The four major cycles of the crypto market coexist, and investment strategies need to be tailored according to the "week".

The Crypto Assets market is undergoing profound changes, and the traditional "four-year cycle" theory has become outdated. The current market presents four parallel yet distinctly different cycle patterns, each with its unique rhythm, strategy, and profit logic.

Bitcoin Super Cycle: Institution-Led Long-Term Slow Bull

Bitcoin has evolved from a speculative target to an institutional allocation asset. The scale of funds and allocation logic from Wall Street, public companies, and ETFs have completely changed the traditional bull-bear alternating pattern. Retail investors are exiting in large numbers, while institutional funds, represented by a well-known technology company, are actively entering the market. This fundamental restructuring of the chip structure is redefining Bitcoin's price discovery mechanism and volatility characteristics.

Retail investors face the dual pressure of time costs and opportunity costs. Institutions can withstand a holding period of 3-5 years to wait for the long-term value of Bitcoin to be realized, while retail investors clearly lack this patience and financial strength.

We may witness a Bitcoin super slow bull market lasting more than ten years. The annualized return could stabilize in the range of 20-30%, but the intraday volatility will significantly decrease, resembling a steadily growing tech stock. As for the price ceiling of Bitcoin, it may be difficult to accurately predict from the perspective of retail investors at the moment.

MEME Short Wave Cycle: From Grassroots Carnival to Professional Competition

The argument for the long-term existence of MEME projects still holds. When the technical narrative lacks expressiveness, the MEME narrative always fills the market gap by aligning with the rhythm of emotions, funds, and attention.

The essence of MEME is a speculative vehicle for "instant gratification". From pet themes to political memes, from AI concept packaging to community IP incubation, MEME has evolved into a complete "emotional monetization" industrial chain.

The "short, flat, and fast" characteristic of MEME makes it a barometer of market sentiment and a reservoir of funds. When funds are abundant, MEME becomes the preferred testing ground for hot money; when funds are scarce, MEME turns into the last refuge for speculation.

However, the MEME market is evolving from "grassroots carnival" to "professional competition". The difficulty for ordinary retail investors to profit in this high-frequency rotation is increasing exponentially. The entry of professional teams, data analysts, and large funds is making this once "grassroots paradise" increasingly competitive.

Technical Narrative Leap Long Cycle: Death Valley Bottoming Opportunity

Innovations that truly have technical barriers, such as Layer 2 scaling, ZK technology, and AI infrastructure, require 2-3 years or even longer development time to see actual results. These types of projects follow the technology maturity curve rather than the emotional cycles of the capital market, resulting in a fundamental time misalignment between the two.

The reason why technical narratives are criticized by the market is mainly because projects have given overly high valuations at the conceptual stage, while there is a tendency for undervaluation during the "valley of death" stage when the technology truly begins to take shape. This determines that the value release of technical projects presents a non-linear leap characteristic.

For investors with patience and technical judgment, laying out truly valuable technology projects during the "valley of death" phase may be the best strategy for achieving excess returns. However, the premise is that investors need to be able to endure long waiting periods and market hardships, as well as the doubts they may face.

Innovative Small Hotspots Short Cycle: Seize the Window Period, Brew the Main Rising Wave

Before the main technical narrative takes shape, various small narratives quickly rotate, from RWA to distributed physical infrastructure, from AI smart agents to AI infrastructure, with each small hotspot possibly having only a 1-3 month window.

This fragmented narrative and high-frequency rotation reflect the dual constraints of current market attention scarcity and the efficiency of capital rent-seeking.

A typical small narrative cycle follows a six-stage model: "Proof of Concept → Funding Probe → Opinion Amplification → FOMO and FUD → Valuation Overstretch → Fund Withdrawal". To profit in this model, the key is to enter during the "Proof of Concept" to "Funding Probe" stages and exit at the peak of "FOMO and FUD".

The competition between narratives is essentially a zero-sum game of attention resources. However, there exists a technical relevance and conceptual progression between narratives. For example, the model context protocols in AI infrastructure and the inter-agent interaction standards are, in fact, a technical underlying reconstruction of AI intelligent agent narratives. If subsequent narratives can continue the previous hotspots, forming a systematic upgrade linkage, and genuinely precipitate a sustainable value closed loop in the process, a super narrative similar to the DeFi summer could very likely be born.

From the perspective of the existing narrative pattern, the AI infrastructure layer is most likely to achieve breakthroughs first. If underlying technologies such as model context protocols, inter-agent communication standards, distributed computing power, inference, and data networks can be organically integrated, there is indeed potential to construct a super narrative similar to "AI summer."

In general, understanding the essence of these four parallel gameplay cycles is essential to finding suitable strategies within their respective rhythms. Clearly, the singular "four-year cycle" mindset can no longer keep up with the complexity of the current market. Adapting to the new normal of "multiple gameplay cycles in parallel" may be the key to truly profiting in this bull market.