The current Bitcoin halving cycle in the crypto industry is being labeled as the most peculiar bull market to date, following an unexpected all-time high for Bitcoin and a massive surge in memecoins.
On April 1, Zach Rynes, also known as ‘ChainLinkGod,’ who serves as the Chainlink community liaison, expressed his thoughts on this unusual bull market to his 171,000 followers on X. He stated, “this bull market has been weird.”
Traditionally, during bull runs, liquidity would flow into Bitcoin first before moving into other high-capitalization coins like Ethereum, and eventually trickling down the chain. However, this time around, the market took an unconventional path, with funds going directly from BTC to memecoins, which is quite unusual, according to Rynes.
The total capitalization of memecoins skyrocketed to $70 billion on April 1, primarily driven by the rapid rise of newly launched tokens such as ‘dogwifhat’ (WIF) and Book of Meme (BOME), as well as older memecoins like Pepe (PEPE) and Bonk (BONK). The Coinbase layer-2 network, Base, has also become a hub for memecoin speculation. One example is the recently launched Base-native token DEGEN, which has experienced an astonishing 2,800% surge in the past month. DEGEN is an unofficial token that was distributed to the community on the decentralized social network, Farcaster.
Rynes added that market fundamentals are currently not playing a significant role. This sentiment was echoed by Ethereum educator Anthony Sassano on April 1, who stated that after being in the crypto industry for around a decade, he can confidently say that this is the strangest bull market ever witnessed in crypto.
Sassano also mentioned that retail investors are not actively participating in a meaningful way until the entire market experiences a collective surge.
Adding to the peculiarity of this market cycle is the fact that Bitcoin has reached an all-time high before the halving. In previous cycles, the all-time high for Bitcoin occurred the year after the halving. On March 14, the asset reached $73,734, and with the BTC halving just 18 days away on April 20, analysts have already predicted that the pre-halving retracement is over.
On April 1, technical analyst Moustache highlighted that BTC had reclaimed a crucial Fibonacci ratio level that was observed in previous cycles, but this time it happened before the halving.
As the market continues to evolve, there are potential risks to be aware of when investing in Solana memecoins, as highlighted in a recent magazine article.