Tiger Research: Next round of bull market, waiting for the wind
Source: Tiger Research
Author: Ryan Yoon
Is This a Crypto Winter? Post-Regulation Market Shift
Compile and organize: bitPushNew
Doubts about the crypto market are growing day by day as the market enters a downward cycle. The core question now is: Have we entered a “crypto bear market”?
Core ideas
The evolutionary path of the crypto winter: major events → collapse of trust → brain drain.
The peculiarity of this cycle: the past winter was caused by internal problems; the current surge and fall are driven by external factors. Currently, it is neither a “cold winter” nor a “warm spring.”
The three-tier market structure after regulation: the market has been split into compliance zones, non-compliance zones, and shared infrastructure; the “trickle-down effect” of the past has disappeared.
The limitations of ETF funds: The funds stay within Bitcoin and do not flow outside of the compliance zone.
The premise for the next round of bull market: the birth of “killer apps” is needed, plus a favorable macroeconomic environment.
1. How have the previous crypto winters evolved?
The first cold winter occurred in 2014. At the time Mt. The Gox exchange handles 70% of the world's Bitcoin trading volume. Due to the hacker attack, around 850,000 BTC disappeared out of thin air, and market trust completely collapsed. Subsequently, various new exchanges with internal control and audit functions began to emerge, and trust was slowly repaired. At the same time, Ethereum was born through an ICO (initial coin offering), showing the industry a new vision and funding method.
This ICO model has become the fuel for the next round of bull markets. The 2017 frenzy was ignited when anyone was able to issue tokens and raise capital. There are endless projects that can raise tens of billions of dollars with just one white paper, but most of them have no substance.
In 2018, South Korea, China, and the US successively introduced strict regulatory measures. The bubble burst, and a second cold winter hit. This cold winter continued until 2020. After the COVID-19 pandemic, mobility began to pour in.Uniswap、Compound、AaveAs DeFi protocols received attention, funds returned.
The third cold winter was the worst. The 2022 Terra-Luna crash, triggeringCelsiusThree Arrows Capital, and FTX went out of business one after another. This is not just a simple drop in prices, but the structure of the entire industry has been shaken. Until January 2024, the US Securities Regulatory Commission (SEC) A Bitcoin spot ETF was approved, and then along with Bitcoin halving and Trump's pro-cryptocurrency policies, funds began to flow in again.
2. The pattern of the crypto winter: major events → collapse of trust → brain drain
The first three cold winters all followed the same evolutionary logic: triggered by a major negative event, leading to the collapse of the trust system, and ultimately leading to a massive loss of talent.
It starts with a major event: whether it'sMt. GoxWhether it was hit by hacks, ICO regulations, or the Terra-Luna crash and the subsequent FTX bankruptcy, the results were the same — the entire market was in shock and panic.
It spread to the collapse of trust: the shock quickly turned into a crisis of trust. People who have discussed “what to build next” are beginning to question whether cryptography actually has any real value. The collaborative atmosphere among the builders disappeared and was replaced by mutual accusations.
Trigger brain drain: Doubts about the future lead to the withdrawal of talent. The builders that have created momentum in the blockchain space are mired in pessimism. In 2014, they moved to fintech and big companies; in 2018, they moved to traditional institutions and AI. They left here and went to places that seemed more certain.
3. Is it crypto winter now?
On the face of it, some signs of the past crypto winter are still clearly visible today:
Major events:
Trump memecoin (Trump memecoin): The market capitalization reached $27 billion in one day, then plummeted 90%.
“10.10” liquidation incident: the US announced the imposition of 100% tariffs on China, triggeringBinanceThe largest wave of liquidation in history ($19 billion).
Trust collapsed: Skepticism spread within the industry, and the focus of discussions changed from “construction” to “throwing the pot.”
Brain drain pressure: The AI industry is growing rapidly, providing a faster and richer path to monetization than cryptocurrencies.
However, it's hard to define the present as a typical “crypto winter.” The cold winter of the past broke out within the industry - Mt. Gox was hacked, ICO returned to zero,FTXThunderstorms. These are all great walls that self-destruct the industry.
The situation is quite different now:
The approval of the ETF started a bull market, while changes in tariff policies and interest rates drove the decline. It is external factors that have boosted the market, and external factors have dragged down the market.
The builders didn't leave the site either:
New narratives such as RWA (real-world assets), PerpDEX (perpetual contract exchange), prediction markets, InfoFi, and privacy agreements are constantly emerging and are still being iterated. Although they haven't driven the overall rise like DeFi did back then, they haven't disappeared. The fundamentals of the industry have not collapsed; it's just that the external environment has changed.
Just as we didn't create this “warm spring” ourselves, there is currently no such thing as a “cold winter.”
4. Fundamental changes in market structure after regulation
Behind this phenomenon is the profound evolution of the market structure after regulation. Currently, the market has been divided into three levels: 1) compliance zone, 2) non-compliance zone, and 3) shared infrastructure.
Compliance Zone: Includes RWA tokenization, licensed exchanges, institutional-grade escrow, legal prediction markets, and compliant DeFi. These areas are subject to audits, disclosure obligations, and protected by law. Although the growth is slow, the funding scale is huge and stable.
Features: After entering the compliance zone, it is difficult to expect explosive 100x returns like in the past. Volatility is reduced, and the upper limit is limited, but the lower limit is also guaranteed.
Non-compliance zone: The future of speculation in this field will be more intense. The threshold is low and the pace is fast. It will skyrocket 100 times today and fall 90% tomorrow.
Significance: This space isn't meaningless. Non-compliant zones are the cradle of creativity, and once a track is verified to be valid, it will move to a compliant zone (such as DeFi back then and the current prediction market). It acts as a “testing ground,” but it itself will increasingly separate itself from the compliance business.
Shared infrastructure: includes stablecoins and oracles. They serve both regions simultaneously. The same USDC can be used for both institutional-level RWA payments and Pump.fun speculative transactions; oracles both provide data verification for tokenized treasury and support the consolidation of anonymous DEXs.
This fragmentation has changed the flow path of capital.
In the past,Bitcoin's rise will drive altcoins to soar through the “drip effect.” Now it's different: institutional funds entering through ETFs have stopped abruptly in Bitcoin, and funds from compliant zones are no longer flowing to non-compliant zones. Liquidity only stays where value is proven. Even Bitcoin itself, as a safe-haven asset, has yet to be fully proven in the face of risky assets.
5. Conditions for the next round of the bull market
The regulatory framework is being improved, and the builders are still working hard. Next, two conditions must be met:
Non-compliant zones give birth to new “killer apps”: something like the “DeFi Summer” of 2020 must emerge to create new value. AI agents, InfoFi, and on-chain social networking are all potential candidates, but they have yet to reach a global scale. A healthy flow of “non-compliant zone testing → successful verification → migration to a compliant zone” must be formed again.
Coordination of the macroeconomic environment: Even if the regulatory dust settles, the builders' efforts, and the infrastructure is improved, if the macroeconomic environment does not support it, there is still limited room for growth. The DeFi boom in 2020 erupted into a global drain after the pandemic; the post-2024 ETF rise also coincided with expectations of interest rate cuts. The crypto industry, no matter how well it does itself, has no control over interest rates and liquidity. For the value built within the industry to be widely recognized, the macro environment must be reversed.
The “general rise” crypto season like in the past is unlikely to be repeated. Because the market has completely split. The compliance zone will grow steadily, while the non-compliance zone will continue to fluctuate sharply.
The next round of the bull market will come, but it won't benefit everyone.
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