Article source: Talk Li Talk Outside
Since entering July, Bitcoin has continued to challenge historical highs, Ethereum has also risen significantly, and even old coins like XRP and ADA have risen by over 40% in the past month. As shown in the image below.
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1. What stage are we currently in this cycle?
With the recent warming of market sentiment, voices calling for a bear market seem to have decreased compared to earlier, but some people are still reluctant to admit we are in a bull market, thus falling into a new dilemma.
The definition of bear and bull markets may vary among different people, depending on individual perspectives. As we mentioned in our March 13th article: Some believe a bear market begins when Bitcoin breaks below MA200, while others consider it a bear market when Bitcoin drops below $50,000. It's not about losing money in a bear market or making money in a bull market. As long as the market and liquidity exist, opportunities are present. We must both go with the flow and act against it.
Although the new round of stage-based growth this month (July) has been impressive, with Bitcoin reaching new highs and TOTAL2 reaching around $1.56 trillion, as shown in the image below.
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However, the total market value of Altcoins has not broken the previous high. Compared to the previous two bull market cycles, my feeling is that retail investor sentiment still seems relatively pessimistic and has not reached the all-out FOMO state of a major bull market, of course, this is just my personal perception.
Looking at this cycle from 2023 to now, there have indeed been many cases of retail investors becoming suddenly wealthy, but these seem mainly concentrated in MemeCoin. Moreover, in terms of overall proportion, the number of such cases is not high. In other words, the profits generated in this crypto cycle have not yet spread too far or widely, and compared to the retail wealth creation scale of the previous two cycles, it feels somewhat weaker.
According to NewTrading's report, the global cryptocurrency user base will reach 861 million by 2025. However, people might be more concerned about the number of users on our side. Recently, I saw a new data report. According to CoinLaw's latest statistics released in July 2025, approximately 5.2% of adults in mainland China own or use cryptocurrencies (about 50-60 million people), as shown in the image below.
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Taking the most representative MemeCoin launch platform PumpFun as an example, by the time of writing, the platform had over 22 million usage addresses (wallet addresses), with more than 12 million MemeCoin created, but only creating a few hundred millionaire wallet addresses, as shown in the image below.
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Moreover, among these so-called few hundred millionaires, how many are truly retail investors remains a question mark.
So, what does a real bull market feel like? It's when everyone feels they're about to become rich, making money seems as easy as breathing, the market rises daily and appears to be full of gold. During this period, no one pays attention to fundamentals or chart analysis; all that can be seen is people's crazy FOMO desire.
Currently, I haven't truly seen this situation occur, which might mean two things:
One, the market has fundamentally changed, no longer following historical cycle patterns, and retail investors are no longer a crucial market component.
Two, the market has not yet entered the final carnival stage, meaning we haven't yet reached the true big bull market bubble phase (if guessing from the timeline, we might still be in the middle-to-late part of this cycle).
Recently, many KOLs on the internet have been inclined to say the market will break cycle patterns and become a long bull market. I will maintain a neutral stance on this, just as we mentioned in the January 17th article: The most important logic for breaking cycle patterns and entering a long bull market is "transformation". The transformations we've seen so far include the continuous popularization of crypto ETFs, deeper participation from major institutions (like MicroStrategy), Bitcoin being incorporated into national (US) strategic reserves, etc.
However, I believe these transformations are not yet sufficient, and we currently lack the foundation to enter a long bull market. But in terms of Bitcoin's performance, we seem to be standing at a key point of an era's transformation. My guess is that this cycle will still follow certain existing patterns, but the time might be slightly longer. Perhaps from the next cycle, we will truly welcome or stand at the starting point of a new transformative era.
2. A Big Bull Market Still Needs a Bigger Bubble
We mentioned the big bull market bubble phase earlier. The word "bubble" shouldn't be viewed entirely negatively. As we mentioned in our July 19th article: The highest-level game of price is actually forming a bubble, and a big bull market most needs more bubbles. MicroStrategy has ingeniously accumulated over $71 billion worth of Bitcoin, and we've witnessed Bitcoin continuously breaking historical highs. If the macro environment doesn't produce any new black swan events, ETH and some Altcoins will likely continue to rise. Making money can be summarized as a process of embracing bubbles, enjoying bubbles, staying away from bubbles, and continuing to anticipate the formation of a new bubble.
Looking at historical cycles, each bull market generates a new crypto bubble, a process that brings incredible wealth creation opportunities but often ends tragically. For example, after the 2021 bull market, we experienced the bubble of Terra (LUNA), then called the "Moutai of crypto". Similarly, after the 2017 bull market, we experienced the ICO bubble.
Until now in this cycle, we haven't seen such bubble signs. However, as more companies copy MicroStrategy's approach, this seems to be changing, especially when companies like SharpLink Gaming start shifting focus from Bitcoin to Altcoins.
More and more companies are beginning to link their stocks to BTC/ETH and hype them, and their purchasing behaviors significantly and positively impact crypto prices and market sentiment. Beyond BTC and ETH, some companies are starting or planning to accelerate hype around other Altcoins, such as: Bit Origin plans to raise $500 million to buy Doge, Upexi plans to raise $200 million to buy SOL, Nano Labs plans to raise $200 million to buy BNB, and so on.
It's very apparent that more and more companies are rushing to join the crypto hype army.
According to Coinshares data, driven by institutional investors, inflows this month (July) reached a record $11.2 billion, far exceeding the $7.6 billion in December 2024 after the US election, as shown in the image below.
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Specifically for Altcoins, from the beginning of the year to now, ETH's inflow has reached $7.79 billion (exceeding last year's total inflow), SOL's capital inflow is $8.43 billion, XRP's capital inflow is $7.21 billion, and SUI's capital inflow is $1.26 billion. As shown in the following image.
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However, there is an interesting phenomenon here: while some Altcoins are attracting massive capital inflows, some Altcoins are experiencing capital outflows.
From this, we can draw some conclusions (speculations): the current Altcoin uptrend seems to be less influenced by people's emotions and mainly driven by potential ETF expectations.
Regarding the Altcoin ETF issue, we have discussed and mentioned it several times in recent articles, such as in the July 19th article where we said: With the approval of Bitcoin and Ethereum spot ETFs, the route for other top Altcoin ETFs seems to be becoming clearer. Based on past situations, the fourth quarter of this year (around October) might become a historic turning point for crypto ETFs, when more Altcoin ETFs may be approved, which would inevitably bring more external liquidity.
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The current rise seems to further highlight this potential ETF expectation, with funds possibly making advance bets or accumulating on Altcoins like SOL and XRP that are most likely to be approved for ETFs first. In other words, the stage-wise rise since late June can be called a mini Altcoin season or an Altcoin season driven by policy and ETF expectations (from the US), rather than a traditional comprehensive Altcoin season.
If we extend the time dimension further, we can draw another conclusion (speculation): this is merely the early stage of more institutions rushing to join the crypto speculation army, or the early stage of forming a big bubble in this cycle.
Whether it's MicroStrategy, which has already established a scale in BTC, SharpLink Gaming currently raising $5 billion to continue buying more ETH, or other institutions currently and potentially speculating on Altcoin ETFs, they are creating a new massive cycle bubble through cryptocurrencies.
As for how long this new bubble game (opportunity) can last, I can't say for sure. From a short to medium-term perspective, institutions' crazy behavior will inevitably continue to push up the prices of some cryptocurrencies, even to levels that seem crazy to retail investors. From a long-term perspective, as this bubble rapidly approaches madness, it will most likely periodically burst like bubbles in historical cycles.
If our above view (speculation) holds true, we can make a new guess: the second half of this year will continue to experience greater volatility, but all fluctuations are for better washing and speculation. In the fourth quarter, the market may again present opportunities that will shock retail investors, potentially triggering a new widespread FOMO sentiment.
After all, these institutional crazy behaviors ultimately need retail investors to take over, and when the bubble eventually bursts, some institutions will also take over. In this market, only a few will be the ultimate winners.
We are already in this game and have seen the potential big bubble. While I cannot accurately determine when this game will end, we can closely monitor from the following perspectives:
- Which companies will buy and accumulate large amounts of cryptocurrencies in the coming weeks or even months, and exactly what will they buy?
- The market value changes of these companies, and whether their stocks can continue to trade at a premium?
The process from rapid bubble expansion to instant burst is often the most beautiful moment of a bubble. Opportunities are always for those with enough patience and firm belief. Since we have persisted through this cycle for over 4 years (2022-2025), let's look forward to and enjoy the brief beauty of the final stage of this cycle.
That's all for today. The sources of images/data mentioned in the text have been supplemented in the Notion. The above content is a personal perspective and analysis, only for learning and communication purposes, and does not constitute any investment advice.
Article source: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/CmfOkOHBABZ9V8Tx5lipww
