Some thoughts / predictions on the current state of the space
October 7th, 2025
Extended thoughts I've brainstormed based off my current perception of the crypto market that I intend to return to at the end of the year to see how they've fared.
1) Currently, China seems to be having their own sort of alt season, which can easily be seen by filtering on BanterBubbles and observing the trending narratives. I mean '币安人生' launched 2 days ago and hit a $180M market cap... how? Criming for attention? (I spent years studying Mandarin and Chinese culture, met native Chinese people IRL, and still don't get it... culture barrier I guess). The biggest exchange used by Chinese people is by far Binance and BNB is very popular in China. BNB has also been heavily outperforming the rest of the alts and is now the #3 largest cryptocurrency by market cap having overtaken XRP and USDT, so this makes sense. There's probably a lot going on in that sphere that we're simply disconnected from seeing as China tends to be very separated from the Western world. With regards to the Western world and in general however, alt season has simply not begun.
2) i) An extension to the above, BTC dominance is still at 59%. Even in the most conservative case and assuming we remain in-line with trendlines stretching back to 2017, BTC dominance should drop to at least ~44%. Therefore, if you're holding altcoins, be patient, the real excitement is yet to come:
BTC Dominance trendline stretching back to 2017 as shown above ^ we've seen nothing so far.
2) ii) I personally expect alts to go parabolic in the coming months. If we look at the objective facts: the US dollar is devaluing quicker than other major currencies, there's money printing everywhere, Japan's (JPY is the 3rd most traded currency after USD and EUR) new Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi is pro-stimulus and favours aggressive monetary and fiscal expansion etc. I could go on and on into the depths of it but you've probably seen the news. There's just so much bullish momentum for a risk-on environment to excel, and so it's why I believe our alts will eventually go parabolic and expect to see BTC dominance perhaps even drop below this trendline. It's also been the 2nd best October start for BTC ever which can only mean good news heading into Q4. Historically however, BTC dominance has been very green in October (i.e. doesn't drop) but this isn't bad (actually good for later on) so long as BTC continues to trend upwards as it is currently doing, then expect to see a dominance breakdown in Nov-Dec when this typically happens (where things tend to take off).
3) I feel like the BNB memecoin narrative will continue for the time being over the short-term, also since CZ is going on threadguy's stream on Friday, so that is probably bullish contingent on what he says (will likely just hype things up even more) and hence attract more market participants. Hence, over the short-term, it makes sense to bridge and follow the volume if you're a trencher and look for coins that CZ may engage with while the hype is still there. Being the co-founder of the #1 CEX and the most powerful individual in crypto, he clearly does have a plan to steal more of the market share in memes the same way he did with perps and Aster to Hyperliquid, but Solana will remain the forefront for memes. Crime and hype is unsustainable.
4) I'm not a fan of how every meme I see running on BNB currently is just based off CZ or dependent on his interaction. I don't see how that's sustainable. Feels like what Bonk did but just on a 10x scale since he obviously has a lot more pull. Will get toxic soon enough IMO unless there's some shift. I may be out of touch cause it's more so China and can only speak on what I know. Perhaps they love it over there... I just don't see it. Solana has the best narratives and communities.
5) As said above, the quality of memes on SOL is much better. Solana also has the culture which is very hard to replicate while BNB comes across much less authentic. A lot of people only care if they make money however so that may not matter so long as CZ continues to crime. What I'm seeing now on BNB I don't expect to last anywhere to this degree unless something changes, but they may keep a decent chunk of new pairs liquidity moving forward since that seems to be CZ's goal if he continues with this as was done with perp DEXs, subject to any announcements PumpFun decides to make moving forward. But, for proper cult communities, coin launches on BNB just cannot replicate this. It takes months, 70/80% retracements, and surviving to build that kind of strength and trust. This is only exacerbated with it now being Q4 and people expecting major pumps across the board in the coming months and the cycle coming to an end, so they may simply view any major retracement in Nov-Jan as 'Cycle over. Get out.' and the coin dies since there's no feeling of a real community to keep them holding. They have no connection to the coin.
6) Again on the topic of SOL, Solana beats BNB on all metrics if you compare chains using Artemis Dashboard... but currently sits at just $220 and up only 11% in the past 30 days while BNB is up nearly 50%, a clear mispricing don't you think? So I predict for SOL to run to at least $400+ when true alt season hits.
7) The top trending coin on BNB is currently '4' at a $230M market cap and launched just 6 days ago based off the CZ picture throwing the symbol with his hand. Once again just a function of CZ and without any nostalgia, emotional resonance or real movement like the best coins that've maintained this market cap across months if not years have had. I would say that right now this is just good for a quick flip since there's currently a tonne of volume and things can pump fast, but hype never lasts and it will probably get boring and die once the excitement dries out and there's no Binance listing or CZ crime to keep things going. Like I said, I personally don't see how it's sustainable long-term.
8) New pairs on PumpFun are just terrible right now. The space clearly needs a reset which is something I've been preaching. Tools like Uxento and general hyperprofessionalisation (Fortnite analogous) have made it a cancer to trade these low-cap coins. CCM also just made people lose a lot of money, but some top creators that go extremely viral may still emerge and onboard a lot of new people. A transition from hyper-rotation and gambling to longer-term cult coins is the best bet moving forward for a healthy ecosystem IMO. Coins where members feel part of a real community, proactively create content and products surrounding the narrative (because they're excited and genuinely want to take part) and form a whole ecosystem surrounding the meme I think are best. It's a synergistic flywheel and much more sustainable, fun, and healthy than '[insert KOL] might retweet!'. PumpFun have made it clear that a huge goal of theirs is to onboard retail. In fact, @a1lon9's direct words were that he wishes to 'capture the attention of millions of non-crypto natives', and I see no better way to achieve this than by facilitating holding via success stories, hence cult coins. Retail will get obliterated on new pairs. It is also just a better experience for the masses (who may have jobs and many other duties and so cannot dedicate the time to successfully learn to 'trench') to simply hold and make money off believing, participating, and having fun in the community like Murad preaches. If people that've been trenching day in day out over the past year are even struggling to make money, how are newbies supposed to be profitable on any of these new micro-cap coins? It feels like it's just been exhausted and the solution is clear.
9) PumpFun is spending over $50,000,000 a week to buy back their tokens and have bought back ~8% of the total supply. My guess is that once they reach their goal tokens they'll transition more so to supporting their actual top communities. The reason I think this is because of the messages they've been echoing over the past couple weeks/months. Surely they have some merit to them?
"communities will always win in the end." — @a1lon9, Sep 16
"introducing the Glass Full Foundation — the Glass Full Foundation aims to accelerate the most organic, vibrant, and promising communities in the pump fun ecosystem. GFF will inject SIGNIFICANT liquidity into ecosystem tokens to support our most diehard cults" — @pumpdotfun, Aug 8
"organic always wins, real communities always win, OGs always win" — @a1lon9, May 14
I mean... that revenue has to go somewhere eventually... right? It felt like the Glass Full Foundation only lasted a couple days but the text says 'stimulating long-term success' so perhaps it's just on pause?
10) I have no clue on the exact timing of the airdrop, but Alon is not stupid and I would guess that he is saving it for the perfect time, i.e. when memes typically enter their prime between Nov-Jan. So that period seems the most probable to me for an airdrop. When that happens, I expect Pumpfolio coins, especially $TROLL, to go parabolic. IMO $TROLL will most certainly finish this cycle in the billions. I've looked at every other coin objectively and I can confidently say that $TROLL is the greatest asymmetric bet to size into right now on the market. I think if you're reading this and you're seeing it at a $130M market cap you are very very lucky. The community is the most active on X (proven by data), have acquired the IP rights to the most famous meme of all time (a 6-figure deal so clear long-term commitment), arguably the only memecoin this year to obtain an organic Coinbase listing, the art and socials are absolutely insane and the best of any community across all chains, there's a lot of excitement surrounding the coin and it's been battle-tested on several occasions now over the past couple months (multiple 70%+ retracements but still stronger than ever) so you can sleep comfy knowing it's a safe hold. With all this being said, the stage is clearly set for a parabolic run for $TROLL!
Once again, I would like to reiterate that these are simply my own thoughts on the current state of the space. I could be right, I could be wrong! So far however, I have been right a lot more often than I have been wrong. My main reason for writing this is to observe how my predictions end up faring over time. If you've made it this far, thank you for reading!