Hash Global: After BTC, Who Will Take the Baton in the Next Bull Market?

In our article published on August 13, we concluded:

A week later, that reason arrived.

The U.S. Treasury announced a bond buyback program. BTC subsequently surged, quickly breaking through the short-term holder cost basis and the 200-day moving average, briefly touching $80,000. The entire market rallied in tandem, and the technical picture has re-established a "bull market trend."

The market is now debating—the bull market is back.

According to the script from the previous cycle, the next chapter seems predictable: institutional funds continue to accumulate, ETFs see sustained net inflows, BTC leads the rally, and then capital gradually spreads to ETH and other assets.

But we believe this time may be different.

The rally has just begun, and the market is already showing signals that differ from the last cycle.

While BTC rebounded sharply, ETH—which was persistently bearish throughout the previous cycle—actually led the gains, with the ETH/BTC ratio surging more than 10% in a single day; assets like BNB and HYPE also performed impressively, posting gains of approximately 20% and 42%, respectively.

This is clearly different from the previous cycle's pattern of BTC dominance.

Because the industry's growth logic is shifting:

1. Last Cycle Was "Capital On-Chain," This Cycle May Be "Assets On-Chain"

Over the past few years, the most significant change in crypto has been the entry of traditional capital into this market.

BTC ETFs, DAT treasury companies, institutional allocations... essentially all address one problem: how to bring traditional capital into crypto.

But now, another trend is emerging.

Stablecoins, credit assets, bonds, funds, stocks... more and more traditional financial assets are being tokenized.

And the recent concentrated release of policy signals has added fuel to this trend.

The SEC's proposed Regulation Crypto establishes a clearer compliance path for token issuance and financing. As regulatory uncertainty declines, more capital has the opportunity to enter, driving project and asset creation, further opening up growth space on the supply side of crypto.

This is also one of the key catalysts for the recent market explosion.

However, what the market tends to overlook is that Regulation Crypto is not an isolated regulation; it must be understood within the context of "Project Crypto" promoted by SEC Chairman Paul Atkins.

Regulation Crypto primarily addresses asset issuance and financing under the Project Crypto framework; meanwhile, Project Crypto is also advancing the reshaping of rules for key on-chain market segments such as trading, custody, and settlement, aiming to establish a regulatory framework better suited to the on-chain financial system, laying the institutional foundation for the migration of traditional capital and assets on-chain.

On the other side, the CLARITY Act being advanced in Congress complements this from a higher level by clarifying digital asset classification, regulatory boundaries, and market structure, building a clearer legal foundation for the long-term operation of on-chain markets.

With both tracks advancing simultaneously, an institutional foundation that truly supports the operation of on-chain capital markets is gradually taking shape.

"Everything on-chain" is moving from imagination to reality.

Previously: TradFi capital → Crypto

Now: TradFi assets → On-chain

These two trends have completely different implications for the market.

If it were merely capital entering crypto, BTC would be the most direct beneficiary.

But if a large number of assets enter crypto, the real beneficiaries will be financial infrastructure such as issuance, trading, settlement, custody, and lending.

This is our core judgment for the next cycle.

2. After the Explosion of Asset Supply, Who Will Host These Assets?

This moment is just like that moment.

A bull market driven by asset supply is not unfamiliar to crypto; the ICO wave of 2017 is the most classic example.

What truly changed the market back then was the explosion of on-chain asset supply.

Ethereum significantly lowered the barrier to issuing on-chain assets, leading to a surge of new projects and tokens that attracted users and capital, driving rapid expansion of the entire crypto market.

And as the infrastructure that hosted all of this at the time, ETH became one of the best-performing assets, rising 27-fold, clearly outperforming BTC's 13-fold gain over the same period.

Comparison of ETH and BTC gains during the 2017 ICO cycle

Today, similar growth is re-emerging, but Everything-on-chain will be an upgrade of the ICO logic:

This time, what is moving on-chain is not a mix of ICO projects of varying quality, but stocks, funds, and bonds with real value and demand support.

The question therefore becomes:

If trillions of dollars in assets truly move on-chain in the future, who will host them?

This may be the most noteworthy structural opportunity in the next crypto bull market.

At the same time, the industry shakeout in crypto over the past few years has made this competition different from the ICO era.

The early proliferation of infrastructure is gradually consolidating. A large number of public chains, protocols, and projects have exited the market, and what remains are a few leading ecosystems that have established users, liquidity, and network effects.

So this time, an interesting phenomenon may emerge:

Once demand picks up, new traffic may not be evenly distributed but is more likely to flow directly to proven top-tier infrastructure.

3. So, Why Are We Bullish on ETH and BNB?

— ETH — Certainty

ETH remains the most mature decentralized financial infrastructure.

Our core logic for being bullish on ETH is simple:

Ethereum hosts over 50% of global tokenized RWAs and covers nearly half of the global stablecoin supply; DeFi TVL exceeds $40 billion, accounting for about 44% of the entire market, more than eight times the scale of second-tier public chains.

More importantly, the most mature DeFi protocols such as Uniswap, Aave, Lido, and Sky are highly concentrated in the Ethereum ecosystem, meaning Ethereum still possesses the largest liquidity and ecosystem moat.

So what makes ETH truly worth betting on is not a new narrative, but: an infrastructure that has existed for a decade is about to enter a new demand cycle.

— BNB — Growth Elasticity

If ETH represents certainty, then BNB represents growth elasticity.

Compared to competing in the public chain arena, the BNB ecosystem has taken a different path—building the most complete financial network.

If traditional financial assets truly begin to move on-chain at scale in the future, the focus of competition will not just be "whose chain is better," but more importantly, who can truly connect assets, users, trading, and liquidity.

Using a leading exchange to aggregate users and liquidity, a high-performance public chain to host DeFi infrastructure, and brand and ecosystem resources to connect top-tier institutions. Over the past two years, BNB has become one of the fastest-growing ecosystems for RWA. RWA asset scale grew from approximately $3.6 million at the beginning of 2025 to over $5.8 billion today, making it the largest RWA ecosystem outside of Ethereum; the number of RWA holders surpassed 1.15 million, ranking first among all ecosystems.

This year, this Web3 financial network has further extended into TradFi, with related businesses growing rapidly and ranking among the industry's top.

And these positive changes have not yet been priced in by the market.

One is ETH, which was suppressed for a long time in the previous cycle but whose core position has not changed; the other is BNB, whose fundamentals continue to improve but has not yet been fully priced in.

We believe that in the new cycle, both types of value will return to the spotlight.

BNB ecosystem RWA growth trend

4. Robinhood Is the Mirror of BNB in the Traditional Financial World

If "everything on-chain" still sounds distant, look at Robinhood.

Robinhood is the most direct expression of Everything-on-chain in the traditional financial world.

It started as an internet brokerage.

Then it expanded into crypto, explored tokenized stocks, and further built its own on-chain infrastructure.

What it is doing is essentially moving traditional financial assets onto the chain step by step.

Robinhood started from TradFi and moved toward on-chain; BNB started from crypto and extended toward TradFi.

They appear to come from two completely different worlds, but what they are betting on is actually the same trend:

This is why we are not only bullish on ETH and BNB but also very bullish on Robinhood's explosive growth potential in this cycle.

5. BTC Opens the Door, Infrastructure Will Be the Destination

In this cycle, BTC will remain the most important core asset in crypto and the most direct entry point for institutions entering crypto.

But if what truly happens in the new round is:

Then the way the market captures value will change.

The more assets, the more transactions, the greater the demand for liquidity, and the greater the demand for financial infrastructure.

And after the full shakeout of the previous cycle, market share in various businesses has also become concentrated.

So in this round, we are more focused on:

ETH — Certainty

BNB — Elasticity

Robinhood — Representative of traditional finance moving on-chain

Our core judgment is also clear:

BTC remains important.

But in the next round, infrastructure may be the protagonist.