Alts have fallen into a cold winter again, where is the market heading?

Since the beginning of 2025, the overall performance of the cryptocurrency market has been sluggish, with poor sustained growth. This downturn is evident not only in various tokens on trading platforms but also in on-chain coins that performed well in the fourth quarter of 2024, which have also faced significant declines.

Taking AI Agent-related tokens as an example, the main coins experienced a shocking decline in 2025:

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

In less than three months, the once highly sought-after leading projects have lost 80% of their value. Although it cannot yet be determined that this sector has failed, the market's attention to it has indeed significantly decreased, and it is unlikely to return to its peak in the short term.

At the same time, the celebrity coin craze initiated by Trump has rapidly cooled down. The decline in major celebrity coins since their peak is equally shocking:

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

The cryptocurrency market has a saying of "chasing the new rather than the old", which means that funds tend to pursue the latest investment narratives. However, compared to AI Agents, the decline in the celebrity coin sector is even more severe. In the face of the current dilemmas of these two sectors, is there still a possibility for breakthroughs in a market environment lacking emerging narratives?

Current Narrative Dilemma: Concept Hype Prevails, Substantive Applications Are Scarce

The main issue in the AI Agent track is that most projects are still stuck in the "concept demonstration" and "future blueprint" stage, lacking practical and easily marketable products. Even when some operational services emerge in the market, they often have problems such as complicated interfaces and poor user experience, making it difficult to attract ordinary investors for long-term use. Worse still, some project teams exaggerate their promotions to cater to investors' expectations of "AI + blockchain," yet the actual applications are slow to materialize. As time goes by, funding patience wears thin, market attention shifts, and the prices of related tokens plummet.

The celebrity coin sector is facing the dilemma of diminishing "celebrity effect." Trump undoubtedly provided a highly topical start, but subsequently, political figures, internet celebrities, and stars from various countries followed suit, yet none could replicate the initial enthusiasm for funding and market sentiment. The following effect gradually weakened, leading to a fleeting situation for the celebrity coin sector, with investors losing confidence rapidly, and prices naturally plummeting.

The fundamental reason for the significant fluctuations in these sectors is that most projects only stay at the "speculative concept" level, lacking real and sustainable profit models. Whether it's AI Agent or celebrity coins, their core narratives overly rely on short-term funding and hype, yet fail to provide users with the motivation for long-term participation. Once the hype fades, it becomes difficult to maintain prices, let alone attract new funds to enter.

Finding real yield projects becomes key

In the current market environment, where narratives are scarce, the key to standing out lies in finding projects that offer "real returns" and are "willing to share with users." The so-called "real returns" refer not only to short-term price increases at the time of listing but also to the ability to continuously generate returns through actual business models and trading activities, and to feedback these returns 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 to repurchase platform tokens, closely binding the coin price to the product usage. Data shows that the platform accounts for about 45% of the 24-hour trading volume among all perpetual contract DEXs, with an average daily trading volume of $3.78 billion and daily revenue of about $1 million. Even in the current market downturn, the platform maintains a high level of activity, and its token price has thus remained strong in the recent environment where alts generally have declined.

No matter how popular an investment narrative is, it will eventually lose its luster. What can truly survive in the crypto market are those projects that find product-market fit ( PMF ), have high user retention, and generate real profits. When choosing investment targets, investors should pay more attention to the actual application value and sustainable development capability of the projects, rather than merely following short-term hype.