In this cycle, don't pay for stories anymore.

After having in-depth discussions with several on-chain veterans, I have summarized four survival rules for crypto trading based on "looking at cash flow."

Written by: Haotian

After deep conversations with several experienced on-chain friends recently, we reached a strong consensus on the survival rules for the current cycle. The market has fully shifted from "listening to stories and trading expectations" to "focusing on cash flow and verifying fundamentals." Here are some trading principles to share (for reference only):

1) Prioritize projects with genuine value-capture capabilities.

In bull markets, the market is willing to pay for stories and expectations. In bear markets, only real cash flow and buyback and burn records matter. The real "immunity token" this cycle is a protocol that can generate fees continuously and distribute them directly to token holders through buybacks, burns, or dividends. For example, the recently strong launchpad tokens such as $UNI, $PUMP, $PONS, and the buyback king of this cycle $HYPE;

2) Only choose projects where PMF has been achieved and a complete closed loop is formed.

Because, barring surprises, next cycle will only have two major narratives related to "asset tokenization" and the "Agentic Economy" (Perps, prediction, stablecoins, payment). The market will shift from favoring technical narratives and roadmap extensions to practical use case validation. Projects without real users, genuine transaction loops, or real income will be quickly filtered out. Concept tokens along these lines include $ONDO, $VVV, $VIRTUAL, etc., with a special focus on actual AUM, trading volume, and fee generation data indicators;

3) Choose assets with strong "consensus."

We have to admit, over several crypto cycles, only two things truly withstand the test: "consensus." Note, this means consensus that naturally develops in the market and can sustain across cycles—definitely not the so-called "consensus" hyped by xxx replying to a tweet or built by industrialized marketing pipelines. The real potential lies in the old assets that newcomers struggle to understand but still maintain good liquidity and survival. For example, the old Cult MEME tokens like $DOGE, $PEPE, $PEOPLE, or the leading assets in various sub-sectors like $ZEC, $TAO, etc. They have survived multiple bull and bear cycles, their communities are naturally resilient, and they are easily targeted and repeatedly traded by major players;

4) Avoid pure VC tokens as much as possible.

If I say altcoins are dead, you might argue about cyclical rebounds in finance. But if I say VC tokens are dead, basically no one disagrees anymore. High FDV, low circulating supply, and continuous large unlocking means VC tokens can only rely on airdrop expectations around TGE to generate buzz. If a project lacks value capture, it’s inevitably stuck with insufficient momentum for further development and faces the awkward situation of unlocks dumping on the market. This is the fundamental reason for the "muted bulls, deep bears" nature of this cycle: a huge number of hungry VCs waiting to dump at unlocks—what retail investor would dare touch such a token?