Once you understand the cause and effect behind the token price growth, you will be mentally prepared to ride the whole rally better than others. Let us deep dive into the psychology behind token price rise

Token launches are perceived in certain ways.

That perception arises from evolved tendencies.

Evolved tendencies in crypto usually carry forward the memory of a gain. It is not just what happened, it is what worked in the past.

So most participants are not actually betting on fundamentals. They are trying to recreate a moment in time when they made money. They are subconsciously chasing old highs by doing the same thing again.

In this market, we have participants from different timelines.

Some of them are pretty old, coming from the pre 2018 batch.

Most of them are here from the post 2020 batch.

And we have a whole new onchain crowd which joined very recently in the past three years.

These crowds have a different perception of token launches based on their own evolved tendencies, which means they interpret the same event with very different emotions and expectations.

• A participant from the 2018 era still wants clarity. They value roadmaps, tokenomics, utility, and a sense of vision. They want some proof of work from the team, some traction, and preferably real revenue. These are ICO native minds. They have seen cycles and tend to stick with projects that evolve.
• A participant from the post 2020 batch wants shortcuts. Most of them are still holding bags spoon fed by influencers, and their psychology is rooted in wishful thinking. They do not necessarily care what the project does. They care whether someone else will buy higher. Their patience is limited, but their hope is unlimited.
• A participant from the recent onchain era wants free money or quick thrills. They are aggressive, fast, and everywhere. They farm everything, ape into everything, grind for points, try to flip every trend. But their expectations are too high. So even if they make a couple of thousand dollars, it feels small, and they overtrade until they lose it. Most of them operate in the trenches and never come out.

These three kinds of participants are sharing three different types of mental space.

We call these mental spaces intersubjective spaces.

Intersubjectivity in crypto is not a soft philosophical term. It is real. It means multiple people sharing a common belief, a collective fiction that temporarily becomes reality because everyone acts as if it is real.

In crypto, these shared beliefs move markets.

Thoughts of participants from these spaces are intersubjective to each other. They validate each other, hype each other, defend each other’s bags.

This intersubjectivity creates a strong group, a tribal force, which acts as a positive or negative catalyst for the token.

People in these intersubjective spaces are early. They took more risk, they put in the work, they believed in the narrative before it became real.

And when the token delivers, they get emotionally invested.

They do not just hold the token. They become the token.

They are the community.

They become the voice of the project on social media, farming attention, creating memes, onboarding others, and constantly expanding the intersubjective space.

Hyperliquid is a prime example. The early believers formed a strong intersubjective group. They got rewarded through a massive airdrop. That airdrop became the evidence that belief works, and that created more belief. The loop began.

You could see the same in meme coins like BONK, WIF, and POPCAT. All driven by intersubjective energy before anything else.

In crypto, price is the narrative.

Token price is the leading indicator here.

If the price is rising, more people will join.

But before that, somebody needs to believe it will rise.

That is where the intersubjective group comes in.

They act before the effect.

They become the cause.

These believers do not operate in isolation.

They operate through human coordination.

They shill together. Post together. Fight together. Build a shared reality together.

When others start to join, they look at price as confirmation.

The price becomes a signal, not just a number.

And that signal loops back, driving more belief, more buying, and more price action.

This is where reflexivity kicks in.

Reflexivity in crypto means price affects belief, and belief affects price.

It is a feedback loop where perception and valuation feed each other.

People buy tokens because they see the price pumping.

That pumping becomes proof of success.

Success becomes marketing.

Marketing becomes narrative.

Narrative brings more buyers.

More buyers push the price higher.

Price pumping is the effect. But the cause?

That is more complex.

In memes, it could be culture driven

In DeFi, it could be revenue driven

In agents, it could be tech driven

In all cases, it starts with a shared belief among a few, and ends with buy ins from the many.

People who join during the reflexive stage are usually buying the dream, not the logic. They become the exit liquidity for those who entered at the intersubjective stage.

This is where the game gets asymmetric.

Participants from both stages, intersubjective and reflexive, manipulate information, create narratives, distort facts, and stretch beliefs to keep others aligned with their version of reality.

Over time, multiple realities form around a single token. Each group believes something slightly different.

These are perceived realities. Mini echo chambers of belief.

Each group holds for different reasons, expects different outcomes, and exits at different moments. These micro intersubjective spaces create volatility, fear, greed, and often chaos.

Most people in these micro realities get trapped in extreme greed.

They forget why they entered.

They only remember what they could lose.

And when things collapse, they do not just lose money. They lose belief.

They cry in the same spaces where they once celebrated.

The real beneficiaries of token price discovery are those who coordinated early. But even they win only if the token price stays above their expectation long enough to let them exit with conviction.

In the end, price discovery is not a chart event. It is a coordination event.

It is shaped by how humans perceive value, believe in stories, and act in sync with others.

So always know:

What stage you are in.

What kind of reality you are participating in.

And what kind of perception you are holding onto while thinking the coin will go up.

The more clarity you have on your psychological ground, The better outcomes you could create for your bags.

Disclaimer:

1. This article is reprinted from [hmalviya9]. All copyrights belong to the original author [hmalviya9]. If there are objections to this reprint, please contact the Gate Learn team, and they will handle it promptly.
2. Liability Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not constitute any investment advice.
3. Translations of the article into other languages are done by the Gate Learn team. Unless mentioned, copying, distributing, or plagiarizing the translated articles is prohibited.