Author: A Ray's New World
Many experienced players and veteran investors believe that the style of the bull market in 2024 will be very different and won't be as difficult as in 2021. It's hard not because of the absence of original narratives, but due to the lack of new retail investors entering the market, the overwhelming number of high FDV projects entering to harvest, and the long-awaited mass adoption still not materializing...
However, as Dickens said, 'It is the best of times, it is the worst of times.' The answer to the wealth code is often written on its surface.
Riding Trump's bull market
At the moment Bitcoin is approved through ETFs, crypto assets have clearly become a market dominated by the West. Nearly all major positive news and narrative innovations in this cycle have come from Western capital, whether it’s SocialFi, DePIN, or Restaking. In this 'most difficult bull market in history,' you really just need to follow Trump and Western concepts to switch to Easy mode.
Trump's favorable memes
BTC
After Trump took office, BTC was the first to take the lead. Due to the memorable grandeur of 2021, many experienced players still hope to replicate the last alt season, while new players are immersed in the fantasy of 'betting on altcoins, lying down to get rich.' However, in this bull market, holding BTC has already outperformed a portfolio full of altcoins.
It is the worst of times, it is the best of times.
Since the beginning of the year, BTC has surged from $40,000 to around $98,000 now, achieving a return of over 200%. During the same period, the only sectors that outperformed BTC are the meme sector and some mainstream public chain tokens (e.g., SOL, SUI), while most altcoins have not seen significant price changes compared to the beginning of the year.
Before the elections, Trump was publicly and vocally promoting BTC. At the Bitcoin 2024 conference held in Nashville, Trump appeared and gave a nearly one-hour speech, declaring that he would 'fire the SEC chairman' and 'never sell your Bitcoin.' He also announced plans to establish a national strategic reserve for Bitcoin, ensuring that the U.S. would become the world's crypto center and a superpower in Bitcoin. The favorable policies and positive commitments from Trump regarding Bitcoin are quite rare in the global capital market. With Trump's support, BTC broke through the long-standing pressure at the $70,000 mark with brute force and achieved a 40% increase in a short period.
Apart from ETFs, national strategic reserves and Bitcoin superpowers have become the largest narrative for BTC.
DOGE
Dogecoin, as the ancestor of meme coins, has a deep relationship with Musk and Trump. In April 2019, Musk stated on Twitter that Dogecoin was his favorite cryptocurrency, calling it 'cool.' During the May 2021 episode of Saturday Night Live, Musk referred to himself as the 'Dogefather' and called Dogecoin 'the people's cryptocurrency.' Over time, Musk became increasingly tied to Dogecoin, even becoming the public's image spokesperson for Dogecoin. To this day, DOGE has experienced four cycles of bull and bear markets but remains firmly in the top ten of cryptocurrency by market cap.
Most people hold the belief that 'the market cap is too large to move' and 'buy new, not old,' and do not pay attention to DOGE. However, after DOGE launched, it directly embarked on an independent market, stunning everyone with its own 'path of rise.' It has quadrupled in the past year and doubled in the past month, heading straight for $1 each.
PEPE
The name Pepe comes from the character Pepe the Frog created by American cartoonist Matt Furie, who first appeared in his work (Boy's Club). This character won affection for its cute image and funny expressions, gaining some attention on the internet. Pepe the Frog first appeared in a comic in 2005 and later became a well-known meme in internet culture. The Pepe coin was issued on Ethereum in April 2023 and skyrocketed after nearly a year of wash trading, maintaining a fluctuating market cap of tens of billions of dollars since then.
Pepe, as a meme expression popular in the West, launched on Robinhood and Coinbase after a six-month silence. Robinhood, as the largest trading platform in the U.S., previously only listed DOGE and SHIB as meme coins. The listing of PEPE signifies the importance of PEPE in the U.S. market. This is another significant positive for the development route of Pepe in the U.S. market, directly causing the market cap of PEPE, maintained at $6 billion, to surge by 50%, briefly breaking the $10 billion mark.
WIF
In late December 2019, images of various logos and graphics added to beanies became popular as profile pictures among esports organizations and celebrities. WIF stands for dogwifhat, inspired by the meme ancestor 'DOGE,' while also incorporating the characteristics of viral beanies.
WIF's route is similar to PEPE's; it can be said to be PEPE's junior. On November 14, Coinbase listed dogwifhat (WIF), and on that day, it surged over 30%, approaching previous highs. In addition to being already listed on Coinbase, on November 25, Robinhood also listed WIF, making it the first Solana memecoin to be listed on Robinhood.
PNUT
PNUT is the most frequently mentioned animal meme after DOGE during this cycle.
The squirrel image of PNUT comes from a squirrel named Peanut adopted by an engineer named Mark seven years ago. Mark often shared videos of his interactions with Peanut on Instagram, gradually gaining hundreds of thousands of followers. However, nearby residents complained to the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), claiming that Peanut carried infectious diseases. Mysteriously, the DEC invaded Mark Longo's home without a search warrant and took Peanut away. Consequently, Mark Longo launched a petition on social media, which tens of thousands of fans signed. Unfortunately, Peanut was ultimately euthanized by the DEC.
After the euthanasia of Peanut, Dogecoin condemned the Democrats, and Musk also expressed condolences for Peanut and claimed that Trump's presidency would save Peanut. The animal image represented by Peanut is not just a meme of a social media star but has begun to accumulate a 'Trump' political color buff.
Due to the rapid surge earlier, PNUT has seen a large number of retail investors 'dumping,' leading to a washout lasting 9 days. Today, PNUT has stabilized at a small level and shows signs of a pullback.
In my previous article series 'Bull Market Bottoming,' I provided a detailed narrative analysis of PNUT (Why $PNUT is the biggest alpha in this cycle? | Bull Market Bottoming Checklist). The explanations given in the article also clarify why PNUT has been able to maintain above $1 billion while most memecoins struggle to break the $1 billion hard cap.
In addition to these memes, there are also DOGE, which is closely related to Musk (a new government department established by Musk after Trump's inauguration), and Banana (the logo on Musk's rocket).
Trump's favorable enterprises
People often rely on historical experiences from previous bull markets, usually following the 'pyramid cup' logic: BTC leads the way, overflow funds flow into mainstream tokens like ETH, and then further overflow into lower-cap altcoins, leading to the arrival of an 'altcoin season.' Under the current BTC-driven 'BTC bull market' in the U.S., the market has belatedly realized that there seems to be no altcoin season. 'BTC has been leading, and funds have never overflowed.'
However, the altcoin season has not disappeared; it has just changed its form of existence: the funds that overflowed after BTC led the market have been given to US stocks related to BTC concepts.
COIN
COIN is the stock of Coinbase, which achieved an 800% surge this year. Before the elections, Coinbase's stock price continued to rise due to the crypto bull market. Although COIN experienced a pullback mid-year, Coinbase's stock price rose by 31% due to the election results on November 6, 2024, from $193.96 to $254.31. Investing in COIN is equivalent to investing in the β of 'U.S. crypto assets'; any positive news regarding crypto assets will almost be absorbed by COIN's stock price.
Apart from COIN, other crypto series stock options in the U.S. have also shown a strong sense of momentum.
MSTR
MicroStrategy is a company that specializes in business intelligence software, but in 2020 it began a strategy of 'issuing bonds to buy cryptocurrencies.' To date, MicroStrategy holds 1.2% of the total circulating supply of Bitcoin, making it the publicly listed company with the most Bitcoin globally. MicroStrategy's stock price skyrocketed by 1000% within a year, far exceeding Bitcoin's returns.
MicroStrategy's strategy of issuing bonds to buy Bitcoin has led many to worry that MSTR is the next LUNA, but MicroStrategy's safety is much better than LUNA. Moreover, its recent repayment period is in 2027, which is still some time away.
In addition to companies like MicroStrategy that rely on Bitcoin, many 'small-cap' companies have begun to mimic MicroStrategy's strategy. For example, the fitness equipment company Interactive Strength (TRNR) announced that after its board approved cryptocurrency as a treasury reserve asset, the company plans to purchase up to $5 million worth of Bitcoin. Following the announcement, the company's stock price soared over 80%. Similarly, 'small-cap' companies including LQR House (LQR), Cosmos Health (COSM), Nano Labs (NA), Gaxos (GXAI), Solidion Technology (STI), and Genius Group (GNS) also saw a brief spike in stock prices after announcing their Bitcoin treasury plans in November.
Western concept public chains
In addition to tokens closely related to Trump, the Bitcoin president's ascension is a tremendous boon for all crypto projects rooted in the West. Not only will the regulatory environment for crypto assets in the U.S. relax, but it will also facilitate the inflow of traditional financial capital into crypto assets. Among the tokens listed on Coinbase, the traditional American brokerage firms will first encounter not only BTC and ETH but also ADA, BCH, DOT, XRP, etc. Similarly, when the floodgates open, the water will only go to the larger containers.
SOL
Solana, as one of the high-performance public chains challenging Ethereum in the previous cycle, seems to have 'half' replaced Ethereum's position in the crypto ecosystem this time around. In the last cycle, Solana backed by FTX 'went smoothly,' but after FTX collapsed, Solana became a target of FUD, with a low point of only $11. Since September 2023, Solana has welcomed its trending market. In a year's time, Solana has become a genuine meme public chain in the crypto space due to its high performance and low GAS costs, forming a unique gameplay centered around memes, successfully breaking the $200 mark and attempting to reach previous highs again.
XRP
At the beginning of this cycle, XRP was mired in legal disputes with the SEC and regulatory quagmires. In December 2020, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a lawsuit against Ripple Labs, accusing it of conducting an unregistered securities offering by selling XRP. The SEC believes XRP meets the criteria for securities, thus requiring registration and compliance with federal securities laws. Due to the SEC's lawsuit and the regulatory uncertainty surrounding XRP's classification, several cryptocurrency exchanges, including Coinbase, delisted XRP. On August 7, 2023, the court made a final judgment requiring Ripple to pay a civil fine of $125,035,100 and prohibiting the company from further violating (securities law).
Ripple CEO claimed on FOX News that the XRP ETF will be launched in 2025.
However, after Trump takes office, XRP not only swept away the shadows of past regulatory issues but also many institutions have rushed to apply for XRP's ETF.
In early October, Bitwise and Canary Capital submitted applications for an XRP ETF to the SEC. On November 2, 21Shares submitted the application for '21Shares Core XRP Trust' to the SEC, joining the ranks of those seeking approval for an XRP ETF. On November 25, WisdomTree Funds submitted a fund registration application called 'WisdomTree XRP Fund' in Delaware and prepared to submit S-1 registration to the SEC.
Although the SEC has yet to approve any ETFs, after Trump officially takes office, crypto asset ETFs may be approved in batches.
UNI
Uniswap, as the crown jewel of Crypto, has become many people's 'first stop on the chain.' To this day, it remains the Dapp with the highest revenue. It accounts for 50% of all DEX trading volume and has consistently held its position as the leading DEX. However, UNI is not in most people's portfolios, primarily due to 'the $7 billion market cap is too large, with no profit effect' and 'UNI is an air coin with no real utility.'
Uniswap's potential goes beyond being a leading DEX. In October this year, Uniswap announced the launch of Unichain, designed specifically for DeFi, and the biggest benefit of the UNI token has yet to be released. As the largest DEX in Crypto, the SEC has been sharpening its knives, eager to collect protection fees. On April 10 of this year, the SEC warned Uniswap, planning to take enforcement actions against the company. The core controversy lies in whether UNI, if it wants to empower and distribute Uniswap’s transaction fees to token holders, would conflict with (securities law). If Trump takes office, UNI would be free from regulatory restrictions. Its 'dividend' nature would elevate UNI to new heights.
BASE
Base is a Layer 2 launched by Coinbase. Although it has not issued tokens yet, the fundamentals of Base far exceed those of other L2s. Not only is the trading experience smoother than the mainnet, but many native narratives also appear on Base, such as a variety of SocialFi projects. In the meme sector, Base is also not to be outdone, starting to seize the 'AI meme' market share from Solana. Whether it’s VIRTUAL, supporting batch issuance of AI Agents, or Pump.fun CLANKER on Base, the wave of AI has quietly risen on Base. Among them, Clanker has already surpassed a market cap of $100 million today, breaking many people's preconceived notions of the asset ceiling on the Base chain.
The same goes for DOT, ADA, and other 'old projects' that have too large a market cap and have been around too long.
Summary
In research and analysis, most people often fall into the psychological trap of 'I alone in the world,' seeking out alphas that only a few people pay attention to.
From a young age, we are surrounded by too much noise like this: in traditional education, teachers often pay more attention to students who can solve problems with new methods; in martial arts novels, the highly skilled monk sweeping the floor often has their own 'unique skills.' Influenced by such social habits, people usually fall into this 'I alone in the world' prisoner's dilemma when they enter the market.
Most ordinary traders overlook these tokens in the top 100 by market cap, or even the top 10, and usually search for low-cap tokens worth tens of millions in search of 'wealth opportunities.' Instead of spending so much energy tracking the alphas of various sectors, it might be more effective to study the alpha of 'Trump,' as this is the worst of times.
