Crypto Market Q3 Macro Report: Alt Season Signals Have Appeared, Institutions Adopt to Drive Selective Bull Run Eruption

1. The macro turning point has arrived: Regulatory warming and policy support resonate together.

As the third quarter of 2025 begins, the macro situation has quietly changed. The policy environment that once pushed digital assets to the margins is now transforming into a structural driving force. Against the backdrop of the Federal Reserve ending its interest rate hike cycle, fiscal policy returning to a stimulus track, and the accelerated construction of a "accommodative framework" for global crypto regulation, the crypto market is on the eve of a structural reevaluation.

Firstly, the macro liquidity environment in the United States is entering a critical turning point. Although the Federal Reserve officials still emphasize "data dependence," the market has reached a consensus on interest rate cuts within 2025. The divergence between the lagging dot plot and the leading expectations of the futures market is increasingly widening. The government's continued pressure on the Fed, which politicizes monetary policy tools, suggests that the actual interest rates in the U.S. will gradually decline from high levels between the second half of 2025 and 2026. This expectation gap opens an upward channel for risk assets, especially the valuation of digital assets.

At the same time, efforts on the fiscal side are also unfolding simultaneously. Representative fiscal expansion policies are bringing about unprecedented capital release effects. The government is pouring substantial funds into areas such as manufacturing reshoring, AI infrastructure, and energy independence, creating a "capital flood channel" that spans traditional industries and emerging tech fields. This not only reshapes the internal circulation structure of the dollar but also indirectly strengthens the marginal demand for digital asset types.

The fundamental shift in policy signals is more reflected in the changes in the regulatory structure. As we enter 2025, the SEC's attitude towards the crypto market has undergone a qualitative change. The approval of the ETH staking ETF marks the first time that U.S. regulators have recognized that income-generating digital assets can enter the traditional financial system. Additionally, the promotion of a certain public chain ETF has provided a historical opportunity for assets previously viewed as "high Beta speculative chains" to be institutionalized. More importantly, the SEC has begun to formulate a unified standard for simplifying the approval of token ETFs, intending to construct a replicable and mass-producible compliant financial product channel.

In addition, there are signs of a recovery in risk appetite in traditional financial markets. The stock market has reached new historical highs, tech stocks and emerging assets have rebounded in sync, the IPO market is warming up, and the activity level of retail trading platform users is increasing, all signaling that risk capital is flowing back. This round of inflow is no longer solely focused on AI and biotechnology but is beginning to re-evaluate blockchain, encryption finance, and on-chain structural yield assets.

2. Structural Volatility: Enterprises and Institutions are Leading the Next Bull Run

The most noteworthy structural change in the current crypto market is that the chips are shifting from retail and short-term funds to long-term holders, corporate treasuries, and financial institutions. After two years of clearing and restructuring, the participant structure of the crypto market is undergoing a historic "shuffle": users centered around speculation are gradually being marginalized, while institutions and enterprises aiming for allocation are becoming the decisive force driving the next bull run.

The performance of Bitcoin has already explained everything. Although the price trend has been calm, its circulating chips are accelerating the "locking" process. According to institutional data tracking, the total number of Bitcoins purchased by listed companies in the past three quarters has exceeded the net buying scale of ETFs during the same period. Some enterprises are viewing Bitcoin as a "strategic cash substitute" rather than a short-term asset allocation tool. Compared to ETFs, enterprises directly purchasing spot Bitcoin have more flexibility and voting rights, while being less susceptible to market sentiment, thus possessing stronger holding resilience.

Financial infrastructure is clearing obstacles for institutional capital to flow in faster. The expectation of approval for a certain public chain ETF further opens up the imagination. Once the staking yield mechanism is packaged and absorbed by the ETF, it will fundamentally change traditional asset managers' perception of crypto assets as "non-yielding and purely volatile," and will also promote a shift for institutions from risk hedging to yield allocation.

Moreover, companies are directly participating in the on-chain financial market, breaking the traditional isolation structure between "over-the-counter investments" and the on-chain world. Some companies are directly increasing their holdings of ETH through private placements, and even more companies are investing heavily in ecological project acquisitions and platform equity buybacks, representing that companies are actively participating in building a new generation of crypto financial ecology. This is no longer the logic of venture capital participating in startup projects of the past, but rather a capital injection with the colors of "industry mergers and acquisitions" and "strategic layout", aiming to lock in the core asset rights and income distribution rights of new financial infrastructure.

In the field of derivatives and on-chain liquidity, traditional finance is also actively positioning itself. Certain futures open interest has reached historical highs, indicating that traditional trading institutions have incorporated crypto assets into their strategic models. The driving force behind this is the continuous entry of hedge funds, structured product providers, and multi-strategy CTA funds.

From the perspective of structural turnover, the significant decline in the activity of retail investors and short-term players has further reinforced the aforementioned trend. On-chain data shows that the proportion of short-term holders continues to decrease, the activity of early whale wallets has diminished, and on-chain search and wallet interaction data tend to stabilize, indicating that the market is in a "turnover sedimentation period."

3. The New Era of Alt Season: Moving from a General Rise to a "Selective Bull Run"

The current "alt season" is entering a new phase: the broad market rally is no longer, replaced by a "selective bull run" driven by narratives such as ETFs, real yields, and institutional adoption. This is a sign of the crypto market gradually maturing, and it is also an inevitable result of the capital selection mechanism following the market's return to rationality.

From a structural signal perspective, the chips of mainstream altcoin assets have completed a new round of sedimentation. The ETH/BTC pair has welcomed a strong rebound for the first time after several weeks of decline, with whale addresses accumulating millions of ETH in a very short time. Large on-chain transactions are occurring frequently, indicating that major funds have begun to reprice Ethereum and other primary assets. Meanwhile, retail sentiment remains low, with search indices and wallet creation not showing significant recovery, but this instead creates an ideal "low interference" environment for the next round of market activity.

The ETF application has become a new anchor point in the thematic structure. In particular, the spot ETF of a certain public chain has been regarded as the next "market consensus event". From the launch of the Ethereum staking ETF to whether staking rewards will be included in the ETF distribution structure, investors have begun to layout around staking assets, and the price performance of governance tokens has also started to show independent trends. It can be anticipated that in this new narrative cycle, asset performance will revolve around "whether there is ETF potential, whether there is real income distribution capability, and whether it can attract institutional allocation".

DeFi is also an important arena in this round of "selective bull run", but its logic has fundamentally changed. Users are shifting from "reward airdrop DeFi" to "cash flow DeFi", with protocol income, stablecoin yield strategies, and re-staking mechanisms becoming core indicators for assessing asset value. Liquidity providers are no longer blindly chasing high APY bait, but are instead focusing more on strategy transparency, yield sustainability, and potential risk structures. This shift has led to the emergence of a batch of new projects that do not rely on extensive marketing or hype, but attract a continuous inflow of capital through innovative designs such as structured yield products and fixed-rate vaults.

The choice of capital has also become more "realistic". On one hand, stablecoin strategies backed by real-world assets (RWA) have started to gain favor among institutions, with some protocols trying to create "government bond-like products" on the chain. On the other hand, cross-chain liquidity integration and user experience unification have also become key factors determining the direction of funds, with some intermediary projects emerging as new hubs for capital concentration through seamless bridging and embedded DeFi capabilities.

4. Q3 Investment Framework: From Core Allocation to Event-Driven

The market layout in the third quarter of 2025 is no longer a simple bet on "market sentiment recovery" or "Bitcoin dominance" in market judgment, but rather a comprehensive restructuring of asset allocation. In the macro trend of the tail end of high interest rates and the continuous influx of ETF funds, investors must find a balance between "core allocation stability" and "event-driven local bursts."

Bitcoin remains the preferred core position. In an environment where there has been no substantial reversal in ETF inflows, corporate treasuries continue to increase their holdings, and the Federal Reserve's policies are signaling a dovish stance, BTC demonstrates strong resilience and a capital siphoning effect. Even if Bitcoin has not temporarily reached new highs, its chip structure and capital attributes determine that it remains the most stable underlying asset in the current cycle.

In the rotation logic of mainstream assets, a certain public chain is undoubtedly the most thematic explosive target in Q3. Several leading institutions have submitted their spot ETF applications, and the approval window is expected to close around September. With the staking mechanism likely to be incorporated into the ETF structure, its "quasi-dividend asset" attribute is attracting a large amount of capital for pre-emptive layout. This narrative will not only drive the spot itself but also affect the governance tokens of its staking ecosystem.

At the sector level, DeFi portfolios are still worth restructuring. Unlike the past phase of "splicing APY," the current focus should be on protocols with stable cash flow, real yield distribution capability, and mature governance mechanisms. By adopting an equal-weight allocation method, one can capture the relative returns from certain projects and reallocate profits. It is worth emphasizing that these types of protocols often have characteristics of "slow capital return and delayed explosion," so they should be treated with a medium-term allocation mindset to avoid chasing highs and selling lows.

In terms of speculative position allocation, Meme assets should strictly control the exposure ratio. It is recommended to limit it to within 5% of the total net asset value and manage positions with an options mindset. Given that Meme contracts are currently largely manipulated by high-frequency funds, the risk is extremely high, but there is also a small probability of high return potential, making it suitable to establish clear stop-loss mechanisms, profit-taking rules, and position limits.

In addition to the configuration approach, another key point in the third quarter is the timing of event-driven layouts. The current market is undergoing a transition from an "information vacuum" to "intensive event releases." A series of signals indicate that the regulatory environment in the United States is changing rapidly. With the review node of a certain public chain ETF approaching, the market is expected to experience a "policy + capital resonance" trend from mid-August to early September. The layout of such events should not be engaged only after the "good news is realized," but should be anticipated in advance and gradually built up to avoid chasing high traps.

In addition, it is important to focus on the momentum of structural alternatives. For example, a certain trading platform building L2 and promoting tokenized stock trading may ignite a new narrative of "exchange chains" and the integration of RWA; while some projects that combine AI and DePIN, under the dual support of a verifiable roadmap and an active community, may become the "explosive point" in the marginal sectors.

5. Conclusion: The next round of wealth transfer is already on its way.

Each round of bull and bear cycles is essentially a periodic reshuffling of value reassessment, and the real transfer of wealth often does not occur during the market's most bustling moments, but quietly happens amidst chaos. At this critical turning point of the current market trend, although the market has not yet returned to the stage of "public frenzy," a selective bull run, led by institutions, driven by compliance, and supported by real profits, is brewing.

The role of Bitcoin has fundamentally changed. It is no longer just a symbol of speculation for young people, but is gradually becoming a new reserve component in the balance sheets of global enterprises, serving as a national-level inflation hedge. The greatest forces influencing Bitcoin's price in the future will not be popular posts on social media, but rather the buying records of institutions in the next quarter's financial reports, the allocation decisions of pension funds and sovereign wealth funds, and the repricing of risk asset valuation systems based on macro policy expectations.

At the same time, the infrastructure and assets representing the next generation of financial paradigms are slowly yet steadily completing their evolution from "narrative bubble" to "system takeover." Some emerging public chains, new