News Author: Crypto Emergency
Crypto analyst under the pseudonym XY notes that a year has passed since the market transitioned into a bear phase. According to him, many industry participants are still trying to find familiar patterns in the current cycle, ignoring new factors that distort the usual scenarios.
He criticizes the popular phrase "History does not repeat itself, but it rhymes," arguing that it has done more harm than good to market analysis. It is precisely the desire to fit the present into past cycles that has led to the incorrect interpretation of two key signals.
Signal #1: meme coins and the failed alt season
At the peak of the hype around the TRUMP token in November 2024, many expected the start of a massive altcoin rally. Some even spoke of an imminent entry into the "banana zone" — a period of extreme profitability.
XY reminds us that in past cycles within an overall bubble, an "internal bubble" — a new meta-strategy — always formed: DeFi, NFTs, gaming projects. They created their own ecosystem with complexities requiring the study of new tools and bridges. This "friction" split liquidity into two camps:
• Lazy liquidity, preferring simple and liquid assets.
• Research liquidity, willing to venture into complex but potentially profitable niches.
It was the return of research liquidity to liquid tokens that triggered the domino effect known as the alt season.
In the current cycle, everything happened differently. The new meta-strategy never appeared. Meme coins became a mass phenomenon but did not create the necessary friction: anyone could participate — without barriers or additional knowledge.
As a result, the market skipped the stage of "BTC → new meta → token season" and went straight to "BTC → token season." According to the analyst, this token season was the actual alt season, and its peak occurred in November 2024.
Signal #2: bitcoin and the changing market psychology
XY considers the second common mistake to be the attempt to assess the state of the market solely through the dynamics of bitcoin. After the peak of TRUMP, BTC maintained stability, which many perceived as a correction within a bullish trend. Investors expected a classic drop of 70–80%, as in previous bear phases.
However, according to the analyst, this model no longer works. Bitcoin has detached from the internal crypto cycle and is now moving under the influence of institutional flows and macro psychology, which operate by their own rules.
This means that the bear market for altcoins can develop even with stable BTC.
XY notes that since January 2025, the market has gone through stages of anxiety, denial, and panic, and is now in the phase of anger and depression — typical for the late stages of a bear trend.
