The crypto market enters a multi-zone rotation period, alts welcome a Rebound

In the past week, the crypto market has shown a flourishing situation. As Bitcoin's price fluctuates, funds are gradually flowing into other encryption assets, with multiple zones experiencing unexpected gains from mainstream projects to niche tracks. Data shows that not only are star projects leading the way, but more structural rebounds are spreading among the zones.

Data platforms show that the search popularity of "altcoin" has reached a five-year high, with "Ethereum" search volume hitting a two-year peak. Meanwhile, the total market value of cryptocurrencies worldwide has increased to $4 trillion, with the altcoin zone performing significantly better than Bitcoin.

Ethereum has risen 79% in the past 90 days, while Bitcoin has only increased by 14% during the same period. The Altcoin Season Index has risen from 29 a month ago to 40. The United States has received 31 applications for altcoin spot ETFs in the first half of the year, covering multiple mainstream public chains and ecosystem tokens.

In terms of liquidity, ETFs and corporate treasury are changing the supply-demand structure. In just three days, the Ethereum spot ETF recorded a net inflow of $2.3 billion, equivalent to 500,000 ETH. Corporate treasury is diversifying its allocations, with substantial holdings in Ethereum, Solana, and Chainlink being staked for returns. The total value locked (TVL) in DeFi has returned to $96.9 billion, approaching historical highs.

This resonance of funds and narratives provides a solid foundation for the comprehensive rotation of alts.

Meme Zone: Emotional Explosion

In this structural rotation, the surge of PENGU, SPX, and AERO is the most prominent, representing three main lines of the current alts market: Meme narrative, technical pattern trading, and platform entry dividends.

PENGU: The Leap from Meme to Financial Product

PENGU is essentially a meme coin with the image of a penguin as its cultural core, but this time it has gained a legitimate financial injection. A certain capital has submitted an ETF application that includes PENGU spot, planning to allocate more than 80% of the funds to the token itself, with the remaining portion holding related NFTs. This is the first time that NFT IP has been packaged with cryptocurrency tokens into an ETF product. The ETF narrative directly enhances PENGU's visibility among institutional investors.

The offline and online exposure has simultaneously boosted the hype. At the beginning of August, the trading volume of PENGU on a certain trading platform once surpassed that of Dogecoin, a certain exchange changed its official social media avatar to the related NFT, and another platform also listed this coin.

On the technical side, PENGU has broken through the descending trend channel, while increasing in volume, providing an entry signal for short-term funds. The combination of "cultural IP × ETF expectations × technical breakthrough" gives PENGU a very high rebound elasticity.

SPX6900: Meme-style capital rotation guided by technical aspects

Compared to PENGU, SPX's rise is more supported by rational strategic trading rather than being purely driven by emotions. It uses "parodying the S&P 500 index" as its IP, and the name itself carries financial references.

The daily chart has formed a classic "cup and handle" pattern, with the neckline at $1.74. Once it breaks upwards, a technical target of $2.28 to $2.88 will be established. This pattern is highly attractive to technical traders.

At the same time, the SPX community is highly active with extremely efficient capital rotation. Holders quickly leverage their profits to enter a new round of presale projects, forming high-frequency capital transmission and interception.

The explosive growth of SPX is not only the result of technical chart patterns but also a reflection of the synergy of memes, trading momentum, and community activity.

AERO: The platform entry becomes a capital accelerator

The upward momentum of AERO is highly practical. As a core decentralized exchange (DEX) token on a certain blockchain, it received significant positive news in early August — being integrated by a certain trading platform, allowing for one-click buying and selling without the need to switch platforms. This enables millions of trading users to directly access the liquidity pool on that blockchain. Within a week, AERO's trading volume shattered a six-month high, with prices rising over 43%. Meanwhile, Ethereum's TVL rebounded to approximately $96.9 billion, and trading activity on the related blockchain surged, making Aerodrome a "fund turnaround point."

This wave of increase shows that the "platform entrance" has the ability to effectively convert into on-chain buying and selling activities, serving as a central node that drives price diffusion and explosion.

Other zones are also standing out in structural rebound.

Other zones are also showing samples of structural market trends, with funds gradually penetrating into more zones:

L2/Scalability Zone

Representative projects such as MNT (+49.06%) and ARB (+30.52%) have benefited from the rebound in Ethereum ecosystem activity and the increase in on-chain transaction volume, reactivating the valuation logic of layer two networks. As users' demand for low fees and high throughput continues to strengthen, L2 not only serves as a performance optimization solution but also becomes the launchpad for various new protocols. Some funds believe that this type of foundational track has "slow bull" characteristics, although its short-term elasticity is not as strong as that of meme coins, it excels in ecosystem stability and long-term narrative.

DeFi protocol zone

A certain DEX (+76.37%) continues to firmly hold its core position in decentralized liquidity, with the increase in cross-chain aggregation and transaction fee income ratio being the main reasons.

FORM (+35%) relies on "Portfolio Strategy Management" to lower the complex operational threshold for retail investors, while PENDLE (+34.89%)'s "Yield Splitting" product bridges the gap between fixed income and derivatives, catering to the diverse needs of institutions and advanced traders. It can be seen that current funds are not blindly chasing high prices, but are inclined to invest in DeFi protocols with unique mechanisms that can form a competitive moat.

infrastructure zone

LINK (+40.46%), KAIA (+31.93%), and XDC (+20.19%) represent the three demands of "oracle", "cross-chain infrastructure", and "enterprise chain" respectively.

LINK's monopoly position in the oracle track makes it an indispensable underlying component in the DeFi and RWA narratives; KAIA, as a cross-chain hub, benefits from the continuous rise in the demand for inter-chain interoperability; XDC, by combining with traditional enterprise supply chain and trade financing scenarios, has gained attention for long-term stable allocation of funds. The commonality among these types of assets is that regardless of market sentiment fluctuations, their use cases can continuously generate rigid demand.

platform coin zone

The strong performance of platform coins such as OKB (+72.98%), CRO (+52.95%), and BNB (+29.12%) is driven, on one hand, by the increase in platform revenue due to the rebound in trading volume, and on the other hand, by the long-term expectations of the buyback and destruction mechanism. For funds, the logic of platform coins is closer to "equity-like assets"; as the exchange ecosystem expands, their intrinsic value is expected to steadily increase.

payment chain zone

BCH (+48.27%), XLM (+44.49%), and TRX (+31.18%) are experiencing a rebound in the scenarios of cross-border payments and stablecoin transfers. BCH remains a frequent choice for offline payments and OTC scenarios in some emerging markets; XLM gains increment from its partnerships with international clearing and remittance services; TRX maintains its fund attractiveness by relying on stablecoin issuance and on-chain activity. These types of assets tend to show stronger resilience during market fluctuations and are more likely to attract medium to long-term funds.

Special Narrative/Derivative Zone

The strength of SPX has been mentioned earlier, but similar projects like HBAR and INJ are also gaining revaluation opportunities through differentiated narratives (such as DAG architecture and derivatives trading depth). Especially at this stage, projects that can provide additional risk-return curves outside the mainstream narrative often receive unexpected funding support in the later stages of the market.

Overall, the performance of these zones shows a trend: capital is migrating from major assets to targets with greater elasticity and depth in the zone, attempting to find new sources of alpha.

Summary

The current rotation in the market makes the entire market resemble a multi-level chess game: the main tracks continue to attract attention, but other squares on the board are quietly lighting up. Whether it's long-term stable infrastructure or short-term explosive concept coins, they are providing different risk preference options for funds.

Next, the differentiation in the market may become more apparent—some assets will continue to rise due to narratives, funding, and fundamentals, while others will quickly recede in the absence of sustained driving forces. For investors, the real challenge is not to find the coins that are rising, but to judge how much longer they can rise and when to exit.

After all, this market is never short of surprises, but it is also never short of unexpected events.