Views on the current trends in the cryptocurrency market

Although I have been writing about the RWA ecosystem in my recent articles, what I am most concerned about and thinking the most is still the AI agent track and the potential trends of the overall cryptocurrency market.

In the current cryptocurrency ecosystem, I believe there are still two vibrant areas that have formed a certain scale and garnered considerable attention:

One is the meme coins that have been trending since the beginning of this market cycle; the other is AI agents.

Let's first look at meme coins.

A few days ago, the president of a Central African country launched a meme coin, and later Binance actively listed several meme coins. Subsequently, a few exchanges listed a coin that has been promoted offline for the past few years.

Many players have strong opinions about them, but in this free world, these phenomena are something we will inevitably see.

I have not participated in these coins, so I hold a neutral attitude.

However, the attention these coins have generated still surprised me to some extent. Upon reflection, I realized it reflects a sense of helplessness and fatigue within the ecosystem.

The surprise comes from my initial belief that even if public figures issued their own meme coins after Trump launched his, those coins probably wouldn't stir up too much emotion.

Because Trump is considered a top-tier meme coin.

Yet even this top-tier coin quickly experienced a wave of ups and downs in its market. This kind of market probably drained a lot of energy from many players in the ecosystem, right?

How many players will continue to participate in such games in the future?

Even in a casino, one cannot be overly excited every day; at least one needs to take a break, right?

However, on social media, they remain a hot topic of discussion among many players.

This further indicates that since the bear market of the last cycle, the cryptocurrency ecosystem has made too few and too weak breakthroughs in applications and business models.

Thus, participants can only gamble on waves of emotional value.

Upon reflecting on what breakthroughs in applications and business models have occurred in this market cycle, I believe there is probably only one area that has real potential and could continue to gain momentum: AI agents.

Other tracks like gaming and DeFi may have hope, but even if they do, I feel it comes from the drive of AI agents rather than their own intrinsic motivation.

As for RWA, I increasingly feel that even though it is related to the cryptocurrency ecosystem, the connection is not that significant. More precisely, this track, closely related to regulation and centralized institutions, finds it hard to spread its influence across other tracks in the entire cryptocurrency ecosystem.

Returning to AI agents.

Although AI agents have not been a hot topic in the ecosystem recently, some top projects in this track are still working hard on development, which is very encouraging and touching.

Those who can persist in building during tough times and avoid the spotlight while continuing to work quietly are not only admirable but also the pillars of the ecosystem and the hope for its future.

However, in the short term, due to the recent market fluctuations of AI agents, especially the price movements of related tokens being interrupted by two major external events, it will require greater and more intense stimulation and innovation for the AI agent track to regain its previous energy and attention.

For instance, we need an AI agent that is more prominent than AIXBT and can better demonstrate application value and actual value to reinvigorate this ecosystem.

This is no small challenge, but I still hope for a miracle to happen.

The sooner this miracle occurs, the greater the hope for the entire ecosystem to restart. If it takes too long, the hope will become increasingly dim.

The above are the possible driving forces within the ecosystem. I have always believed that this is the core driving force for ecosystem development. If the core driving force is too weak, the entire ecosystem will face a clear ceiling in the upcoming market trends.

If we consider the less optimistic scenario, if the aforementioned miracle does not occur and no other miracles appear in the ecosystem's other tracks, then the basic determinant of the upcoming market trends will primarily be external driving forces.

Currently, the only two important external driving forces I can think of are both related to U.S. policy:

One is Bitcoin being included in the U.S. strategic reserves.

The other is the regulation regarding POS staking rewards.

In the long term, Bitcoin being included in the U.S. strategic reserves will certainly have a positive, far-reaching, and significant stimulating effect on the entire cryptocurrency ecosystem.

However, in the short term (for example, this year), how significant that effect will be is probably what we are most concerned about right now.

In this regard, we can look at a reference point:

Currently, more than 10 states in the U.S. are incorporating Bitcoin into their reserves.

However, in the face of such public and certain news, has the market trend of Bitcoin improved significantly during this period?

It seems not.

Therefore, I think we should take a conservative view of the short-term impact of Bitcoin being included in the U.S. national reserves.

As for the potential loosening of POS staking regulations, I believe that even if such policies are introduced, their impact will be limited, or rather, until we see the emergence of real commercial scenarios and application models in the cryptocurrency ecosystem, their effect will be very limited.

So overall, how the entire ecosystem trends in the future, in the absence of other miracles, will increasingly depend on the development of AI agents.