When Donald Trump returned to the White House, much of the crypto market expected a familiar script. More crypto-friendly rhetoric, friendlier regulation, institutional inflows, and renewed risk appetite were all meant to combine into a defining bull market.
Instead, as 2025 approaches its end, the crypto markets will clearly finish the year lower, only 20% of the peak of the Biden era.
Even with Trump in charge, the crypto markets are still only 20% of the levels of the Biden era.
This contradiction is at the heart of the growing debate about whether crypto is stuck in a difficult phase or whether something more fundamental has broken.
“It’s time to acknowledge and admit that the crypto markets are broken,” stated Ran Neuner, analyst and host of Crypto Banter.
The analyst highlighted an unprecedented contradiction between fundamentals and prices. According to Neuner, the year 2025 included “all the needs of a bull market”:
Abundant liquidity,
A crypto-friendly U.S. government,
Spot ETFs (particularly Bitcoin and Ethereum-based)
Aggressive Bitcoin accumulation by individuals like Michael Saylor,
Participation of nation-states and sovereign wealth funds, and
Macro asset classes, such as stocks and precious metals like gold and silver, are reaching all-time highs.
“Despite all of the above,” Neuner said, “we will end 2025 lower and only 20% of where we were with Biden.”
This suggests that traditional explanations no longer apply. Theories of four-year cycles, trapped liquidity, or the IPO moment for crypto feel increasingly like post hoc rationalizations rather than genuine answers.
According to Neuner, the result is a market with only two credible paths forward:
A hidden structural seller or mechanism suppressing prices, or
Crypto is preparing for what he calls “the mother of all catch-up trades” as markets finally return to balance.
Not everyone agrees that anything is broken.
Market commentator Gordon Gekko, a popular X user, countered the pain, claiming that pain is intentional and structural but not dysfunctional.
“Nothing is broken; This is exactly what market makers meant. Sentiment is at its lowest in years; leveraged traders are losing everything. It shouldn’t be easy; only the strong will be rewarded,” he wrote.
That division reflects a deeper change in how crypto behaves compared to previous cycles. During Trump’s first term from 2017 to 2020, crypto thrived in a regulatory void.
Retail speculation dominated, leverage was unchecked, and reflexive momentum drove prices far above their fundamental values.
Instead, during the Biden era, the markets became institutionalized. A regulation-first approach limited risk-taking, while ETFs, custodians, and compliance frameworks shaped capital allocation and flow.
Ironically, many of the most anticipated tailwinds for crypto arrived precisely during this more constrained period:
ETFs opened access, but mainly to Bitcoin
Institutions shared, but often shielded and mechanically balanced.
Liquidity existed, but it flowed into TradFi packages instead of the chain's ecosystem.
The result is a scale without reflexivity.
Bitcoin remains while altcoins break in a new crypto system
This structural change has been particularly painful for altcoins, and analysts and KOLs like Shanaka Anslem have argued that a unified crypto market no longer exists.
Instead, 2025 is split into “two games”:
Institutional crypto: Bitcoin, Ethereum, and ETFs with crushed volatility and longer time horizons, as well as
Crypto attention: Where millions of tokens compete for fleeting liquidity, and most crash within a few days.
Capital no longer flows smoothly from Bitcoin to altcoins, into the everyday altcoin era or the alternative era. It goes directly to the mandate it is meant to serve.
“… Your only options now: Play Institutional Crypto patiently and with macro-level awareness. Or play Attention Crypto with speed and infrastructure,” Anslem wrote.
According to this influencer, holding altcoins in a thesis for months is now the worst possible strategy.
“You are not early in the altcoin era. You are waiting for a market structure that no longer exists,” he added.
Perhaps this is the basis of a trader's conviction, knowing where to look. Lisa Edwards supports this thesis and urges market participants to understand liquidity flows.
“Things change, cycles change, money moves in new ways. If you’re waiting for the old altseason, you’ll miss what’s really running in front of you,” he stated.
Quinten François reiterates this view, noting that the token count for 2025 exceeds its previous cycles. With over 11 million tokens in existence, the idea of a broad-based altseason, like in 2017 or 2021, may simply be outdated.
Between repricing and recovery: The test of crypto’s post-institutional identity
At the same time, macro-level pressures continue to weigh on sentiment. Coin Bureau’s investment analyst and co-founder Nic Puckrin points out that Bitcoin's slide toward the 100-week moving average (MA) reflects renewed fears of AI bubble, uncertainty about the future Fed leadership, and year-end tax loss selling.
“All of this makes for a lackluster end to 2025,” he said in an email to BeInCrypto, warning that BTC could briefly drop below $80,000 if selling accelerates.
It's a mystery whether crypto is broken or just changing, and investors should do their own research.
Nevertheless, it is clear that the expectations of the Trump era clash with the market structure of the Biden era, and the old operating model no longer applies.
Economists' and investors' discussions at mainstream tables point to brutal repricing or a violent rally that may define crypto's post-institutional identity.
