Author: 𝗰𝘆𝗰𝗹𝗼𝗽

Compiled by: TechFlow TechFlow

TechFlow Dive: In the crypto market, the myth of 100x growth still exists, but the rules have been completely rewritten. Veteran trader 𝗰𝘆𝗰𝗹𝗼𝗽 points out that with the explosive growth in token supply (an average of 24 times more tokens per person), the traditional "buy and hold" strategy has become a graveyard for wealth.

This article provides an in-depth analysis of the market paradigm evolution from 2017 to the present, revealing how liquidity has rapidly rotated between airdrops, Solana Memecoin, real-revenue protocols (such as HYPE), and “casino-style” platforms.

Standing at the threshold of 2026, the author offers us a completely new practical framework: instead of trying to find that one 10,000x coin, achieve wealth accumulation by capturing the cyclical rotation of "value-casino-structured extraction" and leveraging compound interest. For investors with a "bear market mentality" who yearn to return to their peak, this is not only a guide but also a complete reshaping of their understanding.

The full text is as follows:

Over the past two years, I've turned $8,000 into a seven-figure sum in cryptocurrency.

Most people believe this kind of success is unrepeatable—I disagree. I think now is the perfect time to make the leap from $10,000 to $1 million (though that sounds crazy).

(Important warning: This article is very long. Bookmark it now so you don't miss it, but please be sure to read it to the end; it may change the way you observe this market.)

Even though nobody talks about "altseason" anymore, most people still hold the same preconceived notions:

They are waiting for a huge wave, when all coins will rise together, and you only need to buy a bag of coins, and it will lead you to wealth.

• Hold forever
• Searching for "the one coin"
• Ignore rotations
• Pray that the market will reward patience.

This mindset can indeed make money when token supply is limited and the narrative can last for months.

In 2024, this was generally a mistake. In 2025, it was a mistake for most of the time. And in 2026, it was destined to be a mistake. Not because 100 times is impossible.

It's not because the way to get 100 times the result has changed.

Part 1: 2017-2021, what has changed?

The market has been diluted into a machine for printing tokens.

In early 2017, CoinMarketCap tracked approximately 796 cryptocurrencies. This wasn't a typo—less than 1,000. Back then, around 800 currencies felt like "a lot." Today? CoinGecko statistics show that approximately 5,300 new tokens are being created every day in 2024.

In practice, this means:

• The "Discovery" was real. There were no endless alternatives back then.
• If you gain exposure (appearing on CMC, listing on exchanges, having a basic narrative + some marketing), liquidity has limited destinations, so it will really flow to you.
• People buy random things because the selection menu is small and everyone is learning in sync.

This is why "just appearing on CMC and getting attention" was an advantage from 2017-2021. There's room for everyone.

The attention-to-supply ratio has collapsed.

The most important change since 2021 is:

Attention didn't grow at scale. But the token supply exploded.

There has indeed been an increase in encrypted users.

However, the number of tokens exploded so dramatically that the attention value allocated to each token became increasingly lower.

Crypto.com estimates:

• There were 106 million cryptocurrency holders in January 2021.
• There were 295 million holders in December 2021.
• There were 580 million holders in December 2023.

Supply side (currency/project): Data from CoinGecko's GeckoTerminal shows:

• There were 428,383 projects in 2021.
• There will be 20,170,928 projects by 2025.

Now let's look at the most crucial part: To what extent has the market been diluted?

In 2021, there was approximately one token for every 689 crypto holders. By 2025, there will be approximately one token for every 29 holders.

In just a few years, the per capita supply has increased by about 24 times.

This means that previously, there weren't many places to focus attention, so even random coins could be discovered.

Now, you're competing with a sea of ​​new tokens every day—so "holding a bag of coins and waiting" is no longer a viable strategy.

The large-scale new launches were designed to perform poorly.

Many tokens issued at low prices during the old cycle still have real upside potential in the market. The current common pattern is:

• High fully diluted valuation (FDV) upon launch
• Low float
• Heavy unlocks
• Early holders are seeking exit liquidity.

Memento Research tracked 118 major token launches in 2025:

• 84.7% of the price is lower than the valuation at the time of its token generation event (TGE).
• Median performance: FDV down 71.1% from launch, market capitalization down 66.8%.

This is why "only buying new listings" has become a suicidal strategy. But here's a twist:

Even in this diluted and brutal market, you can still make money if you can pick the right narrative early on. (More details later)

Part Two: Why are lower-level players exploited by the default path?

The illusion of "fair launch"

Retail investors no longer trust venture capitalists (VCs) and are unwilling to buy these overvalued Altcoin after TGE (Tencent's Coin Offering). As a result, the market has created a new product: a casino where anyone can "get in early." There are no VCs, and no overvaluation at TGE.

The Pump.fun era has arrived. Some data is as follows:

• 13.55 million Pump.fun wallet addresses
• Only 55,296 (0.4%) wallets generated profits exceeding $10,000.
• This means that 99.6% of people failed to meet the target, and over 90% of people suffered losses.

So, yes, a very small group of people achieved a great victory.

But the median result is that liquidity is being donated to token developers, their insider friends, paid KOLs, Pump.fun developers, or simply faster players and trading bots. While users are scrambling for scraps, big players are printing money like crazy.

• Pump.fun has collected over $935 million in fees since its launch.

The same dynamic exists in prediction markets: an analysis cited by Finance Magnates states that over 70% of Polymarket's 1.7 million trading addresses incurred losses.

If your plan is "I want to be the exception," you need a real edge. Otherwise, you're just a random variable in a negative distribution.

Part Three: The theme for 2026 is rotation, not a knock-off season.

In a dilutive market where most new coins underperform, liquidity behavior has changed:

• High concentration of liquidity
• Liquidity moves rapidly
• Liquidity needs a story
• Liquidity exits faster than you can imagine.

Therefore, the way to win is not by "picking Altcoin". Instead:

• Identify the next rotation as early as possible
• Go with the flow
• Take profits before the next rotation begins.

This is why 100x returns can still happen in 2026: it's not about a single coin, but about a combination of rotation, position management, and exiting like a professional trader.

Part Four: Between 2023 and 2025, rotation is the only real way to win.

If you look back over the past 2-3 years, the pattern is very clear: You don't win by "holding onto one coin forever." You win by catching the right rotation early—and then rotating again.

Rotation 1 - Airdrops (where I earned my first six-figure sum)

When my capital was small, I didn't intend to win through more sophisticated trading. I was betting on asymmetry—the opportunity that returns didn't depend on the size of my initial capital.

That's exactly what airdrops are. They reward time, not capital, so in that realm, I'm on equal footing with people who have six-figure assets.

When the market was stagnant and nobody cared (BTC was at its bottom), I was doing the boring work—keeping it active, using the protocol. Then the market recovered, and everyone started "farming." By then, the advantage had vanished. That's why early efforts pay off.

Arbitrum ($ARB) launched on March 23, 2023. Optimism has run multiple airdrops over time—the same rotation logic: early entry + persistence = substantial rewards.

This is how I earned my first real capital—not through a miraculous 100x leverage, but by getting in early before the meta-narrative became crowded. I started with $8,000, spent only about $400 on a few airdrops, and ended up with six-figure profits.

Rotation 2 - Early Solana Memecoin (where I earned my first seven figures)

After the airdrop (helicopter money), liquidity rotated to the "casino." Money came and went quickly. The market began to crave something new—Solana Meme became the simplest answer.

I discovered POPCAT when its market capitalization was around $2.5 million and WIF when it was $30 million (they reached market capitalizations of $2 billion and $4 billion respectively a few months later): the growth rate was 100-1000 times.

My success wasn't because I was a trading genius. It was because I was in the market 24/7. The market was dull back then, and these "shiny new Solana coins" were basically the only meta-narrative with real momentum. There were fewer than five coins with a market capitalization of over $1 million at the time, so if you got in early, the winners were easy to spot.

Rotation 3 - "Real Income" Becomes the New Standard (using HYPE as a Template)

After the dopamine rush from memes, the market began to crave something else. Not "utility two years from now," nor "vibes." But something you could explain in a single sentence, something that sounded like a real business.

This is why Hyperliquid ($HYPE) has had such a huge impact. It's not just a "new token." Its story is:

• Real trading activities
• Actual fee income
• Direct benefits from token purchases

Whether you love it or hate it, this is where markets tired of "casinos" and "extraction" turn: visible value capture. Even if you're not that "smart," you can see it: when everyone is tired of memes, they start paying for seemingly sophisticated narratives.

Rotation 4 - Subsequent meta-narrative advancement: "Don't gamble in the casino, own the casino."

This is the most interesting part of the crypto space. People will gamble on 5,000 memes... ...and then suddenly realize that the only sure way to win is on the platforms that charge fees.

This is when "house tokens" and "platform gaming" begin to shine. Pump.fun is a perfect example of this era: users fight each other for scraps, bots reap the benefits, and house tokens quietly print money every day. This isn't a moral judgment; it's simply the law of the market.

The rotation is always the same:

• First, you trade tokens.
• Then you trade on platforms that take a cut from these tokens.

Rotation 5 - When the market goes too far, it will revert to the "real-world" narrative.

After a while, people get tired. They start to crave narratives that can survive even without pure hype:

• Stablecoins
• Payment
• Settlement Track
• Things that ordinary humans actually use

This was deliberately designed to be boring. And boring narratives often win in the later stages because they're the only things that don't require a constant stream of new fools buying at higher prices to sustain themselves. That's why you later see more attention flowing to stories about PayFi/stablecoin infrastructure.

So, what's next?

First, let's face the reality honestly. BTC is currently around $91,000 to $93,000, which looks very "bullish" on paper, but the feeling is quite the opposite. We are still about 25% away from the all-time high of around $124,700 in October 2025, and the market sentiment is still in "bear market mode."

Why? Because we just experienced the biggest liquidation event most people have ever seen—around $19 billion vanished in the 24 hours around October 10-11, 2025.

In such a market, funds will concentrate in 1-2 currently viable sectors, while everything else is bleeding money. This is the same logic as the airdrop before the last cycle's big rally: the market is half-dead—but if you're early enough, that meta-narrative can still make a lot of money.

So the task now is not to "find 50 potential coins". Rather, it is to find those few rotations that can operate without retail investor participation, and to dig deeper into them than others.

The current sentiment is that most tokens are useless, especially L1/L2.

This is the prevailing market sentiment: Most tokens are meaningless and will eventually go to zero because they:

• No real practical use
• No real income generated
• Primarily exists as an exit liquidity mechanism.

This hits L1/L2 the hardest. Because you can't play this game forever: raising funds at an absurdly high valuation, launching with an absurdly high FDV, having only 8 users, earning $20 a month, and pretending to be worth $15 billion. (Starknet, zkSync, Aptos—you know which category I'm talking about.)

Will this sentiment reverse? Maybe. But I don't even need to predict it, because the implications are obvious…

What the market wants next is a new model: real revenue + buybacks.

After three years of "extraction," people have finally understood the class structure: Creators -> VCs -> KOLs -> Robots/Traders -> Finally, everyone who bought in too late.

For most retail investors, this game is a negative expectation: you buy tokens and pray you're not the last one to exit liquidity. That's why the market is currently desperately craving tokens that resemble "enterprises."

A simple model: If a token has a market capitalization of $1 billion, and the protocol earns $800 million in real revenue annually, with 50% of that used to buy back tokens… then that asset has a valuation floor. Unless its revenue collapses, it won't simply go to zero.

This is precisely the logic of value investing in the stock market: when market sentiment is toxic and everyone is fearful, people stop buying "dreams" and start buying "cash flow." Cash flow is the best narrative in a fearful market.

Then the helicopters returned, dropping money—and the casinos followed suit.

This is the part everyone forgets. The "value phase" won't last forever. At some point, the market will start printing money like crazy again: something will skyrocket, people will get lucky, airdrops will start hitting, and a new wave will bring money back into people's hands.

Once people feel they have money, the market will instantly switch from "show me income" to "show me the fastest 10x opportunity." That's when the casino phase returns. Memes, NFTs, whatever new stupid things they invent. It doesn't matter. The rule is always the same: it has no value, but it can provide insane multipliers, and everyone wants quick money.

Then it will crash. And after the crash...

The market is entering the next phase of the "pump and dump narrative" (ICOs, utility tokens, structured issuances).

After a casino is rugged, the market doesn't immediately become "fundamental." It typically shifts to a more structured pump-and-dump scheme, allowing people to spend money again, for example:

• ICO / "Public Offering"
• Points metanarratives
• "Utility Tokens"
• A publishing mechanism where you pay for access, and someone else sells it to you later.

Therefore, the cycle is as follows: Value (income) -> Helicopter money -> Casino -> Collapse -> Structured pumping -> Repetition

Nothing in the crypto space grows forever. What grows is what the market is emotionally hungry for at that moment. So the winning strategy for 2026 isn't "hold and pray." It's: identify early rotations -> ride the wave -> exit before it becomes obvious.

Part 5: How to Achieve a 100-Fold Growth in Reality by 2026

The 100x growth in 2026 won't come from a single trade. It's from stacked rotations. You win by accumulating the "right phases," not by praying you've found your Mr. Right.

This is the system I use:

A maximum of 2 wheels can be selected.

A robust rotation (revenue/infrastructure) + an aggressive rotation (casino/structured). If you're tracking 10 meta-narratives, you'll be late to the party for every single one.

Buy "triggers," not "vibes."

Before I make a large investment, I need a clear trigger. For example:

• The expense/revenue trend has been rising for several consecutive weeks.
• Without outrageous incentives, users return.
• Distribution channels launched (integration, major platforms, genuine attention).
• The narrative has begun to spread but has not yet entered the mainstream.

Without a trigger, no entry will occur.

Define "Invalidation" before entering a trade. Most people lose money not because they're wrong, but because they don't know how to exit. No one goes bankrupt from taking profit (even if it's only $1). Remember that. Your invalidation list should be tedious:

• Usage collapse
• The income was fabricated.
• Liquidity rotation has left
• Token economics / Unlocking begins and dumping begins

If the failure condition is met, you leave the game. There is no argument.

Warehouse Management - Three-Layer Stacking

This is how you can gain huge profits without resetting your resources:

• Beta (the liquidity leader in rotation)
• Water sellers (infrastructure that wins no matter what)
• Bettors (small-cap coins that perfectly fit the narrative) Only Bettors = gambling odds. Only Beta = capped returns.

Profit-taking is the real core advantage.

The rotation ends faster than you might imagine. Therefore:

• Reduce positions during a strong upward trend
• Don't fall in love with mid-cap coins.
• Always know where you're going to rotate next.

If you don't have a next rotation target, you'll be on a "roller coaster" back the way you came.

Part Six: The Trap That Traps Most People

The trap lies in thinking, "If I hold it long enough, it will definitely go up." This worked when the market was small, but it doesn't now.

Because now:

• The supply is unlimited.
• New coins are listed just to dump their value.
• Most tokens exist solely to exploit you.

So, if your plan is still:

• Buy random new coins
• Holding mid-cap coins in order to achieve the so-called "long cycle"
• Chasing the already popular trend

...You are participating in a "harvesting" game specifically tailored for you.

Rotation is the vulnerability. Because rotation is the current behavior of liquidity.

I observe every week:

• Which sectors are experiencing real fee increases?
• Which apps have active users returning?
• Where are trading volume and open interest moving?
• Where are liquidity incentives being deployed?
• Is the narrative still in its early stages, or has it already become a topic of conversation among the "top ten cryptocurrencies"?

Most people don't miss the narrative. They arrive only after the narrative has become obvious.

So in 2026, as in every year before, the winners won't be the "right people." They will be the "early people"—and they will keep rotating.