Crypto’s 2025 “Bull Market”? More Like a “Bull Market” of Nonsense. 😅

by

Markets

What to know:

  • Arca CIO Jeff Dorman said 75% of tokens he tracks are negative year-to-date, with over half down at least 40%. 🐻
  • He argued that gains in BTC, ETH, SOL, BNB and XRP mask broader weakness in the market. 🐆
  • Dorman said investors must now focus on revenue-generating tokens and disciplined projects rather than betting on broad-based altcoin surges. 🎯

The chief investment officer of digital asset manager Arca is challenging the idea that 2025 represents a broad-based crypto bull market, arguing that only a handful of large-cap tokens are carrying the industry. Let me be clear: if your token isn’t in the top 5, you’re probably just here for the memes and the drama. 🎬

In an X thread posted Tuesday, Jeff Dorman wrote that “more than 75% of tokens in our coverage universe are negative year-to-date, and more than 50% of tokens are down 40% or more YTD.” That’s not a bull market, folks. That’s a bear market with a few survivors who just got lucky-or have a good lawyer. 🐻

He added that some of the year’s few gainers have been “complete nonsense coins and memecoins that no serious investor would even look at,” citing litecoin and bitcoin cash. Litecoin? Bitcoin Cash? More like “Lite on the brain” and “Bitcoin’s Cashew Nut Syndrome.” 🤷

By contrast, the best-known names have done relatively well. Bitcoin, ether (ETH), solana, binance coin and XRP are all up between 20% and 40% this year, Dorman said. That’s like saying the DJIA is up because GameStop and AMC are doing great. Yeah, congrats, but the rest of us are still waiting for our IPOs. 📉

He compared the dynamic to traditional finance, where large caps can rally while smaller stocks slump: “This is the TradFi equivalent of the DJIA and GameStop having a good year, while small caps are -40%.” If only the stock market were as chaotic as crypto. Then we’d all be rich and broke at the same time. 💸

Dorman argued that this dispersion is ultimately healthy. Broad rallies, he said, breed complacency, while uneven performance forces investors to be more selective. “Nothing good comes from an everything rally, because no one learns anything,” he wrote. When weaker projects falter, he added, investors “start to ask questions like ‘how are you doing this?’” Questions like, “Why did I trust a project named ‘Pump.fun’ with my life savings?” 🤯

Unlike in past cycles, he said, investors in 2025 cannot simply rely on momentum across altcoins. Instead, they must prioritize projects with tangible business models. “Own stocks and tokens that actually make money & buy back their own tokens with the profits,” Dorman said. “The days of throwing darts to make a fortune are over (i.e. Alt Season isn’t a thing).” Good news! Now you have to work for your money instead of just hoping it appears in your wallet like magic. 🪄

‘FAANG’ of crypto

According to Dorman, the tokens and companies that have held up in 2025 generally fall into a few categories. Let’s call this the “BACHELORS” of crypto-except the acronym is so bad it makes even me cringe. 🙄

Assets connected to exchange-traded funds or digital asset trusts, such as BTC, ETH and SOL, are leading the way. If you’re not in one of these, you’re probably just here for the memes and the drama. 🎬

Crypto-related equities have also performed well, including Circle, Galaxy Digital, Coinbase and miners like Iris Energy and TeraWulf. That’s right, folks-now we’re investing in companies that mine for digital gold while the rest of us mine for answers. 🧠

He also pointed to what he called “U.S. government coins,” namely XRP and Chainlink’s LINK token. Because nothing says “government-backed” like a lawsuit and a token named after a link. 🔗

Finally, Dorman noted that revenue-generating tokens that distribute value back to holders-among them Hyperliquid’s HYPE, Pump.fun’s PUMP, Maple Finance’s MPL/SKY-have stood out as relative winners. If you can even call it that. 🎲

Earlier this year, Dorman had floated the idea of a crypto equivalent to the “FAANG” stocks. He suggested an acronym called the “BACHELORS”, naming tokens such as BNB, AERO, CAKE, HYPE, ENA, LEO, OKB, RAY and SKY (MKR). In his Sept. 16 thread, he updated that list to the “BARHEAPs,” incorporating newer projects like PUMP. Because nothing says “serious investment strategy” like an acronym that sounds like a game show. 🎤

For Dorman, the lesson of 2025 is that crypto’s growth story is more complicated than headline gains might suggest. He argued that calling the year a “bull market” is misleading, since at best it represents a narrow cycle led by a few majors and select revenue-focused projects. “The reason this has been a hard bull market is because it’s barely even a good year for crypto, let alone a bull market,” he wrote. And yet, somehow, we’re still here. 🤷

Read More

2025-09-18 17:04