In 2025, the cryptocurrency market faces a profound question: why has the path to success for alts become so difficult? On the surface, this seems to be due to insufficient market liquidity, but upon deeper analysis, we find that the entire rules of the game have undergone fundamental changes.

Although the total market capitalization of alts has risen to 75%, there are very few projects that can bring substantial returns to investors. The vast majority of small Crypto Assets are still struggling on the fringes of the market. The core reasons for this phenomenon can be summarized in two points: a lack of substantial innovation and unreasonable high valuations.

The current altcoin projects in the market either lack technological breakthroughs or do not have practical application scenarios. They overly rely on hollow concepts like 'Web3 ecosystem innovators' to attract attention, but this strategy has become difficult to work in today's market environment.

Investors in 2025 are no longer the same; they are not easily swayed by the beautiful visions of projects as they were in 2017 or 2021. If a project cannot demonstrate its actual value, investors will not hesitate to ignore it. More seriously, since the large-scale entry of venture capital into this field in 2021, the valuations of primary market projects have been raised to unreasonable heights. Newly issued tokens reach a market value of billions of dollars as soon as they are launched, which means that ordinary investors may become the ones left holding the bag as soon as they enter the market, with extremely limited profit margins.

The current market landscape is such that the top 10% of projects with solid fundamentals attract 90% of the funds, while the remaining 90%, relying solely on conceptual speculation, struggle on the brink of survival. This was particularly evident during the market crash in October 2025: tokens driven purely by concepts fell over 80%, while those focused on the tokenization of real-world assets (RWA), decentralized finance (DeFi), and practical applications combining artificial intelligence and blockchain not only demonstrated strong resilience but even managed to rebound against the trend.

The project parties have also become more rational and no longer blindly engage in short-term pump operations. They realize that short-term price manipulation only triggers concentrated selling, leading to even more severe price drops afterward. Therefore, today's project parties are more inclined to focus on building long-term sustainable ecosystems. This means that the altcoin's previous investment model of short-term explosions and quick in-and-out has become history, and the entire market's operation is undergoing a reshaping.

In this new market environment, if investors want to gain profits, they must adjust their investment strategies: First, they should be good at seizing opportunities; for example, when Bitcoin prices are consolidating, funds often flow into high-quality altcoin projects. Second, they need to make quick and accurate decisions and executions, as the window of opportunity may only last a few days or even hours. Finally, they should conduct in-depth research on the project's technical foundation and fundamentals, rather than blindly following market trends.

Overall, the cryptocurrency market in 2025 has entered a more mature and rational stage. In this phase, only those projects that truly possess innovation and practical value can stand out in the fierce competition. For investors, this means a need for a more cautious and professional investment attitude to cope with the new challenges in the market.