Memecoin Madness Shakes Bitcoin Halving Cycle

The current bull market in the crypto industry has been deemed the “weirdest” on record by industry analysts. This is due to several unique factors that have deviated from the usual patterns seen in previous bull runs. Instead of seeing liquidity flow from Bitcoin to Ethereum and then to other high-cap coins, the market has seen a direct flow from Bitcoin to memecoins, which is unusual. Memecoins, such as ‘dogwifhat’ and ‘Book of Meme’, have experienced a surge in total capitalization, reaching $70 billion on April 1.

Notably, the Coinbase layer-2 network Base has also become a hub for memecoin speculation. Tokens like DEGEN, which are native to Base, have seen incredible gains of up to 2,800% over the past month. DEGEN is an unofficial token distributed to the community on the decentralized social network Farcaster.

Despite this peculiar market behavior, analysts argue that market fundamentals are not playing a significant role at the moment. Retail money has entered the market, but not at the levels seen in previous bull markets. Instead, the current market is driven more by attention-grabbing narratives rather than real fundamentals.

Ethereum educator Anthony Sassano concurs with this assessment and states that this bull market is the strangest he has seen in his decade in the industry. He highlights the absence of meaningful retail participation and emphasizes that the entire market needs to move together for retail to truly enter the scene. Currently, pumps in specific sectors are being driven by crypto enthusiasts rotating money between these sectors.

Adding to the unusual nature of this market cycle is the fact that Bitcoin hit an all-time high before its halving. In previous cycles, the all-time highs occurred the year following the halving. Bitcoin reached a high of $73,734 on March 14, and the halving is just 18 days away on April 20. Analysts believe that the pre-halving retrace is already over, and technical indicators support this belief.

Technical analyst Moustache points out that BTC has reclaimed a key Fibonacci ratio level before the halving, which has been seen in previous cycles. These deviations from the usual patterns have made this bull market the strangest and most unique in the history of the crypto industry.