The heartwarming moment is back again. The rate cut no longer determines the short-term intraday trend; the market has already reacted in advance to expectations of a rate cut. Many well-known KOLs say that Old Bow might make hawkish remarks at the meeting, which will at least influence the medium-term direction for the next six months. I think the influence isn't as strong as before, after all, another Hasset has emerged, shamelessly flattering the market with a series of gestures, which carries a hint of ZZ provocation.

Retail investors are used to watching this kind of soap opera, probably blindly. The crypto market has been tossed around by these利益群体 to the point of declining popularity. The genuine spot buying volume from retail investors is actually not much; most players are disappointed and have almost exited by the end of 2025. If you’re not holding BTC or have no bullets left in your short positions, who still has the mood to stay here listening to your babble? 80% of players now just don’t care and want to see everything destroyed together.

As a member of ordinary players, I closed all my small short-term long positions yesterday, really unwilling to hold positions and participate in such high-risk moments. Long ago, I said that for most non-full-time players, the more you understand about this circle after playing for a while, the less it is actually a good thing. Excessive real-time information intake leads to fragmented memory and confusion, making it hard to make rational and long-term decisions, especially decisions that prioritize the safety of one's principal.

The subsequent market trend in December—whether it continues northbound or turns south—is uncertain. After all, there’s still the Japanese rate hike on the 18th, and a possibly fake CPI data (originally scheduled for the 10th but now postponed to the 18th). Having experienced Trump’s 2025 governance market, I am increasingly convinced that the world is just a huge makeshift stage, disorderly and unpredictable, with all kinds of ZZ events and black swans ruthlessly harvesting us, the crypto “韭菜” who fantasize about four-year cycles.

Only now do we realize that the 2025 trend was indeed designed by capital. Thinking back to December last year, looking at BTC and various altcoin prices climbing nonstop, we were still proud, fantasizing that after President Trump officially took office, there would be a 25-year暴牛 in crypto, at least doubling the prices at that time.

So over the year, every retracement we looked for patterns to support our confidence, and every fluctuation we encouraged ourselves to value invest. But ultimately, the market doesn’t believe in retail tears; it predicted our predictions and turned our chips into the most bountiful prey for President Trump and other crypto bigwigs during the trading day.

It’s hard to imagine a 25-year climb, but it’s even harder than I thought. Plus, this cycle’s contract funds are far larger than the spot market. The facts we can infer are: more and more retail investors will withdraw after losses in 2025, and the crypto market has experienced a three-year山寨熊市. Due to the lack of wealth-creating myths and increasingly strict regulation of stablecoins, the number of domestic players will inevitably decline. That is, during this period of 青黄不接, our altcoins are very likely to go to zero.

This is not alarmist; it’s a clear logical projection of the future. You must understand that since the ICO era in 2017, Chinese players accounted for up to 60% of the global crypto community, and domestic players made up over 70% of the Chinese community. Today in 2025, these figures may have dropped below 40%.

Without new funds entering the market, who would be willing to buy worthless altcoins?

The answer is obvious. Mainstream altcoins have already gone this far, not to mention those fringe coins that no longer have trading activity. A comment from a friend in the comment section: if it’s really not feasible, adjust your altcoin holdings to BTC. That phrase might still hold some weight before 1011, but after 1011, the marginal cost of such conversions has become significant.

In the live broadcast, I once said that for most ordinary players, holding BTC and ETH is the best choice. In real life, it’s hard for ordinary people to find better investment targets than BTC and ETH. I believe that after experiencing the brutal market in 2025, honestly recognizing this fact will be more practical for most ordinary players going forward.

Try to allocate some BTC if possible. Although ETH currently looks better than BTC in its trend, from a long-term perspective, BTC is indeed a high-quality asset suitable for long-term DCA.

Entering December, despite a decent rebound in the market, the buying power in the spot market remains cold. The overall market sentiment is quite strange. The policies of the US, and the fundamentals of main tokens, are trending positive, including停止QT,持续降息, mainstream alt ETF, BTC/ETH/USDC再质押, etc. None of these positive events have stirred much excitement; retail investors generally hold a pessimistic and watchful attitude. Most wild KOLs’ voices agree it’s a bear market, but professional traders with higher asset levels see this phase as a turning point with a large upside space in 2026.

I myself can’t clearly judge the short-term trend now, so I made a strategy in September: sold 20% of my large positions to wait for a pullback, extending my exit to the first quarter of 2026. But I didn’t expect that the mainstream altcoins would fall so hard in Q4 due to the chain reaction from 1011.

My recent anxiety and disappointment mostly come from holdings in mainstream altcoins. Although they only account for 30%, honestly, I also want to earn a hefty sum from altcoin gains to change my life after the pandemic. Unfortunately, looking back now, my highest holdings were actually in December 2024.

Seeing Ada break below cost, I immediately understood the feelings of players who布局ed altcoins starting in 2022-2023 and didn’t exit at the end of 2024. Holding for over a year felt painful enough, let alone holding for several years while still losing money. But from another perspective, when everyone consciously sells off mainstream altcoins to protect funds, or fears turning chips into BTC, where do those sold chips go?

Looking back at the altcoins that have already surpassed their 2021 highs, if they truly have real application value, narrative hotspots, a large consensus community, and the project team and market makers have been collecting chips for nearly three years to wash out the market, one day they will need to push the price up to distribute. Especially during liquidity-rich, water-printed cycles (which I discussed in November’s live).

Tonight, reviewing some mainstream altcoins’ 4-hour K-line and daily indicators, they are gradually stabilizing. Of course, that doesn’t mean they will rise immediately, but the bottoming phase should be considered steady. If we survive this difficult period until the first quarter of next year (about 3-5 months), I still believe that, based on my average entry price, reducing my previous 4-5 times profit expectation to 2-3 times is quite likely to be achieved.

Understanding this logic makes it easier to answer a question: if you currently hold certain altcoins and hope to participate in the 26-year market.

If your unrealized loss is less than 30%, it proves that your average entry price is reasonable and acceptable. As long as the fundamentals still have relatively good narrative logic, holding is no problem.

If unrealized loss is between 30%-50%, it depends on your attitude toward capital protection. If your funds are small and the fundamentals of your holdings still have good narrative logic, holding is fine. If your funds are large and you are more concerned about recouping the principal, then adjusting to ETH may be more reasonable (entry price can only wait for opportunities; I commented that 2600-2800 has a higher cost-performance ratio).

If unrealized loss exceeds 50%, check the daily trading volume of your coins. If it’s below 2 million RMB, chances are the bubble has burst, and there’s no need to hold on anymore. As for how to recover capital, it’s better to reflect first on why you chose these coins and whether you are suitable for this market.