In early 2025, significant changes occurred in the cryptocurrency market. The liquidity in the secondary market tightened, leading to the bursting of bubbles in many altcoins that relied on "concept hype." The prices of these coins continued to fall, setting new lows. Meanwhile, Bitcoin's market capitalization share climbed to 62.1%, reaching a new high in five years. The Altcoin Season index even fell to an all-time low of 4 points in May 2023.

However, in this period of recession, some utility tokens have gone against the trend. Projects like Uniswap, Aave, Pendle, and Hyperliquid have attracted significant capital, with both their prices and on-chain revenues rising. These projects share the common feature of having real, auditable protocol cash flows and returning value to token holders through buybacks, profit-sharing, or staking mechanisms.

This phenomenon reflects a significant shift in the valuation system of the cryptocurrency market. Investors are beginning to pay more attention to the actual application value and cash flow generation ability of projects, rather than merely concept speculation. This shift is referred to as the arrival of the "on-chain P/E era," meaning that investors are starting to use indicators similar to those in traditional financial markets to assess the value of crypto projects.

At the same time, the venture capital (VC) sector has also undergone significant changes. In the second quarter of 2025, global encryption financing fell sharply to $4.99 billion, a quarter-on-quarter decline of 21%, marking a new low for a single quarter since 2020. This indicates that investors have become more cautious about purely conceptual projects.

In this market environment, funds are starting to flow back to blue-chip DeFi projects. Although Bitcoin continues to maintain a strong position, there is a clear differentiation within the DeFi sector. Protocols that have established a complete "revenue-distribution" closed loop are seeing their total locked value (TVL) and trading volume continue to grow, demonstrating strong vitality.

This change in market pattern not only reflects investors' pursuit of the intrinsic value of projects, but also indicates that the cryptocurrency industry is moving towards a more mature and rational development stage. In the future, projects that can continuously generate actual value and cash flow will be more likely to stand out in fierce market competition.