The trend of capital is quietly changing.

After experiencing multiple rounds of bull and bear cycles in the encryption market, the capital trend of 2025 is quietly shifting. The bear market is no longer just a waiting phase for recovery, but a brutal selection mechanism. The Crypto field is not lacking in topics or narratives, but projects that can truly survive the downturn must rely on their strength to speak.

Recent market data shows that most altcoins are stagnating in market capitalization performance, and new tokens are generally being valued conservatively, with very few projects managing to break the 1 billion FDV mark. Meanwhile, the price of Bitcoin is gradually diverging from other cryptocurrencies, with investors clearly concentrating capital on assets that have stronger consensus and risk resistance. This trend reflects a clear signal: the capital market is no longer blindly trusting narratives and white papers, but is focusing on whether projects can truly materialize and generate value.

Investors are turning to fundamentals.

Traditional venture capital (VC) has long established a mature project evaluation system, and these standards are gradually penetrating the encryption investment circle. Today’s investors place greater emphasis on the following four core data points:

• ARR (Annual Recurring Revenue): Can the project generate cash flow steadily?
• CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost): Can we efficiently expand our user base?
• LTV (Customer Lifetime Value): Can the user value continue for a long time?
• TAM (Total Addressable Market): Is the industry market for the product integration large enough?

While the token economy still has its appeal, it can no longer support project valuations solely based on short-term gains. Only by truly understanding industry demand and creating a sustainable operational model can one stand firm during the capital winter.

Industry Understanding

In the face of the rapid development of the crypto-adjacent industry, traditional Web3 investors must also bridge the knowledge gap. The most successful applications in the future will no longer be purely on-chain games, but projects that can deeply integrate into the physical industry. In the fields of AI and DePIN, understanding AI training data, computational requirements, and decentralized incentive models is a necessary condition; in cross-border payments and stablecoin applications, being familiar with local regulatory environments and settlement logic is a fundamental skill. If investors remain stuck in the native frameworks of DeFi, L1, NFTs, etc., they will miss this critical transformation.

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Summary

Crypto investment is shifting from a gold rush to precise hunting; the bear market is not the end, but the starting point for testing projects and investors’ insights. During this selection period, projects that can survive do not necessarily have to be the most eye-catching, but they must be the most solid. Choosing the right projects is no longer based on popularity and topics, but on a deep understanding of the industry, users, and market. The real opportunities are not on the busiest stage, but at the most steadfast value points.