Annual Summary: Farewell to 2025 and Outlook for the Future of the Cryptocurrency Market.

Looking back at 2025, this has been the most challenging year for the cryptocurrency market in the past five years, and also the year with the poorest overall returns from 2020 to now. Cryptocurrency is still more difficult than US stocks, mainly because in Q4, the trends on both sides began to diverge significantly, and the rhythm completely mismatched.
The targets set at the beginning of 2025 for BTC and ETH were not achieved, but I actually think this is not a bad thing. After a violent shakeout, emotions were repeatedly crushed, positions became lighter, and the market structure became healthier. The next bull market will be even stronger.
So I set the target for the next bull market as: BTC $250,000, ETH $10,000. Of course, this is just a directional goal; there will definitely be many pullbacks and reversals in between, rotation is inevitable, and it won't follow a straight line.
More importantly, the change is not actually in price, but in the participant structure. Cryptocurrency has fully entered an institutionalized phase centered around Wall Street. The old cycle driven by whales and retail sentiment has basically ended. Now, institutions are entering while retail investors are exiting. Wall Street is beginning to systematically focus on stablecoins, RWA, staking—directions that are "grounded and scalable."
A large number of meme tokens without value support have already been verified by time as only phase products. You can see that many once-prominent large holders are approaching liquidation. Prolonged oscillation has instead provided institutions with ample opportunities to build positions, while retail investors mostly cannot withstand this rollercoaster market. Messari's data is also very intuitive: in 2025, over 60% of retail investors have voluntarily or passively left the market.
This has repeatedly happened in crypto history: deep corrections + prolonged time, even with stronger faith, emotions will first collapse.
Against this background, my focus for the next bull market is also very clear.
First, leading public chains. Public chains are always the foundation of crypto, and the core of the public chain track remains ETH and SOL➕BNB.
Second, leading stablecoins. It’s only a matter of time before stablecoin market cap exceeds one trillion dollars. It has become the second growth curve of the dollar system. Among compliant stablecoins, CRCL has the clearest position, and the early shakeout has actually created space for future growth. Corresponding tokens: ENA, XPL.
Third, leading exchanges. Exchanges are key hubs connecting traditional finance and crypto finance. Coinbase’s stock performed the strongest in this cycle, with a 15x increase that outperformed BNB. The next bull market should focus on Coinbase stock➕ and platform tokens.
Fourth, oracles. To truly integrate real-world finance with on-chain finance, the importance of oracles will only increase. Corresponding tokens: LINK, PYTH, REZ.
Fifth, staking. The release of ETH staking ETFs is only a matter of time. The more complete the staking ecosystem, the stronger the composability of crypto finance. Some institutions, including BitMine, have already begun early deployment of Ethereum validator infrastructure for 2026. Corresponding tokens: LDO, ETHFI.
Sixth, RWA. The core of RWA is not on-chain interest but the benchmark returns brought by real credit assets like US Treasuries. It addresses the long-standing "credit source" issue in DeFi, essentially a comprehensive set of legal, financial, and compliance engineering. It is still in early stages, but the space in 2026 remains large, with Ethereum still as the main infrastructure. Corresponding tokens: ONDO, PLUME.
Seventh, DeFi. Single-point DeFi is hard to take off again; only those that can connect public chains, oracles, staking, and RWA will have opportunities in the next phase. Corresponding tokens: AAVE, SKL.
Eighth, AI. The AI theme in US stocks has not yet run its course, but the rhythm will become a typical "two steps forward, one step back," where position and patience are more important than emotions. Corresponding tokens: TAO, WLD, VIRTUAL.
Overall, 2025 feels more like a brutal filter, and the next bull market will be the cycle where institutions truly start to exert influence and new financial structures gradually take shape.