Most people are using the wrong methods to gauge market hype. A lot of people rely on the traffic of Chinese crypto influencers (KOLs) they follow as an indicator of the market’s popularity. But in reality, the influence of the Chinese-speaking community in crypto is far less than that of the English-speaking community. Watching content doesn’t mean participating in the market. During the last bull market, my average traffic was only a few thousand. Now, in the bear market, my average video traffic is 20-30k. I’ve just slowly figured out how to generate traffic. Every channel develops differently, and there’s no universal benchmark. To accurately measure market hype and participation, you need to look at active addresses and exchange trading volumes. In fact, the peak hype indicator of the last bull market hit a new low compared to the entire previous bull cycle. Bitmex, in the early days of crypto, was as dominant as Binance is now—too big to fail, with a commanding market share. And the fact that Bitmex officially shut down near the end of the bear market shows that its management and external advisors believed it wouldn’t be profitable even in a bull market. With regulations, retail investors leaving, and the rise of ETF gateways, exchange profits are being squeezed more and more. The performance of altcoins in the last cycle already shows that retail investors have minimal influence on the market now. The greed of retail investors at the peak of a bull market, and the fear at the bottom of a bear market that everyone used to expect—those are long gone, relics of the past. During the last bull market, many people didn’t see the retail frenzy and failed to sell at the top. But at that time, we made the right call.