You should be a compliant sheep and not go against the trend.
Written by: Tulip King
Compiled by: Luffy, Foresight News
Alpha First:
- Retail investors have not participated in this cycle
- Your trading counterparts are battle-hardened veterans
- Follow the consensus
Every war begins in the same way. The elderly become entangled in irreconcilable disputes over beliefs, power, and resources, with the ultimate solution being to send young people to kill each other. We all know the saying "the old declare war, the youth die," but no one talks about what happens after the war.
As the war's consumption continues and manpower is depleted, countries are forced to draft from larger age groups. Suddenly, teenagers and middle-aged men appear in the trenches. By the final stage, you'll see children and the elderly trembling while gripping rifles. This is our current situation in the crypto trenches.
We have long passed the peak moment of 2021
The Google search trend for "cryptocurrency" peaked during the 2021 DeFi summer and has not recovered since. Even the "crypto bros" helping Trump get elected could only pull the search interest back to 61% of its previous high. It must be said that there is almost no fresh blood in the crypto trenches. If you are reading this article, congratulations, you are one of the "old-timers" still fighting in the trenches. Next, let's develop a survival plan.
Don't Be Afraid to Follow the Consensus
"Consensus is always wrong" is a common fallacy, and knowing when to follow the crowd is a subtle art. Remember when Warren Buffett started buying Apple stock in 2016, it was already the world's largest company by market cap, not his typical "deep value investment". In this market, you should be a compliant sheep and not go against the trend.
In past cycles, the influx of new retail investors lowered the overall IQ and experience level in the crypto trenches. This allowed you to easily leverage your experience and sell new Ponzi schemes to them. If we had the same scale of retail participation as in 2021, Launchcoin could easily break a $1 billion market cap, whereas now it hasn't even broken $400 million before starting to decline.
Remember, crypto Twitter is just a niche corner of the industry. We're all reading the same articles, complaining about the same things, staring at the same 5-minute charts on DEX Screener, and trading the same tokens. This also means that projects like Launchcoin are already the fifth-generation harvest-type meme coin we've seen, and people simply aren't interested in playing this game again.
The opposite of this phenomenon is equally true. This is why Bitcoin and Hyperliquid are performing better than other networks. Everyone in the trenches has reached a consensus: we indeed are bullish on these tokens. Bitcoin has never let us down, and Hyperliquid is truly an excellent product. As long as these tokens maintain a positive consensus sentiment, you can continue to accumulate.
In this cycle, new funds flowing into consensus assets like Bitcoin and Hyperliquid will come from institutions and experienced crypto traders who have abandoned going against the trend.
Don't Go Against the Trend, Act Early
Today's market lacks inexperienced retail investors, which also means it's difficult to make money by going against the trend. In this cycle, your trading counterparts are as smart as you. If your contrarian trade has not yet gained consensus, it will not succeed.
Ethereum continues to underperform other networks
This is why .eth supporters cannot change Ethereum's narrative. We've heard Bankless drone on about the same clichés countless times. Unless I see Vitalik tattoo Ethereum's L1 scaling roadmap on his forehead, you'll never convince me to buy that "cursed coin" again. I'm smart, having exchanged Ethereum for Bitcoin earlier than most (early 2023), but I still regret holding it for so long. I think other people in the market feel the same way.
Rather than going against the trend, it's better to get involved early in areas not yet discussed. Don't bet on being able to fight the market, but bet on being able to research and uncover potential projects more diligently. The real advantage is discovering quality targets before consensus forms:
- Invest in new networks with imperfect bridging functionality
- Buy small-cap tokens with high slippage
- Look for projects with extremely poor user experience but brilliant ideas
Contact your friends who are most deeply involved in the Bitcoin and HyperEVM ecosystems, ask them which emerging projects are not getting enough attention, and dive deep into project documentation. The strategy is not to fight consensus, but to dive into consensus faster than everyone else.
Where Will Institutional Funds Flow?
Although retail investors are on the sidelines, institutions are actually entering. The good news is: institutions are essentially "consensus market participants":
- They cannot invest in assets with poor liquidity and must focus on the largest assets
- They cannot justify "contrarian bets on Memecoins" to investors, as they have a fiduciary responsibility to make rational decisions
- They move slowly but have massive funds, creating predictable trends
Even better, institutional movements are relatively easy to predict because large-scale business models only have two types:
Asset Management / Custody: Institutions like BlackRock want to custody the largest assets to obtain the highest returns. Their ETF fund flows will first benefit Bitcoin, possibly spilling over to other large-cap assets like XRP.
Trading Volume / Volatility: Institutions like Citadel Securities make money by trading more cleverly in the order book. They need markets with sufficient liquidity and reasonable volatility, which is exactly what Hyperliquid provides in the derivatives space.
So ask yourself: what is the most consensual custodial asset? Bitcoin. Then ask: where is the consensus venue for trading new assets? Hyperliquid. Don't try to be clever and outsmart institutions; sometimes things are this simple: position yourself where institutional funds will flow, not where you think they should go.
Potential Areas for Retail Entry
AI heat is still rising
Lastly, a hedging strategy. The search interest in "AI" is still climbing to new highs nearly three years after ChatGPT's launch. The intersection of cryptocurrency and AI could potentially attract fund inflows.
However, how exactly this will develop remains unclear. Will retail investors truly buy crypto projects, or continue to chase Nvidia? Will they buy crypto projects like Bittensor or Sam's Worldcoin? The AI narrative might be the only catalyst powerful enough to bring retail investors back to the crypto market. But it may only benefit specific projects, not cause a broad rally.
The Veteran's Advantage
The absence of retail investors doesn't mean this bull market can't be profitable; it just means it will reward different skills. Veterans still in the trenches have the following advantages:
- Ability to identify trend shifts before the narrative fully forms
- Understanding of market cycles and when to take profits
- Networks for sharing information with other veterans
- Risk management strategies tested in battle
This cycle will reward patience, discipline, following consensus, and the ability to position early in emerging narratives. It will not reward contrarian bets against established trends or efforts to revive dead narratives.
Fighting in the crypto trenches is not easy, but for those who adapt to the new battlefield environment, the rewards will be substantial. The veteran legion may be smaller than the retail army of 2021, but we are smarter, more experienced, and better at capturing value.
