Bull Market Pauses: Four Key Points to Screen Promising Altcoins for 2025
TechFlow Selected TechFlow Selected
Bull Market Pauses: Four Key Points to Screen Promising Altcoins for 2025
A full-scale imitation season may not recur.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsAuthor: The DeFi Investor
Translation: Tim, PANews
The crypto bull market sentiment is back—at least for now.
Here's the question: which altcoins will deliver outsized returns?
During the 2021 bull run, nearly any altcoin would surge. But things have changed since then.
With millions of new altcoins launched into the market, achieving outsized returns now requires careful selection.
In this article, I want to share my checklist for evaluating crypto projects and the key factors I focus on.
Let’s begin.
1. Narrative Hype and Mindshare
Think about the best-performing tokens over the past 12 months.
The first that come to mind are HYPE, VIRTUAL, and memecoins.
Do they all have strong fundamentals? Platforms like HYPE do, but the majority on this top-performing list certainly don’t.
Source: Coingecko's Top Crypto Gainers in 2024 article
They share one thing in common: high mindshare on social media, with a dedicated group of fans tirelessly promoting them on X.
Beyond that, most of these top performers succeeded due to powerful narratives.
-
Virtual surged amid rising AI hype
-
Meme coins rose from Q4 2024 to early Q1 2025 due to viral meme trends online
My advice is to identify currently popular narratives, search for tokens tied to them, and pick those with highly active communities on Twitter.
2. Growth Metrics
In a bull market, hype (unfortunately) matters far more than fundamentals—but the good news is: some projects manage to capture attention while also achieving strong product-market fit.
If a project has both, it could be an excellent investment—especially if its key metrics are showing explosive growth recently.
Here’s an example: the stablecoin protocol Ethena saw its TVL rise by 50% over the past 30 days. At the same time, it gained significant attention and analysis from users and analysts on Twitter.
The result? Ethena’s token ENA surged 154% over the past month.
By betting on early-stage projects with consistently growing metrics (like rising TVL, revenue, fees) and some community buzz, you can generate substantial returns.
I often use DeFiLlama to discover the fastest-growing projects.
3. Sound Tokenomics
If you plan to hold a token for just a few days, tokenomics may not matter much. But for medium- to long-term investments, it’s entirely different.
For instance, the TIA token crashed over 90% in the past 17 months due to massive selling pressure from early investors after each token unlock.
This is why understanding tokenomics before buying is crucial.
Key aspects I examine when researching a token:
Token Unlock Schedule
Tokenomist provides tokenomics and unlock data for many popular tokens.
Generally, I prefer circulating supply to be at least 30%, and annual token issuance (inflation rate) no more than 20%–35%.
Also, if there’s a large upcoming unlock (e.g., more than 20% of current circulating supply), I’d rather avoid buying the token.
Token Utility
I always ask myself two questions:
Will this token benefit from the protocol’s success? Why would someone pay a higher price than me for it?
Dividend mechanisms or token buyback programs are ideal answers.
While strong token utility is a major advantage, it’s not a necessity. I’ve seen many tokens with almost no utility still perform exceptionally well.
4. Community-First Approach
Today, a community-first project matters more than ever.
More people are unwilling to invest in vague and boring projects—they prefer supporting teams that prioritize their communities.
This is one reason I believe tokens like HYPE and PENGU have performed so well recently.
Signs of a community-first crypto project include:
-
Largestake airdrops
-
Teams that under-promise and over-deliver
-
Team-driven marketing: teams highly active on X, consistently engaging with the community
-
A large portion of token supply allocated to the community
These are the main factors I consider when selecting tokens.
Another important factor that could drive token price appreciation is an upcoming major catalyst not yet priced in.
Potential catalysts include: an imminent protocol upgrade, improvements to tokenomics, or launching a new product that significantly boosts project revenue.
No matter how great the asset, buying at too high a price makes it a poor investment.
Wait patiently for the right opportunity—don’t impulsively FOMO into rallies.
Join TechFlow official community to stay tuned
Telegram:https://t.me/TechFlowDaily
X (Twitter):https://x.com/TechFlowPost
X (Twitter) EN:https://x.com/BlockFlow_News
The DeFi Investor
