Last season’s crypto market was indeed cold for a while. I looked at the data, and after Bitcoin surged to a high of 126K at the end of the year, it started to decline steadily as the first quarter began, with the market capitalization falling by more than 20%—it felt like the market’s overall heat had dissipated.

The most obvious sign is the decline in trading value. The spot trading of the top ten exchanges fell from $4.5 trillion to $2.7 trillion, a direct drop of 39%. Daily average trading value also fell from its peak to $117.8 billion, down 27%. I saw that some platforms’ trading volume was even cut by half, with declines exceeding 50%, which was really uncommon before. By March, the daily average trading value had dropped to $80 billion as well, setting a new low since November 2023. This kind of sharp drop in crypto trading volume does reflect a clear cooling in market participation.

What’s interesting, though, is that the infrastructure side is still developing steadily. The supply of stablecoins is still maintained at a high level, indicating that funds are still in the ecosystem. Institutions also haven’t been idle—continuing to expand in areas like custody, tokenization, and derivatives. I think this downturn is more about sentiment than something fundamentally wrong. Caution in the short term is normal, but in the long run, ongoing innovation and continued capital investment still support the future of this market.