Author: A Ray's New World
In this cycle, many old players and old cabbage feel that the bull market style of 2024 is quite different from that of 21, and it is not of the same difficulty. The difficulty lies in the lack of native narrative creation, the lack of new cabbage entry, the difficulty in the entry and harvesting of high FDV projects with huge volume, and the lack of progress in the long-awaited Mass adaption...
However, as Dickens said, "it was the best of times, it was the worst of times." The secret of wealth is often written on the riddle itself.
Riding Trump's bull market
At the moment when Bitcoin was approved for an ETF, crypto assets have become a market dominated by the West. This round, almost all major positive news and narrative innovations have come from Western capital, whether it is SocialFi, DePIN or Restaking. In this "most difficult bull market in history," you only need to follow Trump and follow Western concepts to switch to Easy mode.
Trump's positive meme
BTC
After Trump took office, BTC was the first to take the lead. Due to the prosperity of 21 years, many old players still hope to replicate the previous round of Alt season, and new players are immersed in the fantasy of "All In shitcoins, lying down and getting rich." However, as long as you hold BTC in this round of bull market, the return has already outperformed the "full of shitcoins" portfolio.
Since the beginning of the year, BTC has surged from $40,000 to around $98,000 now, achieving a return of over 200%. The only ones that have outperformed BTC during this period are the meme track and some mainstream public chain tokens (such as SOL and SUI), while most Altcoins have not changed much in price compared to the beginning of the year.
Before the election, Trump had been openly and loudly promoting BTC. At the Bitcoin 2024 conference held in Nashville, Trump appeared and delivered a speech of nearly 1 hour, declaring that "he will fire the SEC chairman," and "never sell your Bitcoin." At the same time, he will establish a national strategic reserve of Bitcoin and ensure that the United States will become the world's crypto center and Bitcoin superpower. Trump's various positive policies and active commitments to Bitcoin are very rare in the global capital market. With Trump's shilling, BTC broke through the pressure level that had been suppressed at around $70,000 with brute force, and achieved a 40% increase in the short term.
In addition to the ETF, the national strategic reserve and the Bitcoin superpower have become the biggest narratives for BTC.
DOGE
Dogecoin, as the progenitor of meme coins, has a deep relationship with Musk and Trump. In April 2019, Musk tweeted that Dogecoin is his favorite cryptocurrency and thinks Dogecoin is "cool." In the "Saturday Night Live" program in May 2021, Musk called himself the "Dogefather" and said that Dogecoin is the "people's cryptocurrency." Over time, Musk has become deeply bound to Dogecoin and has even become the public's image spokesperson for Dogecoin. To this day, DOGE has experienced 4 bull-bear cycles, but still firmly sits in the top ten of the crypto market cap.
Most people hold the concept of "the market cap is too large to pull up" and "buy new not old," and have not paid attention to DOGE. However, DOGE has launched an independent market after starting up, surprising everyone with its "rising path." It has quadrupled in the past year and doubled in the past month, heading straight for $1 per coin.
PEPE
The name Pepe comes from the character Pepe the Frog created by American cartoonist Matt Furie in his work "Boy's Club." This character won favor with its cute image and funny expressions, and gained some attention on the Internet. Pepe the Frog first appeared in the 2005 comic, and later became a well-known emoji in Internet culture. Pepe coin was issued on Ethereum in April 2023, and after a nearly year-long wash, it started to soar in February of this year. Since then, it has maintained a market capitalization of tens of billions of dollars.
As a meme emoji popular in the West, Pepe was listed on Robinhood and Coinbase after half a year of dormancy. Robinhood, as the largest stock exchange in the US, has only had DOGE and SHIB as meme coins, and the listing of PEPE shows the importance of the US market for PEPE. This is another major positive news for the development of Pepe in the US market, directly causing the market value of PEPE, which has been maintained at $6 billion, to soar by 50% and break through the $10 billion mark in a short period of time.
WIF
In late December 2019, the trend of adding various logos and images to knitted hats as profile pictures on Twitter became popular among esports organizations and celebrities. WIF, full name dogwifhat, draws inspiration from the meme progenitor "DOGE", while also adding the characteristics of a viral meme hat.
The path of WIF is similar to that of PEPE, and it can be said to be the younger brother of PEPE. On November 14, the day dogwifhat (WIF) was listed on Coinbase, it surged by more than 30%, approaching its previous high. In addition to being listed on Coinbase long ago, on November 25, Robinhood also listed WIF, making it the first Solana memecoin to be listed on Robinhood.
PNUT
PNUT is the animal meme that has been shilled by Musk the most in this cycle, apart from DOGE.
The squirrel image of PNUT comes from a squirrel named "Peanut" adopted by an engineer named Mark 7 years ago. Mark often shared interaction videos with Peanut on Instagram and gradually gained hundreds of thousands of followers. However, nearby residents filed a complaint with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), claiming that Peanut carried infectious diseases. Surprisingly, the DEC broke into Mark Longo's home without a search warrant and took away Peanut. Mark Longo then launched a petition on social media, which was signed by tens of thousands of fans. Unfortunately, Peanut was eventually euthanized by the DEC.
After Peanut's euthanasia, Dogecoin condemned the Democratic Party, and Musk also mourned Pnut and claimed that Trump's election would save Peanut. The animal image represented by Peanut is not just a meme of a social media celebrity, but has begun to accumulate "Trump" political overtones.
Due to the extremely rapid surge in the early stage, PNUT had a large number of retail investors "jumping off the car", and then began a 9-day wash. PNUT has stabilized at a small level today and shown signs of retracement.
In the previous "Bull Market Buy the Dips" series article, the author provided a detailed narrative analysis of PNUT (《Why is $PNUT the Biggest Alpha of This Round? | Bull Market Buy the Dips List》), and the explanation given in the article is also the reason why PNUT can always remain stable above $100 million, while most memecoins cannot break through the $100 million ceiling.
In addition to these memes, there are also DOGE (the new government department established by Musk after Trump took office) and Banana (the logo on Musk's rocket) that are highly related to Musk.
Trump's positive companies
People often follow the historical experience of previous bull markets according to the "pyramid wine glass" logic: BTC leads the way, the overflow funds flow to ETH and other mainstream currencies, and then overflow to low-cap Altcoins, thus ushering in the "Altcoin season." Under this "BTC bull market" where BTC is included in the United States, the market has belatedly discovered that there seems to be no Altcoin season. "BTC has been leading the way, and funds have never overflowed."
However, the "altcoin season" has not disappeared, but has taken on a different form of existence: the capital that has surged after the rise of BTC has spilled over to the US stock targets related to the BTC concept.
COIN
COIN is the stock of Coinbase, which has achieved a super-high increase of 800% this year. Before the election, Coinbase's stock price continued to rise due to the arrival of the Crypto bull market, although COIN experienced a pullback in the middle of the year, Coinbase's stock price rose 31% on November 6, 2024 due to the election results, from $193.96 to $254.31. Investing in COIN is equivalent to investing in the β of "American crypto assets", and any good news related to crypto assets will almost be absorbed by COIN's stock price.
In addition to COIN, the rebound effect of other crypto-related US stock targets is also very strong.
MSTR
Microstrategy itself is a company that does business intelligence software, but Microstrategy started the "debt-buying coin" strategy in 2020. As of now, Microstrategy has 1.2% of the total circulating supply of Bitcoin on its books, making it the publicly traded company with the largest Bitcoin holdings globally. Microstrategy's stock price has soared 1000% in a year, far exceeding the return of Bitcoin.
Microstrategy's debt-buying coin strategy has led many to worry that MSTR is the next LUNA, but in fact Microstrategy's security is much better than LUNA. Moreover, its latest repayment period is in 2027, which is still early for us.
In addition to companies like Microstrategy that rely on Bitcoin, many "small-cap" companies have also started to emulate Microstrategy's strategy. For example, the fitness equipment company Interactive Strength (TRNR) stated that after its board of directors approved the use of cryptocurrencies as treasury reserve assets, the company plans to purchase up to $5 million worth of Bitcoin. After the announcement, the company's stock price soared by more than 80% at one point. Similarly, companies like LQR House (LQR), Cosmos Health (COSM), Nano Labs (NA), Gaxos (GXAI), Solidion Technology (STI) and Genius Group (GNS) saw their stock prices also experience a temporary surge after announcing Bitcoin treasury plans in November.
Western Concept Public Chains
In addition to the coins strongly related to Trump, the inauguration of this "Bitcoin President" is a great boon for all crypto projects rooted in the West. Not only will the regulation of crypto assets in the US mainland be relaxed, but it will also facilitate the inflow of traditional finance capital into crypto assets. Among the coins listed on Coinbase, the traditional US brokers can first access ADA, BCH, DOT, XRP and others in addition to BTC and ETH. Similarly, when the tide rises, the water will only go to the bigger buckets.
SOL
Solana, as one of the high-performance public chains that challenged Ethereum in the last cycle, seems to have "half" replaced Ethereum's position in the crypto ecosystem this round. In the last cycle, Solana "sailed smoothly" backed by FTX, but after the collapse of FTX, Solana has repeatedly become the target of FUD for everyone, with a low point of only $11. Since September 2023, Solana has ushered in its own trend-driven market. In a year's time, Solana has become the true meme public chain of the entire Crypto with its high performance and low gas, forming a unique gameplay centered on meme, successfully breaking through $200 and challenging its previous high again.
XRP
XRP was mired in legal disputes with the SEC and market regulation at the beginning of this cycle. In December 2020, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a lawsuit against Ripple Labs, accusing it of conducting an unregistered securities offering through the sale of XRP. The SEC believes that XRP meets the criteria of a security and therefore needs to be registered and comply with federal securities laws. Due to the SEC's lawsuit and the regulatory uncertainty surrounding the classification of XRP, several cryptocurrency exchanges, including Coinbase, have delisted XRP. On August 7, 2023, the court made a final judgment, requiring Ripple to pay a $125.0351 million civil penalty and prohibiting the company from further violating the Securities Act.
Ripple CEO claimed on FOX News that the XRP ETF will be launched in 2025
But after Trump took office, not only has the regulatory cloud over XRP dissipated, but multiple institutions have also started to apply for XRP ETFs.
In early October, Bitwise and Canary Capital both filed applications with the SEC for XRP ETFs. On November 2, 21Shares filed an application with the US SEC for the "21Shares Core XRP TRUST" XRP ETF, joining the ranks of those seeking approval for an XRP ETF. On November 25, WisdomTree Funds filed a fund registration application called the "WisdomTree XRP Fund" in Delaware and is preparing to submit an S-1 registration to the SEC.
Although the SEC has not yet approved any ETF so far, once Trump officially takes office, crypto asset ETFs may be approved in batches.
UNI
Uniswap, as the ace application of Crypto, has become the "first stop on-chain" for many people. To this day, it is still the largest revenue-generating Dapp. It occupies 50% of the trading volume among all DEXes, and has been firmly sitting at the top of the DEX. However, UNI is not in the portfolio of most people, the main reasons being "the market cap of 7 billion is too large, there is no money-making effect" and "UNI is an air coin, with no actual use".
Uniswap's potential is not limited to being the leading DEX. In October this year, Uniswap announced the launch of Unichain, designed specifically for DeFi, and the biggest positive for the token UNI has still not been released. As the largest DEX in Crypto, the SEC has also been sharpening its knife, wanting to collect protection fees. On April 10 this year, the SEC issued a warning to Uniswap, planning to take enforcement action against the company. The core point of contention is that if the token UNI wants to be empowered, and distribute the transaction fees of Uniswap to the holders of the token, then UNI will conflict with the Securities Act. If Trump takes office, UNI will not be subject to regulatory restrictions. Its "dividend" nature will lift UNI to new heights.
BASE
Base is the Layer2 launched by Coinbase. Although it has not issued tokens yet, the fundamentals of Base far exceed other L2s. Not only is the transaction experience smoother than the mainnet, but many native narratives also appear on Base, such as the various SocialFi projects. In the meme track, Base is not to be outdone, and has started to snatch the "AI meme" big meat from Solana's mouth. Whether it is the VIRTUAL that supports the batch issuance of AI Agents, or the Pump.fun CLANKER on Base, the AI wave has quietly risen on Base. Among them, Clanker has already broken through a market value of 100 million today, breaking the inherent impression of many people about the ceiling of Base chain assets.
Similarly, there are also "old projects" like DOT and ADA, which have too large a market cap and are too early in time.
Summary
In investment research and analysis, most people often fall into the psychological trap of "the world is only me", looking for alpha that only a few people pay attention to.
From a young age, we are surrounded by too many such noises: in traditional education, teachers often give more attention to students who can solve problems with new methods; in martial arts novels, the sweeping monk with high martial arts skills often has his own "secret technique". Influenced by such social habits, when we come to the market, we are also affected by this "prisoner's dilemma" of "the world is only me".
Most ordinary traders look down on these top 100, or even top 10 coins, and usually go searching for coins with market caps of tens of millions to find "opportunities to get rich". Instead of spending so much energy watching the alpha of various tracks, it may be the highest cost-performance ratio to study the alpha of "Trump" well.
