The macro turning point has arrived: Policy warming and institutional promotion resonate together

As the third quarter of 2025 begins, the macro situation has quietly changed. The policy environment that once marginalized digital assets has now transformed into a systemic driving force. Against the backdrop of the Federal Reserve ending interest rate hikes, fiscal policy returning to a stimulative track, and the acceleration of global crypto regulation towards a "harmonious framework", the crypto market is on the eve of a structural reassessment.

Firstly, the macro liquidity environment in the United States is entering a critical turning point. The market has reached a consensus on interest rate cuts within 2025, and the divergence between the dot plot and futures market expectations has widened. Government pressure on the Federal Reserve indicates that real interest rates in the U.S. will slide from high levels between the second half of 2025 and 2026. This opens an upward channel for the valuation of digital assets.

At the same time, fiscal expansion has led to an unprecedented release of capital. Significant investments in areas such as manufacturing reshoring, AI infrastructure, and energy independence have created a "capital flood" that spans traditional industries and emerging fields. This has reshaped the internal circulation structure of the dollar and indirectly strengthened the marginal demand for digital assets.

The change in the regulatory structure is more critical. The SEC's attitude towards the crypto market has undergone a qualitative change, and the approval of the ETH staking ETF marks the first acknowledgment by regulators that income-generating digital assets can enter the traditional financial system. The SEC is working on establishing unified standards, intending to construct a replicable and scalable channel for compliant financial products. This represents a fundamental shift in regulatory logic from a "firewall" approach to a "pipeline engineering" approach.

The competition for compliance in the Asian region is heating up, with Hong Kong, Singapore, the UAE, and others vying for stablecoin, payment licenses, and the dividends of Web3 innovation projects. The trend of sovereign capital merging with internet giants has begun, and stablecoins will become part of payment networks, corporate settlements, and even national financial strategies.

The risk appetite in traditional financial markets has shown signs of recovery. The S&P 500 has hit a new high, technology stocks and emerging assets have rebounded, IPOs are warming up, and trading platforms are seeing increased activity, all indicating a return of risk capital. Changes in capital behavior are more honest than narratives and more forward-looking than policies.

Under the dual drive of policy and market, the new round of bull market is not driven by emotions, but by value reassessment under institutional drive. The global capital market is beginning to "pay a premium for deterministic assets," and the spring of the crypto market is returning in a more gentle yet stronger manner.

Structural Turnover: Enterprises and Institutions Leading the Next Bull Market

The most noteworthy structural change in the current cryptocurrency market is the deep logic of the transfer of chips from retail investors and short-term funds to long-term holders, corporate treasuries, and financial institutions. After two years of clearing and restructuring, the structure of market participants has undergone a historic "reshuffling": users centered around speculation have been marginalized, while institutions and enterprises aimed at allocation have become the decisive force driving the next bull market.

The performance of Bitcoin speaks for itself. In the past three quarters, the cumulative amount of Bitcoin purchased by listed companies has exceeded the net inflow of ETFs during the same period. Companies view Bitcoin as a "strategic cash alternative" rather than a short-term asset allocation tool. This reflects a deep understanding of the expectation of global currency devaluation and is also a proactive response based on the understanding of incentive structures of products like ETFs.

Financial infrastructure is clearing obstacles for institutional capital to flow in more quickly. The Ethereum staking ETF not only expands the boundaries of compliant products but also signifies that institutions are beginning to incorporate "on-chain yield assets" into traditional portfolios. The anticipated approval of the Solana spot ETF further opens up the realm of possibilities; once the staking yield mechanism is packaged and absorbed by the ETF, it will fundamentally change traditional asset managers' perception of crypto assets as "yieldless and purely volatile."

Companies are directly participating in the on-chain financial market, breaking the traditional isolation structure between "over-the-counter investment" and the on-chain world. This is no longer the logic of venture capital participating in startup projects, but rather a capital injection colored by "industrial mergers and acquisitions" and "strategic layouts," aiming to secure the core asset rights and revenue distribution rights of new financial infrastructure.

Traditional finance is also actively laying out in the fields of derivatives and on-chain liquidity. The Solana futures open interest on CME has reached a record high, and the monthly trading volume of XRP futures has surpassed $500 million for the first time, indicating that traditional trading institutions have included crypto assets in their strategic models. Hedge funds, structured product providers, and multi-strategy CTA funds are continuously entering, which will fundamentally enhance "liquidity density" and "market depth."

From the perspective of structural turnover, the significant decline in the activity of retail investors and short-term players has precisely reinforced the aforementioned trend. On-chain data shows a continuous decrease in the proportion of short-term holders, a reduction in the activity of early whale wallets, and on-chain search and wallet interaction data tend to stabilize, indicating that the market is in a "turnover sedimentation period."

The "productization capability" of financial institutions is also rapidly being implemented. From traditional large banks to emerging retail financial platforms, all are expanding their capabilities in trading, staking, lending, and payments of crypto assets. This not only enables the "usability of crypto assets within the fiat currency system" but also provides them with richer financial attributes. In the future, BTC and ETH may no longer just be "volatile digital assets" but will become "configurable asset classes."

Essentially, this round of structural turnover is not just a simple rotation of positions, but a deep unfolding of the "financial commodification" of crypto assets, representing a complete reconfiguration of value discovery logic. The dominant players in the market are no longer the "quick money crowd" driven by emotions and trends, but institutions and enterprises with medium to long-term strategic planning, clear allocation logic, and stable funding structures. A truly institutionalized and structured bull market is quietly brewing; it will neither be grandiose nor fervently passionate, but it will be more solid, more lasting, and more thorough.

The New Era of Shanzhai Season: From General Rise to "Selective Bull Market"

The current "Shanzhai Season" is entering a new stage: the broad rally is no longer, replaced by a "selective bull market" driven by narratives such as ETFs, real yields, and institutional adoption. This is a sign of the cryptocurrency market gradually maturing, and an inevitable result of the capital selection mechanism after the market returns to rationality.

From the structural signals, the mainstream altcoins have completed a new round of accumulation. The ETH/BTC pair has welcomed a strong rebound for the first time after several weeks of decline, with whale addresses accumulating millions of ETH in a very short time, and large on-chain transactions occurring frequently, indicating that major funds have begun to reprice Ethereum and other tier-one assets. Meanwhile, retail investor sentiment remains low, with search indices and wallet creation volumes not significantly rebounding, which instead creates an ideal "low-interference" environment for the next market cycle.

This time, the altcoin market will not be "flying together," but rather "each flying on its own." ETF applications have become the anchor point for a new round of thematic structures. In particular, the spot ETF for Solana has been regarded as the next "market consensus-type event." As the staking mechanism is expected to be incorporated into the ETF structure, its "quasi-dividend asset" properties are attracting a large amount of capital for pre-positioning. This narrative will not only drive the SOL spot itself but will also affect the governance tokens of its staking ecosystem.

DeFi is also an important arena in this round of "selective bull market", but its logic has undergone fundamental changes. Users are beginning to shift from "points airdrop-type DeFi" to "cash flow-type DeFi", with protocol revenue, stablecoin yield strategies, and re-staking mechanisms becoming core indicators for assessing asset value. This transition has spurred the emergence of projects such as Renzo, Size Credit, and Yield Nest, which attract continuous capital inflow through innovative designs like structured yield products and fixed-rate vaults.

The choice of capital is quietly becoming more "realistic". Stablecoin strategies backed by real-world assets (RWA) are beginning to attract institutional interest, with protocols like Euler Prime attempting to create "sovereign bond-like products" on-chain. Cross-chain liquidity integration and user experience unification have also become key factors in determining the direction of funds, as middleware projects leverage seamless bridging and hybrid DeFi capabilities to emerge as new hubs for capital concentration.

The speculative part of the market is also shifting. Although meme coins are still popular, the era of "everyone lifting the price" is gone forever. Instead, the rise of the "platform rotation trading" strategy has taken its place, where meme contracts launched on certain trading platforms often focus on quickly turning funding rates negative and raising prices for offloading, which is extremely risky and unsustainable.

In summary, the core feature of this round of the altcoin season is not "which public chain will take off," but rather "which assets have the potential to be integrated into traditional financial logic." From the structural changes in ETFs, the re-staking yield model, to the simplification of cross-chain UX, and the integration of RWA and institutional credit infrastructure, the crypto market is entering a deep value reassessment cycle. A selective bull market is not a weakening of the bull market, but rather an upgrade of the bull market. The future will no longer belong to the game of speculation, but to those who can read the narrative logic in advance, understand financial structures, and are willing to quietly build positions in a "quiet market."

Q3 Investment Framework: From Core Allocation to Event-Driven

The market layout for the third quarter of 2025 is no longer simply betting on "market sentiment warming" or "Bitcoin dominating the market" as a judgment on the market trend, but rather a comprehensive restructuring of asset allocation. Under the macro trend of the end of high interest rates and the continuous influx of ETF funds, investors must find a balance between "core allocation stability" and "event-driven local explosions."

First of all, Bitcoin remains the preferred choice for core positions. In an environment where there has been no substantial reversal in ETF inflows, corporate treasuries continue to increase their holdings, and the Federal Reserve's policies are releasing dovish signals, BTC demonstrates a strong resilience against declines and a capital siphoning effect. A recent report from a certain bank has pushed its price ceiling by the end of the year to $200,000. Although this is a high-end expectation, the underlying logic is convincing: corporate buying has become the largest variable in the market, and the "structural accumulation" characteristics of ETFs have altered the traditional price trajectory of the halving cycle.

In the rotation logic of mainstream assets, Solana is undoubtedly the most thematic explosive target in Q3. Leading institutions have submitted applications for SOL spot ETFs, with the approval window expected to close around September. As the staking mechanism is likely to be included in the ETF structure, its "quasi-dividend asset" attribute is attracting a large amount of funds for preemptive layout. This narrative will not only drive the SOL spot itself but will also affect the governance tokens of its staking ecosystem. From the current price level around $150, SOL already has a very strong cost-performance ratio and Beta elasticity.

At the sector level, DeFi portfolios are still worth restructuring. Unlike the past phase of "hunting for APY", the current focus should be on protocols with stable cash flow, real yield distribution capabilities, and mature governance mechanisms. Configurable projects can refer to SYRUP, LQTY, EUL, FLUID, etc., using an equal-weight allocation method to capture the relative returns of individual projects and perform profit rotation. Such protocols often have characteristics of "slow capital inflow and delayed bursts", so they should be treated with a medium-term allocation mindset to avoid chasing highs and cutting losses.

In terms of speculative position allocation, exposure to Meme assets should be strictly controlled. It is recommended to limit it to within 5% of the total asset net value and manage positions with an options mindset. Given that Meme contracts are often manipulated by high-frequency funds, the risk is extremely high but there is also potential for high returns, albeit with low probability. It is advisable to establish clear stop-loss mechanisms, profit-taking rules, and position limits. For investors accustomed to event-driven trading, these assets can serve as emotional averaging tools, but they must never be misjudged as the core of a trend.

In addition to the configuration strategy, another key point in the third quarter is the timing of event-driven layout. The current market is facing a transition period from an "information vacuum" to "intensive release of events." Politicians have once again confirmed their support for cryptocurrency mining and criticized the Federal Reserve Chairman, which has triggered accelerated expectations for policy games. The passage of a certain bill, a certain platform's entry into the L2 ecology, a certain company's application for a U.S. license, and other signals indicate that the U.S. regulatory environment is rapidly changing.