Bankless This bull market lacks internal catalysts. The wild surge in asset prices is itself a form of marketing.

Financially Disadvantaged The Current Bull Market Lacks Internal Drivers. The Exorbitant Surge in Asset Prices is Strategically Driven Marketing.

Author: David Hoffman, Bankless; Translation: Song Xue, LianGuai

Clearly, this is a bull market.

At least that’s what everyone is saying. If enough people are bullish, this sentiment becomes contagious and now is the time to bid!

But this bullish sentiment is different from previous cycles and it’s worth recognizing and analyzing.

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People are bullish because spot ETFs are about to launch. The approval of a Bitcoin spot ETF could happen anytime, and a spot Ethereum ETF is not far behind. This is the moment the industry has been waiting for over a decade – the Winklevi first submitted their Bitcoin ETF in 2013! The scale between spot ETFs for Bitcoin and Ethereum cannot be underestimated.

Large amounts of capital can flow through these channels. It’s a massive bullish catalyst that cannot be explained by any other means.

If the approval of these spot ETFs triggers a bull market, it will be the first time in cryptocurrency history that an external factor has sparked a bull market.

What does this mean?

• The bull market of 2013 was known as the Fork Launch era, where people realized Bitcoin was a primitive token that could be replicated. 10,000 PoW chains flourished, some of which still exist today.

• The bull market of 2017 was ICO frenzy, where people realized you could issue tokens on Ethereum without being hindered by the entire blockchain. Plus, there were smart contracts!

• The bull market of 2021 was the NFT craze and the Alt-L1 frenzy, where we discovered our tokens could be more than just financial assets, and culture, art, and communities could be valued in DeFi. Also, we needed more block space, and the desire to produce an “Ethereum killer” attracted a lot of venture capital and energy.

• Will the bull market of 2024 be brought by the approval of spot ETFs? Because external capital can purchase BTC and ETH?

Do you notice something different here? This bull market doesn’t fit our criteria.

It’s a bull market brought by an external force, without internal catalysts.

In all previous cryptocurrency bull markets, we discovered new primitives that unlocked new use cases, new applications, and new demands. We sparked the interest of consumers and retail investors with new powers, and attracted people with a broader vision to understand the future of cryptocurrency.

In this bull market, TradFi (traditional finance) can buy our two major blue-chip assets through their brokerage firms. These are different bullish catalysts.

Currently, the bullish sentiment is spreading in the industry, and low market cap assets have experienced some crazy price movements, especially THORChain and Solana, both of which also saw tremendous growth in the last bull market.

Veteran industry professionals who have experienced the entire bear market are now putting their chips on the table, betting on what the frenzy of retail speculation might look like and using the memories of 2021 to guide their investment decisions.

But what if this bull market is not like 2021? Traders and speculators are using historical events and price trends to speculate on what might attract users in 2024. Nevertheless, all the signals we have now indicate that this bull market is different from the previous one.

The Tale of Two Markets

With the launch of spot Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs, there will be a clear divide between crypto assets with exposure to spot ETFs and those without. The reason spot ETFs are bullish is that the massive exposure held by traditional brokerage firms and other TradFi companies has created trillions of dollars in wealth.

Only BTC and ETH have this exposure!

Those placing their chips below this line are speculating on a bull market that matches the one experienced in the history of cryptocurrencies. But if there are no intrinsic excitement factors, new interests, and new capital, why would the bull market continue above this major line between BTC, ETH, and other parts of the market?

We Need Internal Catalysts

I also hope for a bull market. However, if we want to achieve the “bull market” we all imagine, we need a reason for newcomers to enter the cryptocurrency space directly with private keys and start playing on the stage below BTC and ETH.

Currently, we don’t have any new reasons for people to enter the cryptocurrency space in a native crypto way. We haven’t unlocked any new primitives. Retail investors don’t care whether Polygon or Solana have cheap block space and improved execution environments.

We haven’t built any new applications yet!

Now, the rising asset prices themselves are the marketing, the reopening of the casino, and the first opportunity for people to make money in two years are the driving force for reentering the arena. But I’m worried that without some new applications or primitives for people to use, this situation will be short-lived, just like in 2013, 2017, and 2021.

To have the bull market we all desire, we need an internal catalyst.

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