The main line of the current market is becoming increasingly clear:
1. Memecoin and AI are the core tracks this year.
This year's Memecoin is completely different from before; it has moved away from the previous 'Shitcoin' gameplay and has become more like the DeFi concept of 2020. Essentially, it is a brand new way of asset issuance, where all infrastructure and services rely on this asset issuance. Memecoin is this left-side route, while the right side route involves projects like RWA (Real World Assets) and VCcoin.
The left side route represents a macro opportunity, while the right side is more about structural opportunities, such as the revival of DeFi, the rise of new projects like ENA, Sky, and Morpho, and the resurgence of established protocols like Curve and AAVE. Emerging concepts like BTCfi, CeDefi, and Payfi also have structural opportunities.
Currently, I am not optimistic about ETH; it can only participate in side stories. Although Coinbase may benefit from the main storyline, I feel its role is more like one of many participants rather than the main character. In my view, ETH may not perform as well as BTC in terms of exchange rate, and it does not have an advantage compared to Solana, even seeming weak in front of DeFi blue chips.
2. The impact of Western policies has yet to be fully released.
During the campaign period, the statements from Trump and Musk have already had a huge impact. Next, there are two more significant events: one is the formal inauguration, and the other is the replacement of the SEC chairman. Meanwhile, ETH and MSTR have taken over the role of Grayscale in the previous cycle, and more companies and countries may start to allocate crypto assets in the future. This time the scale will be larger than in 2020.
The 'bull market' trend in the West should continue.
Considering both internal and external factors, the importance of the ecology has become very clear. For ecosystems that have already formed a strong consensus, we will not elaborate further. Here are two ecosystems that are currently not receiving much attention but hold great potential:
3. Bittensor Ecology
Recently recommended an interview with Vitlik, although it has little to do with ETH, some viewpoints are quite interesting, especially the discussion about the centralization of AI power and the future symbiosis of AI. In the Memecoin aspect, ACT is undoubtedly the biggest Beta, and in the Alts sector, the future of Crypto AI undoubtedly belongs to deAI or Fair AI, so I believe Bittensor's potential is greater than Worldcoin.
Additionally, it is worth noting that last week, media reported that the potential candidate for the new SEC chairman is Teresa Goody Guillén from the law firm BakerHostetler, who is the legal partner of Masa, Bittensor's first subnet. When this news broke, although BTC was in a pullback state, $MASA still rose by about 30%.
4. Near Ecology
Everyone knows that being a step ahead can lead to rewards, while being slow may result in losing everything. Near is in such a situation. Earlier this year, when Solana Memecoin just took off, Near quickly followed suit and launched its own Memecoin, creating two tokens: Black Dragon and One Dragon. Near's founder @ilblackdragon even participated in NVIDIA's AI conference.
However, in the coming months, the enthusiasm for Memecoin and AI is gradually cooling down. Nowadays, Memecoin and AI have reignited, and the trend has swept across Solana, Base, SUI, and BNBChain, but it seems that the Near ecology has missed this wave.
However, the good news is that Near has always had a 'mystical theorem', which is that from DeFi to X2E, and then to NFT and inscriptions, Near always manages to catch up at the last moment and gets the final bite of the hot pie. This is something other public chains basically can't match. Although Memecoin and inscriptions seem to be lukewarm in Near's ecology right now, I recently found that projects like Memecoin @dragonisnear and inscriptions @inscriptionneat still have a market liquidity of 7 million dollars, and the exit liquidity is also quite good.
In general, Near may be a bit slow in some aspects, but it always manages to seize some key opportunities. While it may not be the earliest, it often achieves relatively good returns in the last wave of the market.
