The New Normal of the Crypto Assets Market: Parallel Diversification Cycles

After recent discussions with industry veterans, a consensus is gradually forming: the traditional "four-year cycle" theory is outdated. If one still clings to the fantasies of "holding coins and waiting for wealth" or "hundredfold returns in a bull market," they are likely already behind the market.

The current Crypto Assets market has evolved into four parallel yet distinctly different cycles operating simultaneously, each with its unique rhythm, strategies, and profit models.

Bitcoin's Super Cycle

Bitcoin has evolved from a purely speculative asset to an institutional allocation asset. The massive capital involvement from Wall Street, publicly listed companies, and ETFs has completely changed the traditional halving cycle logic. Retail investors are exiting in large numbers, while institutional investors, represented by certain technology companies, are actively entering the market. This fundamental change in the chip structure is reshaping Bitcoin's price discovery mechanism and volatility characteristics.

Retail investors face the dual pressure of time costs and opportunity costs. Institutional investors can endure a holding period of 3-5 years, while retail investors clearly find it difficult to possess such patience and financial strength.

In the future, there may be a Bitcoin slow bull market lasting more than ten years. The annualized return may stabilize in the range of 20-30%, but the intraday volatility will significantly decrease, becoming more like a steadily growing tech stock.

MEME's Attention Short Wave Cycle

The MEME market is essentially a speculative vehicle of "instant gratification" that does not require complex technical support; it only needs symbols that can resonate. From internet culture to political topics, from AI concepts to community IP, MEME has developed into a complete "emotional monetization" industry chain.

The "short, flat, and quick" characteristics of the MEME market make it an indicator of market sentiment and a reservoir of funds. However, this former "grassroots paradise" is transforming into a "professional arena." The difficulty for ordinary investors to profit in this high-frequency rotation is sharply increasing.

Leapfrog Long Cycles of Technological Innovation

Innovations that truly have technical barriers, such as Layer2 scaling, ZK technology, and AI infrastructure, typically require 2-3 years or even longer development time to see actual results. These types of projects follow the technology maturity curve rather than the emotional cycles of capital markets, and there is a significant time lag between the two.

The value release of technology projects exhibits a non-linear leap characteristic. For investors with patience and technical judgment, laying out truly valuable technology projects during the "trough period" may be the best strategy to achieve excess returns.

Short Cycle of Innovative Hotspots

Before the formation of mainstream technological narratives, various small hotspots quickly rotated, from physical assets to decentralized IoT, from AI agents to AI infrastructure, with each small hotspot typically having a window period of only 1 to 3 months.

The fragmentation and high-frequency rotation of this narrative reflect the dual constraints of current market attention scarcity and the efficiency of capital seeking profit. A typical small hotspot cycle follows a six-stage model: "concept validation → capital probing → opinion amplification → chasing highs and cutting losses → valuation overdraw → capital withdrawal."

If we can establish technological connections and conceptual progress between small hotspots, forming a systematic upgrade linkage, and build a sustainable value closed loop in the process, it is possible to give rise to significant industry opportunities similar to "DeFi summer."

From the current trends, the AI infrastructure sector is most likely to achieve breakthroughs first. If various underlying technologies can be organically integrated, there is indeed potential to create a significant opportunity at the level of an "AI summer."

Conclusion

Understanding the essence of these four parallel running market cycles is crucial for finding suitable strategies at their respective rhythms. Clearly, the simple "four-year cycle" thinking can no longer cope with the complexity of the current market. Adapting to the new normal of "multiple cycles in parallel" may be the key to truly profiting in this market.