The Biggest Misjudgment of 2025: Bitcoin Peaked in Q4, and 'HODLing' No Longer Works
In his 2025 review, the author admits a major misjudgment: Bitcoin likely peaked in Q4, defying his prediction and confirming the persistent four-year cycle. He reflects on other forecasts: retail investors largely avoided crypto for assets like gold and AI stocks, memecoin and AI agent supercycles failed to materialize, and NFTs are declared dead.
Key insights include:
1. Spot ETFs acted as a market floor, not a ceiling, absorbing massive sell-offs from long-term holders. Bitcoin’s correlation with traditional risk assets dropped, potentially bullish long-term.
2. Airdrops thrived with $4.5B distributed, but success now requires focused, high-conviction plays due to sybil detection and valuation pressures.
3. Protocol fee switches set a price floor via buybacks but don’t guarantee sustained price appreciation, as seen with UNI’s volatility.
4. Stablecoins gained mainstream traction for payments, but trading the narrative (e.g., Circle’s IPO) proved difficult. The real opportunity lies in bypassing traditional payment rails.
5. DeFi is more centralized than CeFi, with dominant players like Aave and Chainlink. Conflicts between equity and token holders highlight governance challenges.
The overarching theme: Everything is a trade. The HODL culture is dead, replaced by short exit windows and a lack of long-term conviction.
marsbit01/12 07:35
