon of June 13 and opened high on June 16, reflecting the strength of the main funds.
Intervention and high market sentiment.
The key to Circle's success lies in its compliance and transparency. As the world's first publicly listed stablecoin issuer, Circle detailed the reserve structure of USDC in its IPO prospectus, including US Treasury bonds, cash ratios, and audit arrangements. This regulatory template for 'on-chain dollars' not only won investors' trust but also set an insurmountable competitive barrier for other stablecoin projects. Additionally, Circle achieved revenue of approximately $1.7 billion in 2024, with 99% coming from interest income on USDC reserves. By directing user funds toward low-risk assets such as short-term US Treasury bonds and cash, its 'stablecoin interest margin model' has demonstrated stable cash flow and low volatility in a high-interest-rate environment, becoming an important factor in attracting capital.
Collective activation of cryptocurrency concept stocks
Circle's leading effect quickly spread to other cryptocurrency concept stocks, with company stock prices around 'on-chain asset treasuries,' 'compliant stablecoins,' and 'Web3 mapping stocks' showing significant movements recently. Here is an overview of recent performances:
·SRM: The stock price surged from less than $1.5 at the beginning of June to about $9.19, an increase of approximately 534%, with a market value of $158 million. On June 16, it skyrocketed more than five times in a single day, as the company announced a $100 million investment and launched a Tron token treasury strategy, which the market viewed as 'Tron's version of MicroStrategy.'
·SharpLink Gaming: The current stock price is about $13.41, with a market value of $817 million. The company invested $463 million to acquire 176,271 ETH, becoming the public company holding the most ETH in the market. The stock price once surged to $35, but then plummeted over 70% on June 12-13, only to rebound 45.6% on June 16, showing the extreme volatility of market sentiment.
·DeFi Development: Stock price rose to about $31.06, an increase of approximately 30%, with a market value of $458 million. The company secured a $5 billion equity limit to increase its investment in Solana (SOL), holding over 600,000 SOL, and is committed to creating a 'Solana treasury' type company, with a 20.7% increase on June 16.
·MicroStrategy: The stock price is about $382, with a market value of $106.77 billion. As the world's largest Bitcoin reserve company, its stock price has slightly decreased by about 2% since June 7, reflecting the stability of compliant leading enterprises.
·Coinbase: The after-hours stock price is about $255, an increase of 5-6%, with a market value of about $66 billion. As the largest crypto exchange in the US, its gradual upward movement reflects investors' confidence in compliant platforms.
·Tron: Recently, Tron successfully landed on the US stock market through a reverse merger (backdoor listing), becoming another encryption project that integrates into traditional finance through compliance pathways. Tron's listing not only enhanced its transparency and credibility in the global market but also provided institutional investors with a compliant channel for direct investment in blockchain technology. The market generally believes that Tron's move is part of its strategic transformation, aiming to further promote the collaborative development of decentralized finance (DeFi) and traditional finance through deep integration with the traditional financial system.
The performance of these companies indicates that the enthusiasm for crypto assets has mapped to the US stock market through compliant pathways, attracting a lot of capital inflow.
The deeper reasons for the shift in the cryptocurrency bull market
Why has the explosive point of this round of cryptocurrency bull market shifted from the Token market to the US stock market? The following key factors provide answers:
1. Compliance and transparency have become prerequisites
As mentioned earlier, no need to reiterate.
2. Innovation and Stability of Profit Models
Wall Street's cryptocurrency concept stocks exhibit innovative and robust profit models, contrasting sharply with the speculative driving force of altcoins:
·Circle's 'stablecoin interest margin model': Achieving stable interest income through low-risk investments, providing investors with low volatility and high return options.
·MicroStrategy's 'treasury strategy': Holding a substantial amount of Bitcoin and integrating it into the company's balance sheet to provide investors with leveraged holdings of long-term bullish Bitcoin.
·SharpLink Gaming's ETH investment: Imitate MicroStrategy, make MicroStrategy on Ethereum.
These models not only reduce investment risks but also provide clear value anchors, attracting funds seeking long-term returns.
3. Recognition of the logic of on-chain assets
The market's renewed recognition of the logic of on-chain assets has driven funds toward US stocks. MicroStrategy and DFDV combine on-chain assets like Bitcoin and Solana with traditional finance through a 'treasury strategy,' while SharpLink Gaming further verifies the feasibility of this trend through ETH investment. Tron's listing further confirms the feasibility of blockchain projects integrating into traditional markets through compliant pathways, allowing investors to share in the growth dividends of the crypto economy without directly holding Tokens, significantly lowering the entry barriers.
4. Cautiously optimistic market sentiment
With increasing regulatory pressure, fund managers and retail traders have significantly boosted their confidence in compliant crypto assets. Coinbase, as the largest compliant crypto exchange in the US, reflects the market's preference for compliant platforms with its gradually rising stock price. Tron's successful listing further reinforces this trend. In contrast, the chaotic state of the altcoin market can no longer satisfy the cautiously optimistic investment sentiment of the present, leading to accelerated capital shifting toward the US secondary market.
The structural shift in this round of cryptocurrency bull market reveals new market preferences: Altcoins are gradually losing favor due to a lack of compliance, transparency, and robust profit models, while Wall Street's cryptocurrency concept stocks such as Circle, MicroStrategy, and Tron are becoming new favorites for funds due to their compliance pathways and innovative models. This trend not only marks the maturation of the crypto economy but also signifies that on-chain financial infrastructure will play an increasingly important role in traditional capital markets. A 'blockchain financial framework' adapted to traditional financial systems is taking shape, and a new chapter in the cryptocurrency bull market has begun in the US stock market. For cryptocurrency investors, it is time to explore more asset markets instead of being stagnant in altcoins.
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