Author: Route 2 FI Source: X, @Route2FI Translation: Shan Oppa, Golden Finance

This What is new about the cycle is that we have experienced several mini-altcoins seasons where most tokens, including those from older cycles, experienced gains. The following are several key time periods:

•January to March 2023

•October 2023 to March 2024

•September to December 2024

In addition to this, the market has experienced multiple narrative rotations, from gambling coins and Telegram bots in the summer of 2023, to AI agents and DeFAI that became popular in the fourth quarter of last year.

Many people are still looking forward to a massive altcoin season like 2021 (there were two that year). But this is not 2021 anymore, and the big difference is that now we have probably close to 1,000 more new altcoins (tokens that are larger and have some kind of roadmap), whereas the market was not like that four years ago.

The strategy for investing in altcoins has always been to hope for higher returns than Bitcoin and then convert those gains into BTC or USD. But now the question is: which altcoins should you buy?

The market is so fragmented right now that it’s easy to pick the “wrong altcoin”, one that won’t rise while your friends are Making money like crazy.

Another feature of this cycle is the "trench" strategy. Although there will be on-chain activity in 2021, it is simply not comparable to today’s Solana “trench”. Earlier, you only needed to log in to Binance and you could buy almost all tokens. The gameplay was simple: when you saw Hsaka post a few "hot words", you knew you should go long $SOL, and then go long $AVAX.

However, with the explosion of $PEPE in April 2023, the rules of the game changed. Since then, memecoins have gained huge traction, followed by$BITCOIN, $WIF, $POPCAT, $GOAT, etc., the list is incredibly long.

The current environment has changed from the simultaneous rise of most tokens in the past to a narrative-driven meta-cycle (such as functional tokens , animal coins, AI tokens, etc.). The reason why people complain about altcoin season is that they are used to the strategy of hoarding spot, which is what the OGs used before 2017 and 2021. So will this strategy still work this time? Obviously not valid for all coins.

I can even say that those who dominated in 2017 and 2021, if they did not transform from the perpetual contracts of centralized exchanges, they would After entering the market in 2024, it no longer has a real advantage when facing the meme currency and AI currency players in the Solana trenches.

The fragmentation of the market is real (there are too many new tokens being issued). Strategies that worked last round no longer work. The “buy and hold” strategy only works for certain assets (such as BTC and SOL), which forces people to do more rotations.

If you are a trader who is willing to operate in both CEX and on-chain markets, then this new environment does not need to be too worrying for you. As long as the market remains volatile, there will always be opportunities.

My advice is, don't think that "going long" is your only option. When you feel uncertain, you can also hedge, earn funding rate income, go short, or even conduct hedging transactions.

Have we peaked? For Bitcoin, probably not yet. But I am pretty sure that many altcoins have already peaked and will not reach all time highs (ATH) again. Of course, that doesn’t mean there won’t be a few altcoin rallies in 2025. But in the long term, the number of buyers will not be enough to offset the massive unlocked token supply.

You see, reflexivity goes both ways. Just like a ball thrown into the air, it will eventually fall back to the ground.