From HODL to daily selling Meme, how should I survive in a highly fragmented market?

Written by: Route 2 FI

Compiled by: TechFlow

Gm, friends.

The crypto market is undergoing earth-shaking changes, and we must adjust our strategies and tactics because those proven methods in the past are no longer applicable.

The traditional "buy and long-term holding (HODL)" strategy is gradually losing its effect. As market volatility intensifies, new projects emerge one after another, and the belief in long-term holdings becomes more fragile.

Today, the law of survival of the market is to trade flexibly, constantly adjust positions, and look for opportunities in a decentralized and uncertain environment.

Whether you can successfully adapt to this new situation will determine whether you survive or be eliminated by the market.

Let's take a deeper look and see if there is still a glimmer of hope in such a market.

Altcoin Casino: How to find a way to survive in a fragmented

cryptocurrency market

For those who have only entered the crypto market in the past year to a year and a half, this market is undergoing a profound shift.

The "shortcut" that once easily achieved profitability through centralized exchanges is becoming increasingly complex. The way the market works is more like a casino than a traditional trading market, which requires investors to have unprecedented flexibility and acuity.

The traditional "buy and long-term holding" strategy, although it worked in early cycles, is no longer applicable. The holding cycle is getting shorter and shorter, from weeks or even to days (remember those old players tell us that we just need to buy altcoins at a low price and then wait until the high point to sell?).

Behind this change is the continuous emergence of new coins and new projects. Every new project is competing for market attention and funding, constantly challenging the status of existing projects.

Even some events traditionally seen as favorable can have unexpected consequences. For example, Trump launched a high-profile Meme that could attract a large number of new users to the crypto market, but could also cause the value of many altcoins to plummet. Generally, beneficiaries are limited to Bitcoin (BTC), Solana (SOL), and related Meme coins.

Many investors have learned a painful lesson from this - if the portfolio does not have a heavy holding of BTC and SOL, it can suffer huge losses.

A similar situation also occurred at the Berachain launch, an incident that attracted a lot of attention and capital, but it had a shock to the Abstract ecosystem.

In such a dynamic and unpredictable market, it is wisest to accept that volatility is the norm in the market and to recognize that this volatility may be further exacerbated with the emergence of new currencies, new chains and new projects. .

As a result, many investors are re-aligning their strategies to increase their holdings in BTC and stablecoins while significantly reducing their positions in long-term altcoins. The market focus has also shifted from "long-term investment" altcoins to tactical operations of "short-term trading".

The goal is to avoid becoming the "last believer" of those failed projects, watching their value return to zero.

At the stage where the current cycle is approaching its end, buying currencies other than BTC based on long-term investment logic may not be ideal. While altcoins may be close to the bottom, the chances of most currencies, NFTs or ecosystems hitting new highs at the same time are getting lower and lower.

A large number of new currencies are launched every day, which dilutes the market's attention and funding and makes it more difficult to re-emerge existing projects.

The current cryptocurrency cycle is full of unprecedented challenges because there is a sense of uncertainty that is generally permeated in the market. This uncertainty stems mainly from the fact that even those popular altcoins, after experiencing a sharp decline, do not have enough confidence to confirm that they will rebound.

Looking back at the 2017 and 2021 cycles, investors are usually confident about the decline in buying altcoins, as long as the market value (mcap) of these projects is only slightly lower (usually below $100 million). The general view at the time was that these currencies would restore their value within the cycle, at least not completely silent during this cycle. Currencies that gain market attention early often maintain their popularity and market position until the end of the cycle.

However, this cycle is completely different (yes, it does). The market is filled with various narratives and sub-narratives, each fighting for investors’ attention, but these attentions are often fleeting. Investors are now more cautious about "buying the bottom", because the entire narrative of a currency may collapse at any time, resulting in investment becoming worthless.

Unlike the cycles in the past that focused on a single main line, the current market presents multiple narrative-driven small cycles, each with its own highs and lows. Bitcoin (BTC) and Solana (SOL) are widely regarded as relatively safe options and may eventually restore their value, but their potential returns may not be attractive for investors who are pursuing high multiple growth (after all BTC has risen 6 times from the bottom, while SOL has risen 20 times). The question is whether money should be invested in areas such as AI cryptocurrencies. While these areas have received much attention lately, they have fallen sharply from all-time highs, and there are no clear signs that they can return to their peak.

The high fragmentation of the market makes it difficult for investors to accurately identify and seize emerging trends. Cryptocurrencies have been a speculative market since their inception, although past cycles have tried to justify their reputation by emphasizing “peer-reviewed blockchain technology” “solid fundamentals” and “real world applications.” However, this cycle seems to have abandoned this disguise in favor of a more realistic view: it all depends on how to attract and keep the market’s attention. This trend has led to a significant shortening of the attention cycle of investors in the market. The "bull market cycle" that once lasted for one to two years is now compressed to just a few months, weeks, or even days.

The current market seems to be experiencing a Meme super cycle (or is this cycle over?). However, even those most popular Memes have experienced a sharp decline from their peak, making the rationality of investing in them even more questionable.

In the current crypto market, investors face higher "takeover risks" than ever before. In the past cycle, when currencies have experienced similar declines, investors often see it as an opportunity to buy at the bottom, as the possibility of these currencies eventually rebound is almost unquestionable. However, the question now is whether these currencies can regain their former market attention. The current market tends to support currencies that are in the lead rather than those that are lagging behind. Even if some projects have strong fundamentals, it is difficult to gain favor if they lack market popularity.

Although Meme coin and AI projects perform well in the current market, investors remain cautious about these trends, as market focus shifts tend to be rapid and unpredictable. This general uncertainty comes from the excessive choices faced by investors. There are thousands of currencies and projects competing for attention in the crypto market, making it difficult for investors to tell which projects have real potential and which are just a flash in the pan. The dispersed and short-term market attention makes it difficult to form long-term market consensus on a certain project. A question worth pondering is whether this phenomenon has become the new normal of the crypto market, or is it just a temporary phenomenon in the current market environment.

Usually, each market cycle goes through an initial stage of confusion and distraction, which then gradually stabilizes as clear winners surface. However, it is also possible that the market has undergone fundamental changes, and investors' attention span is getting shorter and shorter, and a single narrative can no longer dominate for a long time.

At the same time, macroeconomic factors are also profoundly affecting the current market structure. In the past, loose monetary policies have made investment relatively simple, as abundant liquidity has driven the formation of speculative bubbles. However, in the current environment of high interest rates and liquidity tightening, the market has become even more severe.

Investors' weakened confidence in "buying the bottom" is likely to reflect a broader economic reality. With the uncertain economic outlook, investors' risk appetite has dropped sharply. There is also a growing debate about the traditional four-year cycle, and some people predict that the cycle may be extended. However, judging from the current market performance, the four-year cycle still seems to exist, but there have been some significant changes compared to the past. For example, the current cycle has a relatively sluggish performance: Bitcoin only reached about 1.5 times the previous all-time high, and Ethereum failed to even break through the new all-time high. This performance in the market is largely driven by certain events, such as Michael Saylor’s support for Bitcoin and the launch of Bitcoin ETFs, which have attracted the attention of institutional investors. However, inflows outside the Bitcoin ecosystem are very weak, and speculative capital has poured more into Meme coins with extremely short life cycles.

In the current market, the widespread speculative funds have almost disappeared, and the market lacks enough motivation to break through the overall new high. On the contrary, funds flow more back and forth in the existing cryptocurrency field, showing a "pure flat" state. Due to the lack of major liquidity providers, these scattered hot spots are difficult to drive overall capital flows and are difficult to attract large amounts of capital inflows from new investors.

The performance of this round of crypto market cycle is significantly different from the previous bull market. This has triggered people's deep thoughts on the nature of the crypto market cycle. The current market lacks a wide range of speculation booms, with returns concentrated on Bitcoin, and funds more circulating within the crypto ecosystem. These phenomena indicate that the market is trying to adapt to a completely new operating mode. Key factors that have driven the bull market in the past, such as loose monetary policy and the enthusiasm of retail investors, seem to be no longer so significant in the current environment. The long-awaited "alt szn" (alt szn), which almost all altcoins have experienced a period of rapid rise, has not yet arrived.

Since the launch of the Bitcoin ETF, the gap between Bitcoin market value and the total market value of other cryptocurrencies (i.e. the BTC-TOTAL2 indicator) has continued to expand. In the past copycat season, a large amount of speculative funds poured into the market, and almost all currencies will rise indiscriminately. However, today's Bitcoin seems to have become an independent existence, and its price trend is more affected by ETFs, Microstrategy's strategic layout, macroeconomic environment and political factors. In contrast, the counterfeit market is more like a high-risk "casino". Returns are only possible when there is a large net inflow of funds in the market and you can choose the right investment direction.

However, in this casino, behind every winner is a loser. Compared with previous cycles, the crypto market in 2025 appears to be more complex and difficult to grasp. There are too many "investment tracks" in the market at the same time (i.e., different altcoins and sub-sectors), and new tokens continue to emerge every day, competing for investors' attention and funds. Too many choices make it difficult for investors to quickly identify projects with real potential, and also increases the risk of missing entry into failed projects. In such a rapidly changing market, to succeed, you need to have extremely high insight, keen market awareness and flexible response capabilities.

Despite this, there are still some people who are confident in the future copycat season, and I sincerely hope their predictions will come true.