The market structure fundamentally changed between cycles:
2021:
- Retail FOMO driving everything
- New projects launching daily
- Any alt with decent marketing pumped
- No institutional gatekeeping
2025:
- Institutions only touching BTC/ETH/SOL maybe few others
- ETF money stays in approved assets
- Regulatory pressure killed experimental projects
- Retail already burned by NFTs and meme coins
Most alts have been solving nothing for years while token supply keeps inflating. Network usage declining, no product market fit, just hoping for greater fool theory to work again.