The contradiction between fundamentals and price: Why will the crypto market split in 2025

【Crypto World】By the end of 2025, the cryptocurrency market size is only one-fifth of its previous peak, and behind this number lies an unsettling contradiction. On one hand, ETF and institutional funds are continuously flowing in, with leading assets like Bitcoin and Ethereum gaining favor among institutions, and the fundamentals appear quite solid. On the other hand, price performance has consistently failed to keep up with these positive signals, and the disconnect between the two has reached an unprecedented level.

Market participants have different interpretations of this bizarre situation. One view suggests that there may be hidden structural selling pressure behind the scenes, or that the market is building momentum and will experience a large-scale chasing rebound in the future. Another perspective is more straightforward: market makers may be intentionally creating this painful situation by suppressing prices to adjust the market structure.

More notably, the entire market has already split completely. “Institutional-grade cryptocurrencies” represented by Bitcoin and Ethereum have broken out into independent trends, gaining favor from institutional funds. Meanwhile, the altcoin market has become a “hotspot-driven” environment, where any small movement triggers a follow-up, lacking any sustainability. The once unified crypto market and the traditional altcoin trading seasons have completely disappeared.

What does this mean? It means you can no longer understand the current market with the same logic as in the past. Institutions and retail investors, Bitcoin and altcoins, are no longer in the same market.