Currently, the traditional financial system is deeply mired in a profound structural division crisis. The real economy continues to be sluggish, with the manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) experiencing a contraction period lasting 18 months, creating a glaring contrast with the false prosperity of the capital markets. This divergence phenomenon reveals a serious mismatch of liquidity—large amounts of funds have not effectively flowed into productive sectors but are blindly circulating within financial assets.
Quantitative easing policies and a low-interest-rate environment act like a powerful stimulant injected into the capital markets, pushing up stock and bond prices. However, the benefits of this policy have mainly been seized by large technology companies and asset holders, failing to drive widespread job growth as expected, nor activating the vitality of small and medium-sized enterprises. This inflation driven by balance sheet expansion is essentially a severe distortion of the wealth distribution mechanism, concentrating wealth further into the hands of a few.
Monetary policy tools are gradually losing effectiveness in stimulating the real economy, instead exacerbating the closed-loop dilemma in market structure. New trading models such as passive investing, algorithmic trading, and high-frequency arbitrage dominate the flow of funds, causing asset prices to increasingly detach from fundamentals, and instead determined by capital flows and position games. In this process, retail investors unknowingly become the counterparties of institutions, and the market no longer rewards value discovery but encourages trend chasing. The open market has seemingly transformed into a self-reinforcing liquidity cycle machine, with capital efficiency continuously declining and resource misallocation issues becoming more severe.
On a social level, the expansion of asset bubbles intertwines with the stagnation of residents' purchasing power, accelerating the process of wealth disparity. Data shows that the wealthiest 10% hold over 90% of financial assets, and this stark wealth gap puts policymakers in a dilemma: tightening monetary policy may trigger market stagnation, leading to a sharp drop in asset prices, which would impact financial stability; loosening policy could continue to drive up living costs and exacerbate social conflicts. This contradiction ultimately transforms into immense political pressure, forcing the government either to alleviate social inequality through wealth redistribution policies or to face more severe social adjustments in search of a new balance.
In this complex and severe context, the cryptocurrency industry has gradually emerged, showcasing its unique value as an alternative financial system. It offers a way to store and transfer value without relying on traditional banking channels, and its open and fair characteristics have a strong appeal to the younger generation. Despite the downsides of the cryptocurrency market, such as speculation and high volatility, its core demand lies in providing people with a financial system free from the control of a single entity. When traditional markets are widely perceived as manipulated or in a late stage of financialization, cryptocurrencies become an ideal 'pressure release valve'—they serve both as a tool to hedge against traditional market risks and as a practical exploration for financial autonomy.
From a macro cycle perspective, the U.S. economy is deeply trapped in a vicious cycle of 'tightening - recession - monetary easing - inflation,' making it difficult to find an effective path to break the predicament. Unless capital can withdraw from the false prosperity supporting asset bubbles and shift toward productive investment, the U.S. economy is unlikely to achieve substantial recovery.
In such an economic environment, the cryptocurrency market, on one hand, benefits from the spillover effect of global liquidity flooding, attracting a massive influx of funds; on the other hand, it gradually demonstrates its strong resilience as an independent asset class. It is not only an important vehicle for liquidity transfer but also represents a profound reflection and reconstruction attempt of the existing financial architecture, injecting new vitality and possibilities into the transformation of the global financial system.#加密市场观察
