Recently, $BTC fell from a high of 124,000 to a low of 107,350, and $ETH fell from 4,956 to a low of 4,257. In addition, there has been a recent situation where ETH has risen but BTC has fallen instead of rising.

Everyone is shouting: Is the bull market over?

So, has the bull market gone? What stage is the market in now?

Let's listen to ABC Alpha's Chief Researcher CG｜Yijian's detailed interpretation. The original text is as follows:

https://x.com/Cyrus_G3/status/1962142565605740854

The crypto bull market can be roughly divided into three stages: the beginning of the bull market, the middle of the bull market, and the end of the bull market.

At the beginning of a bull market, capital and market confidence are just recovering from the scars and painful memories of the previous bear market. Market risk appetite is low, and investors generally choose the most stable assets: Bitcoin. Therefore, in each bull market, BTC leads the way, while altcoins like ETH show relatively weak growth. There are even cases where BTC alone rises while altcoins like ETH decline instead of rising. During this period, BTC's market capitalization dominance often rises to over 60%.

During the bull market, market confidence largely recovered, risk appetite increased, and investors began to invest in relatively high-risk assets. Specifically, funds began to flow from BTC to the altcoin leader, ETH. ETH began to see consecutive daily gains exceeding BTC, and even saw ETH rise while BTC fell. However, the altcoin season had not yet arrived.

At the end of the bull market, the market went completely wild, risk appetite reached its peak, Fomo sentiment was overflowing, leverage was maxed out, and funds began to rush into extremely risky altcoins. Some shitcoins and memes with absolutely no fundamentals began to surge multiple times in a single day. Everyone felt that this time was different. Altcoin Season had officially arrived. At this time, BTC and ETH also began to reach all-time highs.

Then, liquidity suddenly withdraws at a certain high point, the market collapses, and enters a long bear market again.

Therefore, the different stages of the bull market are driven by the evolution of capital's risk appetite, which is essentially driven by human fear and greed.

To see this fact more clearly, let us review history:

2017 Early Years (December 2016 - Q1 2017)

BTC soared from $700 in December 2016 to around $1,300 in February 2017, essentially doubling in value. With this, BTC officially emerged from the ruins of the previous bear market, marking the beginning of a new bull market. Meanwhile, ETH was still hovering around $15 during this period.

2017 Bull Market (March-September 2017)

Due to the ICO craze, funds poured into Ethereum, sending its price soaring from $20 to $300, a more than 15-fold increase within seven months. Meanwhile, Bitcoin (BTC) surged from $1,300 to $4,000, a roughly 3-fold increase within seven months. During this period, BTC's growth was significantly lower than ETH's. This data confirms the characteristic of "ETH's growth outpacing BTC's" during bull markets .

However, the market has not yet entered its final stage, neither BTC nor ETH has reached its historical highs, and the altcoin season has not officially arrived.

2017 Oxtail (October 2017-January 2018)

After a brief adjustment of the 94 policy, ICO entered a completely crazy mode in October. A white paper could raise hundreds of millions of US dollars, altcoins were flying all over the place, and the ICO bull market entered its final crazy stage.

Around December 16, 2017, the price of BTC reached a historical high of 19,600; one month later, ETH reached 1,400 US dollars around January 20, 2018, and then the market experienced a cliff-like decline, ICOs were cold, and a complete collapse occurred, marking the end of this bull market.

Let’s take a look at the bull market in 2021

In early 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic impacted the global economy. On March 15, 2020, the United States urgently launched quantitative easing (QE). Consequently, there was a brief period of policy bull market activity from March 2020 to March 2021. However, even these policy bull markets follow a pattern of early, mid, and late bull markets. Let's briefly review them:

Policy Bull Year (March 2020-June 2020)

As soon as the quantitative easing policy announcement came out on March 15th, Bitcoin (BTC) prices immediately emerged from the two-year bear market of 2018-2019. BTC soared from $5,000 in March to $10,000 in August, a 200% increase in just three months. Meanwhile, ETH was primarily trading around $200, slowly rising.

Policy Bull (July 2020-February 2021)

As quantitative easing policies intensified, the world began flooding the market with money, and banks entered an era of zero or even negative interest rates. Global capital began searching for returns. At this time, the Ethereum ecosystem in the crypto market began a DeFi Summer frenzy, and various DeFi farming models began to emerge.

During this period, ETH continued to soar, from US$200 in July 2020 to US$1,900 in February 2021, an increase of nearly 10 times; while BTC in this period rose from US$10,000 to US$39,000, less than 4 times. The increase in BTC was lower than that of ETH, which is in line with the characteristics of a bull market.

Policy tail (March-May 2021)

During this stage, in addition to the DeFi protocols with astonishingly high APYs, all kinds of meme assets with no fundamentals and driven entirely by emotions began to fly all over the place, and funds entered the final frenzy mode.

Soon, around April 15, 2021, BTC reached $62,800 and began to fall; one month later, around May 14, 2021, ETH reached $3,900, the market began to take a sharp turn for the worse, various DeFi Farming began to collapse, Meme plummeted, and the market collapsed again.

This round of crypto bull market driven by quantitative easing policy came to an end, and the market continued to fall until the end of June 2021.

Immediately afterwards, from July 2021 to December 2021, the crypto market entered the regular 2021 bull market cycle.

Due to the influence of the previous policy bull market, the prices of BTC and ETH in July 2021 were both higher than the highs of the previous bull market (2017) (BTC US$30,000 > US$19,000, ETH US$1,900 > US$1,400). Therefore, the initial bull market of the 2021 crypto bull market had been previewed in the previous months. Therefore, the crypto market directly entered the mid-bull market from July.

2021 Crypto Bull Market (July-Early September 2021)

ETH's price more than tripled from $1,900 to $3,900, while BTC's price rose 1.6 times from $30,000 to $50,000. This slower increase in BTC's value than ETH's is consistent with the mid-stage nature of a crypto bull market.

2021 Crypto Bull Run (September 2021-November 2021)

During this phase, the crypto market saw the emergence of numerous DeFi derivatives, such as Gamefi and Socialfi. These were crude imitations of the DeFi model, reflecting the residual heat of the DeFi craze. Simultaneously, a new round of meme craze emerged. From its launch in late August to November, Shib saw a 10,000-fold increase in value in just three months. Various animal memes were everywhere, and the market once again entered its final frenzy.

On November 10, 2021, BTC surged to $69,000, reaching a historical high. On the same day, ETH also reached a historical high of $4,878. Then the market took a sharp turn for the worse, the narratives of GameFi and SocialFi collapsed, various memes plummeted, and the market once again entered a slow bear market.

So, what will the bull market of 2025 look like? Will it be different from the previous two bull markets?

Currently (August 31, 2025), what stage are we in in the crypto bull market?

This bull market will indeed be different from the previous two because institutions have entered the market.

The entry of institutions will inject new and different forces into the crypto market. However, no matter what, the basic rules of the three-stage bull market will not change, because human nature does not change.

Let’s take a look at it together:

From January to May 2024, the crypto market experienced a brief institutional bull market due to the approval of BTC spot trading.

On January 10, 2024, the BTC spot ETF was approved. BTC surged from $39,000 in early January to $69,000 in May, reaching the peak of the previous bull market. During this period, ETH also rose, reaching a high of $4,000, but failing to break the previous high. As this period approached, the market entered a three-month correction (May-August).

(Have you noticed that this round of institutional bull market is very similar to the quantitative easing-driven policy bull market in March 2020?)

From September to December 2024, with the official launch of ETH spot trading in July, more and more institutional funds entered the crypto market. This was especially true on November 6th, when the crypto-friendly Trump officially ran for president of the United States, further accelerating the influx of Wall Street power. Institutional forces began to control the crypto market.

From September to December, BTC doubled again, rising from $53,000 to $109,000, surpassing the $100,000 mark. ETH also surged from $2,100 to $4,000, but remained below its previous high. This period saw a phenomenon not seen in the previous two bull markets: traditional altcoins stagnated while memes flourished.

The core reason is that the crypto market has not seen paradigm innovations like the ICO in 2017 (essentially the issuance of coins through smart contracts) and the DeFi model in 2020. Therefore, traditional altcoins have not taken off. However, an alternative meme paradigm has emerged during this period, namely the pump.fun paradigm.

Therefore, from September to December 2024, there was a brief bull market with a surge in BTC, memes everywhere, and traditional altcoins falling out of favor. This period was essentially driven by institutional investors driven by ETFs.

After this bull market ended, many people thought that this bull market was over, because BTC broke through the previous high and memes were flying all over the sky, which was very similar to the bull market at the end of the previous two rounds.

As expected, starting in January 2025, as the Trump administration launched a tariff war and the Middle East war broke out again, the market fell all the way. BTC fell from a high of 109,000 US dollars to 75,000 US dollars, a drop of 30%. ETH fell from 4,000 US dollars to below 1,400 US dollars. Meme plummeted, and the market was in mourning.

Many people directly said that the bull market is over, and it really looks like the bull market is over.

However, starting from April 9, 2025, BTC started to rise from $75,000 and on July 14, 2025, it broke through $120,000 to reach $123,000. Meanwhile, ETH rose from $1,400 to $3,000.

A new round of bull market has started again, although it is also a bull market led by institutions.

(At this point we will find that the two market trends from January to May 2024 and from September to December 2024 are indeed very similar to the policy bull market driven by quantitative easing in 2020, both of which are driven by the intervention of strong forces outside of encryption).

The period from April 9 to July 14, 2025 is very similar to the initial stage of this round of crypto bull market, with BTC leading the rise, ETH following (still failing to break through the previous high), and other altcoins making almost no moves.

If we regard the period from April 9th to July 14th as the beginning of this bull market, then July 14th to today (August 30th) is in the middle of the bull market.

The characteristics of the bull market are that ETH leads the rise, ETH's increase exceeds BTC, and there is even a situation where ETH rises and BTC falls.

This was indeed the case from July 14th to August 30th.

After ETH broke through $3,000 on July 14, it has been on a roll, while BTC has shown slight weakness.

On August 9, ETH broke through $4,000 and BTC reached $118,000.

On August 24, ETH reached a historical high of $4,956 and BTC reached $116,000.

August 31st: ETH $4,450, BTC $108,500

We have indeed seen ETH’s growth outpace BTC’s, with some instances of ETH rising while BTC fell. Similarly, altcoins have yet to break out. This is indeed a typical characteristic of a bull market.

Therefore, Yijian believes that we are currently in a bull market.

So, how long will this bull market last?

The bull market in 2017 lasted for 6 months; the policy bull market in 2020 lasted for 5 months; the bull market in 2021 lasted for 3 months

To be conservative, assuming this bull market lasts 2-3 months, the bull market that began in mid-July will roughly last until mid-September to mid-October. During this period, ETH will continue to lead the market, while BTC's growth will continue to be lower than ETH.

The bull market lasted until late September to late October. From October to December, copycats exploded, all kinds of memes were flying around, and the bull market entered a completely crazy tail stage.

Of course, in this bull market, we may see another altcoin season—altcoin ETFs and altcoin stock micro-strategies led by institutions and listed companies. Of course, during this period, BTC and ETH will break new highs.

Finally, the market suddenly comes to a halt at its craziest moment and enters the next cycle.

Summarize

The bull market is divided into three stages: the beginning, middle and end of the bull market, which are dominated by the evolution of capital risk preference from low-medium-high, and are essentially driven by human fear and greed.

• Niu Chu: BTC led the rise, ETH rose slightly, and the altcoins remained unchanged.
• Bull market: ETH leads the rise, BTC follows, and there is even a situation where ETH rises and BTC falls, and the altcoins move slightly.
• Bull market tail: The alt season breaks out, memes fly everywhere, BTC and ETH break new highs again, and then the market collapses.

The bull market in 2017 and the bull market in 2021 have basically verified these laws, and the bull market in 2025 will also follow these laws.

Although the entry of institutions has brought new strength to the crypto bull market, the essence of the bull-bear transition will not change because human nature will not change.

Given that ETH is currently leading the market, with gains exceeding BTC, and even ETH rising while BTC is falling, and the altcoin season has not yet arrived, the market is currently in the mid-year phase of the 2025 crypto bull run, which will last roughly until the end of September or October. Then, from October to December, the bull market will enter its tail end, with altcoins booming and memes flying everywhere, and then the market will enter its next cycle again.