Crypto Market Macroeconomic Outlook: Critical Point of Pricing Logic Reconstruction

Introduction

In the second quarter of 2025, the crypto market is undergoing a transition from a peak of heat to a phased adjustment. Although Meme, AI, RWA and other tracks continue to rotate and guide market sentiment, the suppressive effect of the macro side has gradually emerged. Volatility in global trade, volatile U.S. economic data, and the ongoing game of Fed interest rate cut expectations have brought the market into an important window of pricing logic reconstruction. At the same time, there are positive changes in the policy environment: the support of the Trump camp towards cryptocurrencies is prompting investors to value in advance the possibility of bitcoin becoming a strategic national reserve asset. The market is still in the “retracement phase of a medium-term bull market”, but structural opportunities are emerging, and market pricing benchmarks are undergoing a major shift at the macro level.

Macroeconomic Environment: The Old Pricing System Has Collapsed, and New Anchors Have Yet to Be Established

In May 2025, the crypto market is at a critical period of macro framework reconstruction. Traditional pricing models are rapidly disintegrating, while new valuation anchors have not yet fully formed, resulting in a vague and anxious environment in the market. From economic data to central bank policy directions, and to changes in global geopolitics and trade relations, all are influencing the behavior of the crypto market in the form of “new order emerging from instability.”

The Fed’s monetary policy is shifting from “data dependence” to a new phase of “politics and stagflationary pressure game”. The CPI and PCE data released in April and May this year show that although inflation in the United States has eased, it is still sticky, especially the price of the service industry is still rigid, which is intertwined with the structural shortage of the labor market, hindering the rapid decline of inflation. While the unemployment rate has risen marginally, it has not yet reached the tipping point for initiating a policy reversal, which has pushed back market expectations for a rate cut from June to Q4 or even later. Although Fed Chairman Jerome Powell did not rule out the possibility of cutting interest rates this year in his public speech, he emphasized “cautious wait-and-see” and “sticking to the long-term inflation target”, making the prospect of liquidity easing more distant.

This macro uncertainty has a direct impact on the funding pricing basis of crypto assets. In the past three years, crypto assets have enjoyed valuation premiums in the “zero interest rate + pan-liquidity easing” environment, and now in the second half of the high interest rate cycle, traditional valuation models are facing systemic failure. Although Bitcoin has maintained a volatile upward trend driven by structural funds, it has never been able to break through the next important hurdle, indicating that its linkage with traditional macro assets is disintegrating. The market is no longer simply applying the old logic of “NASDAQ rising = BTC rising”, but gradually realizing that crypto assets need independent policy anchors and role positioning.

At the same time, there have been important changes in the geopolitical variables affecting the market year-to-date. Previously, the issue of the trade war between China and the United States has cooled significantly, and the Trump team’s shift in focus on “reshoring of manufacturing” indicates that China and the United States will not further intensify the conflict in the short term. This has temporarily weakened the logic of “geo-hedging + Bitcoin risk-resistant assets”, and the market’s “hedging premium” for crypto assets has decreased, and it has turned to find new policy support and narrative momentum. This is also an important reason why the crypto market has turned from a structural rebound to a high-level shock since mid-May, and some on-chain asset funds have continued to flow out.

At a deeper level, the global financial system is undergoing a systemic process of “anchor reconstruction”. The U.S. dollar index is trading sideways at a high level, the linkage between gold, treasury bonds, and U.S. stocks is disrupted, and crypto assets are in the middle ground, which neither fully has the hedging attribute endorsed by the central bank, nor has it been fully incorporated into the risk control framework by mainstream financial institutions. This intermediate state of “neither risk nor risk aversion” puts the market pricing of major assets such as BTC and ETH in a relatively ambiguous area. This vague macro positioning is further transmitted to the downstream of the ecosystem, resulting in the explosion of sub-narratives such as Meme, RWA, and AI, which are difficult to sustain. Without the support of macro incremental funds, the local prosperity on the chain is easy to fall into the rotation trap of “rapid ignition - rapid extinguishment”.

We are now entering a transition period of “definancialization” dominated by macro variables. At this stage, market liquidity and trends are no longer driven by simple asset correlations, but depend on the reallocation of policy pricing power and institutional roles. For the crypto market to usher in the next round of systemic revaluation, it must wait for a new macro anchor - it may be the official confirmation that “bitcoin has become a national strategic reserve asset”, or “the Fed has clearly launched a cycle of interest rate cuts”, or “many governments around the world have adopted on-chain financial infrastructure”. Only when these macro-level anchors are truly established will there be a full return of risk appetite and a resonant upward movement of asset prices.

Currently, what the crypto market needs is not to cling to old logic, but to calmly identify the signs of new anchor points emerging. Those funds and projects that can first understand the changes in the macro structure and lay out ahead of the new anchor points will take the lead in the next real bull run.

Policy Reform: The Approval of the “GENIUS Act” and State-Level Bitcoin Reserve Programs Trigger Structural Expectations

In May 2025, the U.S. Senate passed the GENIUS Act ( the Guaranteed Electronic Network Unification and Interoperability Stablecoin Act ) becoming one of the most institutionally influential stablecoin legislation in the world after MiCA. The bill not only establishes the regulatory framework for US dollar stablecoins, but also sends a clear signal that stablecoins are officially transformed into a core component of the sovereign financial system and an extension of the influence of the digital dollar.

The bill focuses on three main aspects: first, it gives the Federal Reserve and Financial Regulators the right to license stablecoin issuers, and sets the same capital, reserve and transparency requirements as banks; The second is to provide a legal basis and standard interface for the interconnection of stablecoins with commercial banks and payment institutions, and promote their wide application in the fields of retail payment, cross-border settlement and financial interoperability; The third is to establish a “technology sandbox” exemption mechanism for decentralized stablecoins ( such as DAI, crvUSD, etc.) and retain the space for open financial innovation under the compliance framework.

From a macro perspective, the bill triggers a triple structural change in expectations in the crypto market. First of all, a new model of “on-chain anchoring” has emerged in the international extension path of the dollar system. As the “federal check” in the digital era, stablecoins not only serve Web3 internal payments, but are also likely to become an integral part of the US dollar policy transmission mechanism and enhance their competitive advantage in emerging markets. This shows that the United States is no longer simply suppressing crypto assets, but has chosen to incorporate part of the “channel right” into the national financial system, which not only justifies the name of the stablecoin, but also lays out the US dollar in advance in the future digital financial competition.

Second, the legalization of stablecoins promotes the revaluation of the on-chain financial structure. Compliant stablecoin ecosystems such as USDC and PYUSD will usher in a period of liquidity growth, and the development of on-chain payments, credit, and ledger reconstruction will further activate the demand for asset docking between DeFi and RWAs. Especially in the context of high interest rates, high inflation, and regional currency fluctuations in the traditional financial environment, the characteristics of stablecoins as a “cross-system arbitrage tool” will further attract users in emerging markets and on-chain asset management institutions. Less than two weeks after the bill was passed, the daily trading volume of stablecoins on certain major platforms hit a new high since 2023, the circulating market value of USDC on the chain increased by nearly 12% month-on-month, and the liquidity focus began to shift from Tether to compliant assets.

More structurally, several state governments have announced Bitcoin strategic reserve plans after the bill was passed. At present, New Hampshire has passed the Bitcoin Strategic Reserve Act, and Texas, Florida, Wyoming and other states have announced that they will allocate part of their fiscal surpluses to Bitcoin reserve assets, citing inflation hedges, diversifying their fiscal structure, and supporting the local blockchain industry. This marks the beginning of Bitcoin’s entry into the “local fiscal balance sheet” from a “civil consensus asset”, and is a digital reconstruction of the state reserve model of the Golden Age. Although the scale is still small and the mechanism is still unstable, the political signal is more important than the size of the asset: Bitcoin is gradually becoming a “strategic choice at the government level”.

Together, these policy dynamics have built a new structural picture: stablecoins have become “on-chain dollars” and Bitcoin has become “local gold”, both of which have their own roles and form a symbiotic and hedging relationship with the traditional monetary system from the two dimensions of payment and reserve, respectively. This situation provides another security anchoring logic in 2025, when geofinance is fragmented and institutional trust is declining. This also explains why the crypto market was able to maintain high volatility despite poor macro data in mid-May ( high interest rates persisted, and CPI rebounded ) - a structural shift at the policy level that provided long-term certainty for the market.

After the bill is passed, the market’s reassessment of the “US bond yield-stablecoin yield” model will accelerate the alignment of stablecoin products with “on-chain government bonds” and “on-chain money market funds.” In a sense, part of the future digital debt structure of the US Treasury may be managed by stablecoins. The expectation of the on-chainization of US bonds is gradually becoming clearer through the institutionalization of stablecoins.

! Huobi Growth Academy|Crypto Market Macro Research Report: The inflection point is coming, the macro release signal, and the market is about to reconstruct the pricing logic

Market Structure: Intense Sector Rotation, Main Line Still Awaiting Clarification

The crypto market in the second quarter of 2025 presents a very tense structural contradiction: macro-level policy expectations are warming, and stablecoins and bitcoin are moving towards “institutional embeddedness”; However, at the microstructure level, there has always been a lack of a “main track” with real market consensus. As a result, the market shows obvious characteristics of frequent rotation, weak persistence, and short-term “idling” liquidity. In other words, the speed of capital circulation on the chain is still there, but the sense of direction and certainty have not yet been reconstructed, which is in stark contrast to some of the “single-track main rising wave” cycles in 2021 or 2023 ( such as DeFi Summer, AI narrative explosion, and meme season ).

In terms of sector performance, the crypto market will have an extremely differentiated structure in May 2025. Solana’s ecological Meme coin, AI+Crypto, RWA, DeFi, etc. took turns to “beat the drum and pass the flowers” to strengthen, and each sub-track continued to break out for less than two weeks, and the follow-up funds quickly dissipated. For example, the Solana ecological meme coin once triggered a new round of FOMO frenzy, but due to the weak community consensus foundation and overdraft of market sentiment, the market quickly pulled back at a high level; The top projects in the AI track, such as FET, RNDR, TAO, etc., show the characteristics of “high volatility”, which is greatly affected by the sentiment of AI-related stocks in the market, and lacks the continuity of spontaneous narrative in the chain. Although the RWA sector represented by ONDO has certainty, it has partially fulfilled its airdrop expectations and entered a period of “price and value divergence”.

The flow data shows that this rotation reflects a flood of structural liquidity rather than the start of a structural bull market. Since mid-May, USDT’s market capitalization growth has stagnated, USDC and DAI have rebounded slightly, and the average daily trading volume of on-chain DEXs has remained in the range of $2.5-3 billion, a decrease of nearly 40% from the March high. There is no obvious influx of new funds in the market, but the original stock funds are looking for short-term trading opportunities of “local high volatility + high sentiment”. In this case, even if the track is switched frequently, it is difficult to form a strong main line market, which further amplifies the speculative rhythm of “drumming and passing flowers”, resulting in a decline in the willingness of retail investors to participate, and an aggravation of the disconnect between trading heat and social heat.

On the other hand, valuation stratification has intensified. The valuation premium of the top blue-chip projects is significant, and mainstream assets such as ETH, SOL, AND TON continue to be favored by large funds, while long-tail projects are stuck in the dilemma of “fundamentals are difficult to price and expectations cannot be realized”. According to the data, in May 2025, the top 20 market capitalization currencies accounted for nearly 71% of the total market capitalization, the highest since 2022, showing the characteristics of “concentration reshoring” similar to that of traditional capital markets. In the context of the lack of a “broad-spectrum market”, market liquidity and attention are concentrated on a few core assets, which further compresses the development space of new projects and new narratives.

On-chain behavior is also changing. Ethereum’s active addresses have stabilized at around 400,000 in a few months, but the overall TVL of DeFi protocols has not increased simultaneously, reflecting the rising trend of “fragmentation” and “non-financialization” of on-chain interactions. Non-financial interactions such as meme transactions, airdrops, domain name registration, and social networks have gradually become the mainstream, indicating that the user structure has migrated to “light interaction + heavy emotion”. Although this kind of behavior drives short-term popularity, for protocol developers, the pressure on monetization and user retention is increasing, resulting in limited innovation momentum.

From the perspective of the industry, the market is currently at a critical point where multiple main lines coexist but lack the main rising wave: RWA has a long-term logic, but it needs to wait for the implementation of regulatory compliance and the independent growth of the ecosystem; Meme can stimulate market sentiment, but there is a lack of leaders with “cultural symbols + community cohesion” like DOGE and PEPE; AI+Crypto has a huge imagination space, but the technical implementation and token incentive mechanism have not yet reached a consensus standard. The Bitcoin ecosystem is beginning to take shape, but the infrastructure is still imperfect, and it is in the early stage of “trial and error + card position”.

The current market structure can be summarized into four key words: rotation, differentiation, concentration, and tentativeness. Rotation increases the difficulty of trading; Differentiation compresses the medium and long-term layout space; Concentration means that valuations are flowing back to the head, and long-tail projects are facing severe challenges; The essence of all hot spots is still that the market is testing whether the new paradigm and the new main line can obtain the dual recognition of “consensus + capital”.

Whether the future main line can take shape largely depends on the resonance of three factors: first, whether there will be innovative on-chain native blockbuster mechanisms similar to DeFi in 2020 and Meme in 2021; second, whether the implementation of policy regulation continues to release institutional benefits that are favorable for the long-term pricing logic of encryption assets, such as tokenized national bonds and federal-level Bitcoin reserves; third, whether the secondary market can attract mainstream capital again, promoting financing and ecological construction in the primary track.

The current stage resembles a “stress test” in deep waters: market sentiment is fairly decent, the institutional environment is slightly warming, but the main narrative is lacking. The market needs a new core narrative to unite people’s minds, gather funds, and integrate computing power. This may become a decisive variable for market developments in the second half of 2025.

Future Outlook and Strategic Recommendations

Looking back from mid-2025, we have gradually emerged from the “halving + elections + interest rate cuts” period of benefits, but the market has not yet established a long-term anchor point that can truly stabilize participants’ confidence. From a historical rhythm perspective, if a strong consensus on the main line has not formed by the third quarter, the market is likely to enter a medium-intensity structural consolidation period, during which the hotspots become more fragmented, trading difficulty continues to rise, risk preferences are clearly layered, forming a “low volatility window during the favorable policy period.”

From the medium-term outlook, the variables that determine the trend in the second half of the year have gradually shifted from “macro interest rate” to “system implementation process + structural narrative”. U.S. inflation indicators continue to fall, and there is a preliminary consensus within the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates twice this year, and the negative factors are easing at the margin, but the crypto market has not ushered in large-scale capital inflows, indicating that the current market is more focused on long-term institutional support than short-term monetary stimulus. This shows that crypto assets are transforming from “highly elastic risk assets” to “institutional game-based equity assets”, and the underlying market pricing system has changed.

The implementation of the GENIUS Act and the state-level Bitcoin strategic reserve pilot may be the starting point of this institutional support. Once more states incorporate Bitcoin into their fiscal strategic reserves, crypto assets will officially enter the “quasi-sovereign endorsement” era. Coupled with anticipated adjustments in federal policies after the November elections, this will constitute a structural catalyst that is more influential than the halving. However, it is worth noting that such processes require time to develop; if policy advancement is slow or election conditions reverse, crypto assets may also experience significant adjustments due to corrections in institutional expectations.

From a strategic perspective, the current environment is not suitable for a “full-scale offensive”, but rather for “patient observation and opportunistic strikes”. It is recommended to adopt a “three-tiered structural strategy”:

1. Bottom warehouse configuration of sovereign anchor assets: “Emerging institutional assets” represented by BTC and ETH will continue to attract large capital. It is recommended to prioritize these as the core of bottom warehouse configuration, focusing on assets with low supply elasticity, low institutional risk, and clear valuation models.

2. Participate in structural hotspots during high volatility windows: For sectors such as RWA, AI, and Memes, adopt tactical allocation strategies to control risk through time dimensions and judge entry and exit rhythms based on liquidity intensity, with particular attention to on-chain behavior breakthroughs or capital injection signals.

3. Focus on primary market native innovation: All waves that can truly change the encryption landscape originate from the “on-chain mechanism innovation + community consensus” dual driving force. It is recommended to gradually shift the focus to the primary market, capturing potential new paradigms such as chain abstraction, MCP protocol groups, native user layer protocols, etc., to form a long-term holding advantage in the early stage of the ecosystem.

In addition, it is recommended to closely monitor the following three major potential turning points that may dominate the structural market in the second half of the year:

• Whether the new government will release systemic policy benefits such as Bitcoin strategic reserves, tokenized national debt, ETF expansion, and regulatory exemptions;
• Will the Ethereum ecosystem see substantial user growth after the Petra upgrade? Has the L2/LRT mechanism completed its paradigm shift? Will publicly listed companies follow the strategy of continuously financing to purchase ETH like they did with Bitcoin?

Overall, the second half of 2025 will be a transition period from “policy vacuum to policy competition.” Although the market lacks a main theme, it has not lost momentum and is generally in a “phase of accumulation before an upward breakout.” Assets that truly possess the ability to penetrate cycles will not peak amid superficial heat, but will lay a foundation in chaos and welcome a certain rise when policy and structure resonate.

In this process, it is advised that market participants abandon the fantasy of “getting rich overnight” and instead establish a coherent investment research system that can span multiple cycles, finding the real “breakthrough points” from project logic, on-chain behavior, liquidity distribution, and policy trends. Because the true bull market in the future will not be the rise of a certain sector, but rather a paradigm shift where crypto assets are widely accepted as institutional assets, gaining sovereign support, and achieving genuine user migration.

Conclusion: The Winner Waiting for the “Turning Point”

At present, the crypto market is in a period of ambiguity: the macro logic is undecided, the game of policy variables, the rapid rotation of market hotspots, and the liquidity has not yet fully shifted to risky assets. But an institutional revaluation and valuation anchoring with the participation of sovereign states are taking shape. The real upswing of the market will no longer be driven by the traditional bull and bear cycle alone, but a comprehensive revaluation triggered by the “establishment of the political role of crypto assets”. The inflection point is coming, and the winners will be those who understand the macro trend and plan patiently.