Crypto Assets market encounters a cold winter, projects face numerous challenges

Since the beginning of 2025, the Crypto Assets market has continued to be sluggish, with not only small coins on exchanges performing poorly, but even the on-chain coins that performed well in the fourth quarter of last year experiencing significant declines.

Data shows that major AI-related coins have seen a staggering decline in less than three months.

• Virtual dropped 79.2%
• Ai16z dropped 85.5%
• AIXBT dropped 68%
• Griffain dropped by 80.3%
• Buzz dropped by 72.4%
• Fartcoin dropped 67.5%
• ARC fell by 62%
• Swarms dropped 45%

While it cannot be definitively stated that the AI track has failed, it is a fact that investors' attention has already waned, and it is difficult to recover in the short term.

At the same time, the celebrity token craze initiated by Trump has also rapidly cooled down. The decline in major celebrity tokens since their peak has been equally astonishing:

• Trump dropped 77.1%
• Melania dropped 91%
• Vine dropped 92.7%
• jailstool dropped 93.5%
• Jellyjelly dropped 98%
• CAR dropped by 98.5%
• Libra dropped by 94.3%

Compared to AI tokens, the celebrity token market has shown a more dismal performance. In the current market, where new hotspots are scarce, what exactly are the issues faced by these two tracks? Is there still a possibility for breakthroughs?

Current Dilemma: Over-reliance on Concept Speculation

Most AI-related projects remain at the stage of conceptual demonstration and blueprint depiction, lacking practical products that can be applied on a large scale. Even when there are some available services, there are issues such as complexity of operation and poor user experience, making it difficult to attract ordinary users for long-term use. Worse still, some projects exaggerate their promotion excessively to cater to market expectations, while actual implementation continues to be delayed. As time goes on, investors lose patience, and funds begin to withdraw, leading to a significant drop in token prices.

In terms of celebrity tokens, Trump did bring enormous hype to the market, but soon faced the issue of "celebrity effect decay." Subsequently, other politicians, internet celebrities, and stars followed suit, but none could replicate the initial excitement and market response. As the enthusiasm continued to wane, the celebrity token market displayed characteristics of a flash in the pan, with investors' confidence rapidly dissipating and prices plummeting.

The fundamental reason for the severe fluctuations in these tracks is that most projects only remain at the level of conceptual hype, lacking real sustainable profit models. Whether it's AI or celebrity tokens, their core narrative overly relies on short-term funding and hype, yet lacks the motivation to attract users for long-term participation. Once the hype fades, it becomes difficult to maintain the price, and even harder to attract new funds to enter.

Looking for projects with real returns

In the current environment where market hotspots are scarce, the key to standing out lies in finding projects that have "real returns" and are "willing to share with users." The so-called "real returns" are not just dependent on the short-term bubble when listed on exchanges, but rather can continuously generate returns through actual business models and trading activities, and return them to token holders or ecosystem participants.

Taking a certain decentralized derivatives trading platform as an example, its business model is similar to that of centralized exchanges, with the main revenue coming from contract trading fees. The platform uses all the fees for repurchasing platform tokens, closely binding the token price to the platform's business performance. According to data statistics, this platform currently handles about 45% of the decentralized perpetual contract trading volume, with a daily trading amount of 3.78 billion USD and daily revenue of about 1 million USD. Even during the current market downturn, the platform maintains a high level of activity, and its token price remains relatively strong.

No matter how popular a concept is, it will eventually become obsolete. Projects that can exist long-term in the crypto market must have product-market fit ( PMF ), possess high user stickiness and real revenue-generating capabilities.