When Donald Trump returned to the White House, much of the crypto market expected a familiar script. Pro-crypto rhetoric, friendlier regulation, institutional inflows, and renewed risk appetite were all supposed to combine into a defining bull market.
Instead, as 2025 draws to a close, the crypto market is ending the year markedly lower, sitting at just 20% of its peak from the Biden era.
Even with Trump, Crypto Market Is Still Just 20% of Biden-Era Levels
That contradiction is at the heart of a growing debate over whether crypto is stuck in a difficult phase, or whether something more fundamental has broken.
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“It’s time to acknowledge and admit the crypto market is broken,” stated Ran Neuner, analyst and host of Crypto Banter.
The analyst highlighted an unprecedented disconnect between fundamentals and prices. According to Neuner, 2025 had “all the necessities for a bull market”:
“Even with all the above,” Neuner said, “we are ending 2025 lower and only 20% where we were with Biden.”
This suggests that traditional explanations no longer hold. Theories around four-year cycles, trapped liquidity, or an IPO moment for crypto feel increasingly like post-hoc rationalizations rather than genuine answers.
According to Neuner, the result is a market with only two plausible paths forward:
- A hidden structural seller or mechanism is suppressing prices, or
- Crypto is setting up for what he calls “the mother of all catch-up trades” as markets eventually revert to equilibrium.
Not Everyone Agrees That Anything Is Broken
Market commentator Gordon Gekko, a popular user on X, pushed back, arguing that the pain is intentional and structural, but not dysfunctional.
“Nothing is broken; this is just how market makers intended. Sentiment is at its lowest in years; leverage traders are losing everything. It isn’t supposed to be easy; only the strong will be rewarded,” he wrote.
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That divide reflects a deeper shift in how crypto behaves compared to earlier cycles. Under Trump’s first term, from 2017 to 2020, crypto thrived in a regulatory vacuum.
Retail speculation dominated, leverage was unchecked, and reflexive momentum drove prices far beyond their fundamental value.
Under Biden, by contrast, the market became institutionalized. Enforcement-first regulation constrained risk-taking, while ETFs, custodians, and compliance frameworks reshaped capital allocation and flow.
Ironically, many of crypto’s most anticipated tailwinds arrived during this more constrained era:
- ETFs unlocked access, but primarily for Bitcoin
- Institutions allocated, but often hedged and rebalanced mechanically.
- Liquidity existed, but flowed into TradFi wrappers rather than on-chain ecosystems.
The result is scale without reflexivity.
Bitcoin Holds While Altcoins Break in the New Crypto Regime
This structural shift has been especially painful for altcoins, with analysts and KOLs like Shanaka Anslem, among others, arguing that the unified crypto market no longer exists.
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Instead, 2025 has split into “two games”:
- Institutional crypto: Bitcoin, Ethereum, and ETFs with crushed volatility and longer time horizons, and
- Attention crypto: Where millions of tokens compete for fleeting liquidity and most collapse within days.
Capital no longer rotates smoothly from Bitcoin into alts, the colloquial altcoin season, or alt season. It flows directly to whichever mandate it is designed to serve.
“…Your only choices now: Play Institutional Crypto with patience and macro awareness. Or play Attention Crypto with speed and infrastructure,” wrote Anslem.
According to this opinion leader, holding altcoins on thesis for months is now the worst possible strategy.
“You are not early to the altseason. You are waiting for a market structure that no longer exists,” he added.
Perhaps, this is the basis of a trader’s conviction, knowing where to look. Lisa Edwards supports this thesis, calling for market participants to understand liquidity flows.
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“Things shift, cycles change, money moves in new ways. If you are waiting for the old altseason, you will miss the stuff that is actually running right in front of you,” she stated.
Quinten François echoes that view, noting that 2025’s token count dwarfs previous cycles. With more than 11 million tokens in existence, the idea of a broad-based altseason akin to 2017 or 2021 may simply be obsolete.
Between Repricing and Recovery: Crypto’s Post-Institutional Test
Meanwhile, macro pressures continue to weigh on sentiment. Nic Puckrin, investment analyst and co-founder of Coin Bureau, notes that Bitcoin’s slide toward its 100-week moving average (MA) reflects renewed AI bubble fears, uncertainty around future Fed leadership, and year-end tax-loss selling.
“This all makes for a lacklustre end to 2025,” he said in an email to BeInCrypto, warning that BTC could briefly dip below $80,000 if selling accelerates.
It is anybody’s guess whether crypto is broken or merely transforming, and investors should conduct their own research.
Nonetheless, what is clear is that Trump-era expectations are colliding with a Biden-era market structure, and the old playbook no longer applies.
Discussions between economists and investors on mainstream desks suggest a brutal repricing or a violent catch-up rally, potentially defining the post-institutional identity of crypto.