Author: 1912212.eth, Foresight News
"I lost over a million last year," Xiao Su told Foresight News.
As an old-timer in the crypto market, he bought many VC coins during the previous bull market cycle. In 2021, Bitcoin once broke through $67,000, reaching a historical high, and many VC coins rose accordingly, with gains even higher than Bitcoin, from which Xiao Su made his first pot of gold.
However, the market is unpredictable. In this cycle, Xiao Su suffered losses. Since 2024, several VC coins he heavily invested in performed poorly, continuously declining. Forced to be a diamond hand, he could no longer withstand it and had to cut losses at low points. After doing this multiple times, he had already given back most of his accumulated gains.
"Why is it so difficult to make money in this cycle? Who actually made money in the market?" Xiao Su was puzzled. In his view, the era of blindly buying coins and making money while lying down or sleeping is gone, and now one must "run fast" to earn money. Market participants like VCs, market makers, exchanges, project parties, retail investors, and farming studios all face significant new challenges.
Xiao Su's experience is not an isolated case. Not only veterans like him, but some well-known crypto VC institutions have also recently announced transformations, candidly admitting that their primary investment returns this cycle were extremely disappointing.
However, looking at cryptocurrency history, 2024 to 2025 is a momentous year. The approval of Bitcoin spot ETF has led traditional financial institutions to rush in. With Trump potentially returning to power and crypto policies becoming unprecedented lenient, a series of positive factors have pushed Bitcoin's price from the bottom of $15,000 to break through $100,000, creating a historical high.
Investors' expectations for a crazy bull market reached their peak.
However, the other major player, Ethereum, shattered investors' dreams. Ethereum did not even create a new historical high in this cycle. The two previous price boosters, DeFi and NFT, also did not emerge in a hot wave. Its founder Vitalik and the Ethereum Foundation faced severe criticism. With ETH's decline, narratives around Layer 2, restaking, and ZK all faded, and many related ecosystem tokens performed disappointingly.
The only hot spot - the MEME coin wave - is to some extent a retail investor's venting of dissatisfaction with VC coin overvaluation. VC coin returns were already divided by VCs before listing, leaving only retail investors to bag hold and "endless decline".
In this even more brutal "casino", only a few shrewd traders, insider traders, and token issuance groups made huge profits. Most retail investors frantically chasing MEME coins lost more and more in repeated lottery-like events, ultimately realizing that the so-called wealth effect was just someone else's "unboxing show".
So who are the real winners? Foresight News interviewed multiple crypto practitioners across different tracks to get their answers.
Bitcoin Holders: Win Big
Bitcoin buyers have undoubtedly earned substantial returns in this cycle. On May 10th, Bitcoin Magazine Pro data showed that only 0.55% of addresses were still at a loss after breaking $100,000, indicating most Bitcoin players are in a profitable state. By the time of writing, Bitcoin had broken through $110,000, creating a historical high, with no one losing money on Bitcoin purchases, and all buyers realizing profits.
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NDV (NextGen Digital Venture) fund, established in 2022, is one such example. Its founder Jason (@jhy256) told Foresight News that NDV's first fund was fully liquidated in February this year, achieving a total return of 3.75 times, and has recently started financing for its second fund.
Jason, with rich experience in venture capital, previously worked at institutions like CITIC Capital and Qiming Venture Capital. In 2023, at 34, he left the family office Blue Pool Capital (established by Jack Ma and Cai Chongxin) to create NextGen Digital Venture.
Jason stated, "In the broader world, external buying remains substantial. Many institutions haven't even allocated 0.1%, possibly just buying a small portion, indifferent to price fluctuations. If traditional big money allocates 1% of funds to Bitcoin, it would be quite significant for this asset class." In the first year, he placed most of the fund's position on GBTC, and last year switched strategies to crypto-related stocks like Coinbase and Strategy. These operations undoubtedly captured market trends.
Discussing Bitcoin's rise, he emphasized the spot ETF's crucial role. "Traditional financial money can directly flow to BTC through ETFs, which is a key reason why BTC continues to outperform many altcoins. Perhaps Trump's election and token issuance might give other digital currencies new opportunities."
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In the crypto world over the past year, the track with the most significant wealth effect is undoubtedly "MEME". Since the beginning of 2024, MEME coins have sparked an unprecedented wave in the crypto market. From WIF and BONK on the Solana chain, to PEPE and TURBO on Ethereum, and the rapidly popular DEGEN and MOCHI on the Base chain, even MEME assets in the Bitcoin ecosystem, each hot spot quickly attracted tens of thousands of retail investors and speculators.
MEME is no longer just entertainment; it has become a new experimental ground for wealth distribution mechanisms. According to CoinGecko and dune analytics, in 2024, the total market value of MEME coins soared from less than $2 billion to over $60 billion, with an annual increase of over 2,900%. Among them, the market value of MEME coins on the Solana chain alone accounted for over 1/3. WIF rose from an initial market value of less than $1 million to over $3 billion, with early holders gaining returns of over 10,000 times. Some users purchased a new MEME coin BOME for less than $200 in April 2024, and their account value skyrocketed to over $2 million in just 72 hours.
These MEME coins often lack traditional technical backgrounds and don't even rely on complete project white papers. With just a slogan or a simple dog avatar, they can trigger millions of dollars in trading volume.
The most crazy MEME wealth effect belongs to the MEME coin TRUMP before Trump's official entry into the White House. Traders like 0xSun, Dayu, Lengjing, and CryptoD earned tens of millions of dollars from a single coin, causing a sensation in the entire crypto circle. However, players who can earn such huge profits from a single coin are ultimately a small minority. Position management and risk appetite are also a major challenge.
Yuyue frankly says she is flexible in position management and doesn't hold long-term positions other than Bitcoin. In trading style, "Currently, there are chain-scanning and two-stage schools of thought, which are distinctly different. I lean more towards the two-stage approach, which focuses on narrative."
She emphasizes that market participants must have their own judgment on targets, such as focusing on narrative and market cap estimation range when following the two-stage approach. The narrative is not imagined but supported by K-lines and market trends.
On-chain OG player "Bit Factory Director" also made a fortune in the MEME coin gold rush. He told Foresight News, "In the previous cycle, I earned dozens of times returns in just a few weeks with SHIB, which started my on-chain trading journey. In the recent MEME trading, I've made profits around millions of dollars, capturing opportunities in targets like ORDI, GOAT, and TRUMP."
However, achieving high returns is not easy. "Those who get high returns often invest significant effort in on-chain research and time. This is what they deserve, and ordinary people might not be able to do it," he lamented.
Trading MEME coins tests players' skills more than mainstream coins. Bit Factory Director says MEME trading requires grasping big players, big trends, big narratives, and big hotspots. Searching keywords or contract addresses on Twitter can also be used to observe short-term popularity.
He uses his MEME coin profits to buy Bitcoin. "Currently, my Bitcoin position is around 85%, BNB and Ethereum around 13%, with some remaining Altcoin MEME coins."
The MEME coin wealth myth temporarily died down during the market downturn, with rare large-scale profit displays on social media. Many MEME coin players with dreams of sudden wealth were repeatedly frustrated in their "lottery" attempts, oscillating between zero and selling out. Some chose to return to mainstream Altcoins, while others sought opportunities in different tracks.
Perhaps every MEME player unwilling to leave is waiting for the moment when the Altcoin market completely recovers. Some market players, through effective strategies and persistence, have achieved great results - they are airdrop players.
[The rest of the translation continues in the same manner...]Regarding this, Feng Mi reflected, "Farming has never been a mechanical, assembly-line operation. Every account, every TX, every project token is something I've carefully interacted with, recorded, and waited for, even losing money on. They are not just numbers, but more like a series of strategic and luck-based battles, with extremely intense emotional investment. Each project has consumed a lot of effort and time, Gas and principal. Because of this, it's an emotional investment. But this 'emotion' became my biggest mistake in this round: unable to sell when I should have, hesitating when I should have exited. As a result, I handed over the profits already in my hands to the market, merely accompanying it for a part of the journey."
Market players win and lose, and winners are always the minority. Subsequently, whether individuals or studios, repeatedly countered in farming, when zkSync, LayerZero and other airdrops emerged, the market was filled with wailing. Small retail investors received meager airdrops, farming studios suffered heavy losses, and were even forced to close. Project parties were heavily criticized, but maintained a tough stance. From then on, most market projects began to follow suit, reducing or even stopping airdrops.
Feng Mi told Foresight News, "The wild era of farming has long ended. The bonus window where everyone could earn their first pot of gold from the chain has closed. Now, it's no longer a stage where you can earn rewards by simply interacting with a few buttons."
When farming players generally find it difficult, persisting becomes even harder. Many players miss wealth opportunities due to insufficient patience. Feng Mi analyzes the root cause of players' inability to persist: "Airdrops are delayed, Gas keeps being invested, interactions are boring, tasks become increasingly formalistic, points become increasingly diluted. When returns are delayed, doubts gradually erode execution power, and complaints follow. However, the real big results often hide just after the point where you almost want to give up, almost think it's ineffective. You must believe - results are not first happening, but first believed, before being realized."
Feng Mi also shared farming failure cases, "On Babylon, I did extensive BTC staking interactions, investing significant funds and attention. The result was extremely limited airdrop allocation, with earnings too miserable to look at. Additionally, I heavily invested in the entire Move ecosystem, including Aptos, with investments exceeding $4 million at market peak. However, ecosystem projects collectively underperformed, with no standout projects, and the official team lacking direction and top-tier operational capabilities."
Airdrops also have various flavors of experience.
However, compared to buying coins, farming airdrops might still be one of the few tracks where one can earn big money from initial small principal. Multi-account strategies and boutique account strategies remain viable approaches, but require more sophisticated methods. The game of outsmarting project parties still greatly tests farmers' cognition and execution.
Conclusion
The only constant in the crypto market is change. One day in crypto is like a year in the human world - though exaggerated, it reflects the speed of change. Unable to see clearly or grasp opportunities means losing them, which is undoubtedly most tormenting for those constantly pursuing more wealth in the industry.
However, the most fascinating aspect of the crypto circle is that every time market participants believe they've reached the end of wealth effects, there's always some inconspicuous corner or domain quietly growing, preparing for subsequent rise, continuously attracting curious young people through another surprising wealth effect.
