I have seen that many people in the encryption industry have been quite frustrated in the past two years. A market that looked like a bull market ended up with most people not making any money On the contrary, Bitcoin has outperformed a bunch of so-called high beta altcoins Let me give you a logic that can basically explain why you were harvested. The story starts with the bankruptcy of FTX After FTX entered bankruptcy liquidation, the team taking over had only one goal: to monetize all assets as much as possible This includes a large number of SOLs that have been locked in warehouses The problem is that these SOLs are locked on the chain and cannot be sold in the short term So they came up with a flexible way, selling future coins through a legal agreement, that is, collecting money now, unlocking it in the future, and then delivering it This type of transaction quickly spreads in the market Many institutions buy these lock up SOLs at around 60% or even lower prices, using discounts to cover time costs and price risks Hedge funds particularly enjoy this structure Because they can take discounted spot goods while shorting SOL in the futures market, completely offsetting the price risk In this way, the returns become lock up discounts, pledge returns, and cash basis differences, with an overall annualized rate of 70% to 80% and very low risk After they make money, they naturally ask if there can be more opportunities like this The problem lies here, which is actually the core structural issue of the entire cryptocurrency market from 2023 to 2025 Almost every project team, foundation, and early-stage investor has a large amount of lock up tokens in their hands These coins may appear to be unlocked for sale in the future, but in reality, they have already been sold to institutions through a similar structure And these institutions, in order to lock in profits, will continue to short in the futures market, and the corresponding selling pressure will directly fall on the secondary market, that is, ordinary investors In other words, the upward space you thought was actually eaten up by hedge funds in advance using market neutral strategies That's also why the overall performance of altcoins has been poor in recent years It's not that you don't have funds, but rather that the profits are distributed in advance, and what you receive is the price after hedging From another perspective, there is also a slight advantage Many projects may seem to have a lot of unlocking pressure in the future, but in reality, these coins have already been sold off the market. When it comes to unlocking, there may not be as much selling pressure as imagined So theoretically, in the next cycle, this structural pressure may weaken But the conclusion is also very realistic, this market is essentially more like a casino, and the rules are biased towards the banker The market makers from 2023 to 2025 are those institutions that understand and participate in this arbitrage structure If you are not a participant in this chain, it will be difficult to earn long-term stable excess returns For most people, simply holding Bitcoin may actually be a more rational choice BTC