Every real surge in the crypto market relies not on cheap valuations or merely emotional recovery, but on the emergence of a sufficiently strong new reason for entry. 2017 was ICOs, 2020 was DeFi, 2022 to 2023 is inscriptions. Each time the market expands again, there is almost always something new that makes people feel 'we haven't played like this before.' This is what is called a phenomenal narrative.

However, in the last round, strictly speaking, there was no such thing.

Those who entered the market are mostly a group of businessmen skilled at copying trends, packaging concepts, and exiting quickly. Homogeneous Layer2, bulk Meme factories, reskinned GameFi—these things were not without participants; on the contrary, many people were involved. The problem is that, in the end, everyone realized they were more like a liquidity outlet for that group. Many project teams consist of only a few individuals; on-chain data relies on manipulation, TVL is pushed in by themselves or partners, and community engagement depends on aggressive promotion. They do not need to create a real product; they only need to sell a story that the market is willing to believe, allowing liquidity to flow in, and then retreat during the best liquidity phase. The narrative was not fully explained but was rather exhausted. This is no longer an ordinary cycle fluctuation; it resembles a concentrated clearing.

At the end of 2024 and the beginning of 2025, the market surged rapidly under strong expectations. Trump won the election, compliance expectations heated up, and this phase of growth was essentially a valuation reassessment driven by sentiment, providing a better exit window for many who had already been harvesting liquidity in the market. However, the problem with policy expectations is that they are most fearful of materializing. Once expectations are fulfilled, the imaginative space begins to contract. Institutional funds come in for allocation, not to be the last ones holding the bag. The market quickly realized that support for crypto was more of a political statement and a signal for regulatory loosening, and by itself, it was not sufficient to create a phenomenal narrative.

Pulling time to March 2026, the long-term narratives that can still stand firm in the market and continue to be validated seem to mainly consist of just two.

The first narrative is stablecoins. Stablecoins are no longer just a trading medium within crypto, but are evolving into a part of the global digital dollar settlement network. In 2025, the total on-chain settlement volume exceeded $33 trillion, with USDT's total supply around $184 billion, and USDC reaching a historical high of $81 billion on March 13. Circle's latest Q4 financial report shows a total revenue of $770 million for the quarter, a year-on-year increase of 77%. This indicates that stablecoins are no longer just a 'conceptual establishment', but a 'business establishment'. This is also why it is becoming increasingly difficult for newcomers. The user scale of USDT and USDC, exchange access, and on-chain liquidity depth have formed a self-reinforcing flywheel. Newcomers wanting a piece of the pie find that simply telling stories is basically useless; they must have channel resources, compliance endorsements, and sufficiently deep liquidity; lacking any one of these makes it difficult to disrupt the existing landscape.

The second narrative is the prediction market. Many initially thought Polymarket would explode in popularity during the 2024 election, merely reaping the benefits of a super event, and would quickly cool down after the election. However, the actual situation is not like that. The trading volume for 2025 exceeded $7.7 billion, and in February 2026, it broke through $7 billion in a single month, reaching a historical high, covering various scenarios from geopolitical issues and economic policies to sports events. As long as the world is still full of uncertainty, the demand for pricing uncertainty will continue to exist. It proves that a real demand can be established, but it has not yet proven itself to be the total switch that drives the expansion of risk appetite in the entire crypto market. It can continue to exist and grow, but it is still far from 'going crazy with the entire market'.

But both narratives share the same issue: they are infrastructure, not entry reasons. The expansion of stablecoins reflects an improvement in the efficiency of existing capital circulation, rather than a large-scale attraction of new money. The prediction market has cross-cycle demand and real trading volume, but its ability to drive the entire crypto market remains limited. Both narratives can support the base, but neither has the ability to push the entire market into a frenzy.

The remaining major variables are compliance and institutional configuration. BlackRock's IBIT held approximately 782,000 BTC as of March 16, with AUM of about $57.9 billion, accounting for 3.7% of the total Bitcoin supply. In July 2025, the GENIUS Act was signed into law by Trump, marking the establishment of the first federal-level regulatory framework for stablecoins in the United States. Subsequent discussions regarding asset classification, regulatory boundaries, and national-level reserves all fall within the same logical chain: crypto assets are being integrated into the mainstream financial system.

But it is important to clarify: these variables are very important, but they do not equate to narratives. They change the market pricing methods and capital structure, rather than providing a sufficiently strong new entry rationale. ETFs and compliance will not create the kind of 'one story lifts the entire market' phenomenal market conditions seen in the past; they will only make the market thicker, slower, and more institutionalized. Institutions first enjoy structural dividends, while the retail window will only become narrower.

So the most genuine situation in this round is: the absence of phenomenal narratives, and currently, there are no clear candidates.

Phenomenal narratives often only get named after they appear, with the market belatedly recognizing them. Before they truly emerge, no one can accurately predict where the next 'ICO', 'DeFi', or 'inscription moment' will come from. Before this, the most important thing is not to rush to believe in the next story, but to first see clearly which things are emotional veneers, which are genuine structural variables, which projects are producing products, and which are merely designing liquidity exit paths.

Because the most dangerous aspect of this round is not the absence of stories, but that many people are still using the thinking from the last round to wait for the next opportunity.

This article does not constitute investment advice. Data sources: iShares official website, Circle financial report, CoinMetrics, as of March 2026.

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