This round of copycat coins is totally different from the past—there’s no comparable route at all.

A normal cycle of copycat coins + Meme coins goes like this: BTC first rises → it climbs to a certain level, liquidity overflows → retail investors rush into smaller coins. That’s natural transmission.

But this round, I looked into it—this copycat season is purely man-made.

The copycat targets that have been pumped recently come from two sources:

· Market makers use 1–2 weeks to finish fast accumulation
· Residual historical order books—market makers already had full control long ago; they’ve just been waiting for the opportunity to pump

As for the “evil coins” that get pumped, their market caps are mostly concentrated in the 20 million to 100 million USD range.

The core of the gameplay: pricing power.

Spot is absorbed by the market makers for the most part, and the circulating supply is basically in their hands. The mark price is calculated based on the exchange’s external spot transaction price—that is, the spot price is decided by the market makers, and the contract liquidation points naturally follow the market makers as well.

The key is the funding rate—many people here haven’t figured this out clearly.

The funding rate isn’t naturally formed by the market. After market makers push the price higher, retail investors feel it’s time to short, but they don’t have any coins. They can only open short positions on the contracts. One-sided sentiment pushes the funding rate up.

And on top of that, liquidations use the mark price (the algorithm is basically based on the exchange’s external spot transaction price). If market makers hold the spot, then they effectively hold the liquidation points of the contracts. Naked shorting is extremely dangerous.
$BTC $ETH $SOL