Abandon intuition and rationally analyze: Is this bull market really different?

Author |Ben Fairbank

Produced by｜Plain language blockchain

The crypto market is like a drunkard, following the bull market at the end of 2024 and stumbled into 2025. This bull market seems familiar and unfamiliar in nature.

The headlines of Bitcoin’s $100,000 at the end of 2024, Memecoin’s rushing like a slot machine, and Donald Trump’s support for encryption ignited a feast like Beeple’s artwork that was both engaging and disturbing.

However, under hype, this cycle is a chaotic hodgepodge of leverage fanaticism, institutional restraint and macroeconomic gambles that may drive markets to take off or derail it. This is not a retail-driven FOMO carnival in 2021, but a different monster, and the data also confirms this chaos.

This bull market is unprecedented, and some controversial truths may make you rethink your position at the poker table.

01. Leveraged Trading: From tools to casino drugs, Memecoin dealer is

the winner

Leveraged trading is not new, but its size is astonishingly large today.

In the 2021 bull market, leverage is just a side dish, but now it is the main dish, and it is also mixed with Memecoin's madness. Platforms such as Binance and Bybit reported a surge in leveraged trading volume, with Binance alone reaching US$1.2 trillion in the fourth quarter of 2024, a 60% increase from its peak in 2021.

Memecoin, the depraved darling of these crypto casinos, is the source of sparks, more violent than the fuse that triggered the Los Angeles wildfire. A 2025 survey by Security.org found that 68% of Memecoin traders admitted to losing money since entering the market, but they are still increasing their leverage by 50 times and 100 times like dog avatars celebrities who are looking forward to winning. Why? Because Dogecoin reached $0.73 (market value exceeds $100 billion), and TRUMP token peaked at $15 billion in January 2025, it has turned the transaction into a dopamine factory.

This is not rational speculation, but a slot machine dressed in the guise of blockchain technology. The dealer always wins. Every day we can hear similar stories, like Chump, a 27-year-old trader, who said in Business Insider: "I like the thrill of watching the numbers rise." He made $10,000 in Memecoin trading, but he belonged to the lucky one. Why is the $10,000 deal worth reporting? Because they attract people who start with small amounts and make big bets. However, most people are losing money, and the leverage fanaticism makes this bull market like a circus with steroids.

02. Position size: Encrypted leverage mathematics subverts traditional

thinking

Things get even more crazy, and the leveraged position size in the crypto market is quoted in full risk, a puzzling scenario that traditional markets cannot see. 50x leverage of $4 million deal? That was a $200 million market exposure. In stock or forex markets, you will only report $4 million in margin, rather than amplified bets. This exaggerates the appearance and magnifies the risks.

Galaxy Research estimates that the nominal value of the average leveraged position size in 2025 is $5.2 million, up from $1.8 million in 2021. This is a huge leap, with the platform throwing 100 times leverage to retail investors like candy, driving this surge in data.

It is sane to limit leverage to 10 times in traditional markets, and the “complete exposure” strategy of the crypto market is a marketing gimmick that turns traders into reckless gamblers. When a TRUMP big player cashed out $109 million in two days (New York Times, February 2025), that's not a trick, but a leveraged lottery. On the other hand, the counterparty in that deal lost $2 billion. This is not an investment, I have said many times before, it is a bloody battle of zero sum, and the data proves that it is bigger and uglier than ever before.

03. Organization: Settle on the fishing table while the circus is

burning

Institutional investors, these so-called "smart money" are not making a fuss in this leveraged circus. BlackRock's IBIT ETF holds 550,000 BTC, and hedge funds such as Millennium subscribed for $36 billion in Bitcoin ETP in 2024 (Galaxy, 2025). But they did not chase the 50-fold Memecoin soared. The Coinbase Institutional report pointed out that 82% of institutional crypto asset allocations in 2025 are long-term holdings, focusing on Bitcoin, Ethereum, and perhaps Solana, focusing on the "strategic reserve" narrative rather than the degeneration of short-term trading.

Unlike retail investors who panic and sell off every time they fall, institutions are gradually building positions. Why? Trump’s Bitcoin reserve rhetoric and ETF approvals have made them look at the long-term prospects of 5-10 years rather than double quickly.

James Lavish of Bitcoin Opportunity Fund said it well at the 2024 New Orleans Investment Conference: "Bitcoin's shift from speculative assets to strategic assets" is real, and institutions are betting that it will surpass gold (currently about 11% of gold's market capitalization, changing every day). They will take advantage of this bull market, but they will not be destroyed in leverage, which is the privilege of retail investors.

04. Trump's economic gamble: The recession of coin tossing game meets

the crypto moment

Fast forward to mid-2025, the US economy is on thin ice, and Trump holds a balance pole. Picton Mahoney's October 2024 report estimated the probability of a recession of 75%, due to the uninverted yield curve, rising bankruptcy rates and a sluggish manufacturing industry.

Trump's response? Cut spending, impose tariffs significantly, and make huge bets on deregulation. This is a big bet that may crash the dollar and may also ignite crypto supernova. If inflation soars (core CPI has reached 3.1%, above the Fed’s 2% target), Bitcoin’s “digital gold” narrative will receive rocket fuel.

The timing is weird, and InvestingHaven's timeline analysis predicts that a large-scale bull market will peak in the middle of the year (breakthrough from March to April 2025). But if Trump's tariffs kill growth, retail wallets are empty and the bull market may stagnate.

The data is mixed, and a survey by Security.org shows that 60% of Americans who understand encryption believe that Trump's return is good for encryption, but some people still have doubts about its security. This is not a simple catalyst, but a chaotic coin toss with global ripples.

05. Tariff hedging or collapse: Encrypted recession script

Will Trump’s tariffs trigger a crypto hedging boom, hinder a bull market, or will digital assets become the ultimate safe haven? The data tends toward the latter.

Coincub predicts that by the end of 2025, the daily trading volume of stablecoins will reach US$300-400 billion, up from US$100 billion in November 2024, as companies hedge foreign exchange risks.

The tokenization of real-world assets (RWAs, such as real estate, art, bonds) is exploding, with market value expected to jump from US$2.81 billion in 2023 to US$9.82 billion in 2030 (Exploding Topics). Why? Liquidity and anti-inflation.

If the U.S. economy fails, the decoupling of crypto from the stock market (the correlation of 2025 dropped to 0.3, Coinbase data) makes it a magnet for capital flight. But the key is that retail investors are exhausted, and you and I know it. Economic stagnation could kill the FOMO fuel needed for past bull markets. This may be the first bull market to determine the rhythm by institutions rather than retail investors, and it is really a brain-consuming idea to imagine.

06. The road to redemption of retail investors: greed, regret and empty

pockets

Talk to crypto veterans, the atmosphere is mixed with PTSD and hope of caution. Many people have been greedy in 2021 and experienced a collapse, and now they just want to "return their money".

Some people never come back after the peak cash out in 2021, and I call them smart people. Others are still trading MeMe every day, chasing a small $500 victory while admitting it is a "gambling addiction."

HODL FM poll in 2025 found that 73% of long-term holders hope to make at least profit in this cycle, but 40% have not entered the market since the 2022 bear market. The data is suffocating.

The truth is that retail investors have no money. Funds for that bull market in 2021 are gone, with the household savings rate dropping to 4.9% (Federal data), lower than 7.5% before the epidemic. If this bull market is ignited, it will not rely on parents' FOMO, but on institutional funds, retail investors will either hitchhike or be dumped. A purely institutional-driven bull market? Not only is it possible, but it is very likely to be reality.

07. Gambling cannot save us: Where is the real fuel?

Despair drives traders to leverage and Memecoin, but that is not enough.

The $2.2 billion loss of hackers in 2024 and the blockage of crypto holders in withdrawing funds are making voices of distrust. Gambling on MeMe will not inject fresh capital into the market, it is just rearrangement of the deck chair numbers on the Titanic.

New funds must come from elsewhere, such as ETFs (Galaxy forecasts $250 billion AUM), corporate vaults (MicroStrategy style), or states (Trump's 207,000 BTC reserve plan). Without these, this bull market is just a mirage. We have to be more realistic, right? This is the only way to make money ahead.

08. Open Creator Economy: Global Market of AI in Recession

AI is rewriting the rules of the game, and this bull market may give birth to an open creator economy that transcends national borders. There is a surge in on-chain AI agents, and Funds Society predicts that there will be 1 million in 2025, involving transactions, games and building decentralized platforms.

What to trade in a recession? Data shows: luxury goods (art NFT rose 45% in 2024), essential services (tokenized medical points) and speculative assets (yes, or Memecoin). AI makes it scalable, think of teen traders tokenizing TikTok influence. All this is happening, I'm sure.

But it is not a bright spot. Masa's analysis points out that API restrictions and data bottlenecks may hinder growth. If successful, this bull market will become a global transfer of wealth, not just a party in the United States. If it fails, we return to the PVP in the circle.

09. Wealth change: Patience wins, impatience and bloodshed

The market is Darwinian, patiently snatching wealth from the impatient ones.

This bull market will witness wealth shifting from leveraged retail investors to steady investors. The cycle begins and ends with the same narrative, and Memecoin fades and makes a comeback.

InvestingHaven predicts Dogecoin and Shiba Inu will rebound after the MeMe craze peaks again. But the data is clear, 68% of Memecoin traders lose money.

Who is the winner? Institutions and veterans who quietly build positions.

10. Summary: Find your location when the music stops

This bull market is a mess, with leverage madness, institutional restraint, Trump’s wild bets, and the upcoming creator economy.

The reason why it is different is that retail investors go bankrupt, institutions are restrained, and the whole world is paying attention to an economic experiment that may make or fail the United States.

The data screams fluctuations, but it also contains opportunities. Choose your position calmly and patiently, and when the music can be quit, only the patient will stay.