Retail’s ‘playing defense’ right now: Reflexive Capital
Altcoin season may still be a ways off, and that could be the new norm as we adjust to potential “microcycles”
Reflexive Capital founder David Kalk | Ben Solomon Photo LLC for Blockworks
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We saw a bit of a rally yesterday as folks digested the posts from Trump, who said that we could see SOL, XRP, and ADA — combined with bitcoin and ethereum (and perhaps other, unnamed tokens) — in a strategic reserve.
For Pantera’s Paul Veradittakit, the move helps to further crypto’s “credibility” and reinforces the “store of value” narrative — though it left some folks on the CT timeline a bit concerned about the additions of XRP, ADA and SOL.
Before we argue if this is bad or good for crypto, the truth is that not a whole lot has changed. Veradittakit added that he thinks this could lead to a “significant increase” in the likelihood of an altcoin season.
We still need regulatory clarity. And we probably need to hear more about the plans at the reserve — something we can hopefully get later this week at the White House’s crypto summit.
As for why we haven’t already seen an altseason? Well, Empire co-host Jason Yanowitz has a few ideas of what’s going on.
Folks became aware of a game underfoot and some went straight to the memes to get away from not only trying to predict the cycle but also to escape the “venture games” of tokens with low float and high FDV.
But Reflexive Capital’s David Kalk thinks that people also remember the scars of last cycle, which means that they’re unlikely to go back to some of the names. This could lead to a different market structure. Kalk thinks that potential regulatory clarity and the belief in the utility of some of these tokens could be a gamechanger for folks.
At the end of the day, retail is “somewhat playing defense,” Kalk said.
VanEck’s Pranav Kanade agreed with Kalk, saying that he thinks that the “gambling” retail is back, not the “investing retail.”
And perhaps that’s leading us to a spot where we have “microcycles,” Kanade noted.
If the retail crowd that’s interested in memecoins exhausts itself, then perhaps that opens the door for a different set of folks who are looking for projects to support. Or, maybe we’ll see more institutions at play outside of bitcoin and ether.
Either way, it doesn’t seem like we’re quite ready for an altszn…yet.
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