Ether leads the rise, Bitcoin stagnates? In-depth analysis of the mid-signal in the 2025 encryption bull run.

Recently, $BTC fell from a high of 124000 to a low of 107350, while $ETH dropped from 4956 to a low of 4257. Moreover, there has been a situation recently where ETH rose while BTC fell.

Everyone is asking: Is the bull market over?

So, has the bull left? What stage is the market actually in now?

And listen to CG, the chief researcher of ABC Alpha | A detailed interpretation by Yijian, the original text is as follows:

The crypto bull market is generally divided into three phases: early bull, mid bull, and late bull.

In the early stages of a bull market, funds and market confidence have just recovered from the scars and painful memories of the previous bear market. The market's risk appetite is relatively low, and funds generally choose the most stable assets to invest in, which is BTC. Therefore, in every bull market, BTC rises first, while ETH and other altcoins experience relatively weak gains, and there are even instances where BTC rises independently while ETH and other altcoins fall. At this time, the BTC market cap dominance often rises to over 60%.

In the bull market, market confidence is largely restored, risk appetite is enhanced, and funds are beginning to try relatively high-risk assets. Specifically, this is manifested by funds starting to flow from BTC to Altcoins Leader—ETH, with ETH showing consecutive daily rises exceeding BTC, and even instances where ETH rises while BTC falls. However, the Altcoins Season has not yet arrived.

Bull market, the market is completely crazy, risk appetite has reached its peak, Fomo sentiment is overflowing, leverage is maxed out, funds are starting to flow into extremely high-risk Altcoins, and some completely fundamental-less Shitcoins and Memes have begun to see multi-fold rises in a single day. Everyone feels that this time is different. Altcoins Season has officially arrived. At this moment, BTC and ETH also begin to reach historical highs.

Then, liquidity suddenly retreats at some high point, the market crashes, and once again enters a prolonged bear market.

Therefore, the different stages of a bull market are driven by the evolution of capital's risk appetite, essentially propelled by human fears and greed.

To gain a clearer understanding of this fact, let's review history together:

2017 Year of the Ox (December 2016 - Q1 2017)

BTC rose from around 700 USD in December 2016 to about 1300 USD in February 2017, effectively doubling its value. At this point, BTC officially emerged from the ruins of the previous bear market, marking the slow onset of a new bull market. Meanwhile, during this period, ETH was still hovering around 15 USD.

2017 Year of the Ox ( March - September 2017

Due to the ICO craze, funds flooded into ETH, causing ETH to rise from 20 dollars to 300 dollars, achieving an increase of over 15 times within 7 months; during this time, BTC rose from 1300 dollars to 4000 dollars, achieving an increase of about 3 times within 7 months, indicating that BTC's increase was significantly lower than that of ETH during this phase. The above data also confirms the characteristic that "ETH's increase is greater than BTC's" in a bull market.

However, at this time the market has not yet entered the final stage, and neither BTC nor ETH has reached historical highs; the altcoin season has not officially arrived.

Year of the Ox (October 2017 - January 2018)

After a brief adjustment of the 94 policies, ICO completely entered a frenzy mode in October, with a white paper able to raise hundreds of millions of dollars, altcoins flying everywhere, and the ICO bull market entering its final crazy stage.

Around December 16, 2017, the price of BTC reached a historical high of 19600; one month later, ETH reached 1400 USD around January 20, 2018, and then the market experienced a cliff-like fall, ICOs cooled down, and a complete collapse occurred, ending this round of bull market.

Let's take a look at this bull market in 2021.

At the beginning of 2020, the global economy was impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. On March 15, 2020, the United States urgently launched a quantitative easing policy (QE)). As a result, there was a brief policy bull market from March 2020 to March 2021. However, even in a policy bull market, it follows the pattern of the early bull - mid bull - late bull. Let's briefly review:

Policy Bull Initial (March 2020 - June 2020)

On March 15, as soon as the news of the quantitative easing policy was released, the price of BTC immediately came out of the two-year long bear market from 2018 to 2019. BTC rose from 5000 USD in March to 10000 USD in August, achieving a 100% rise in just 3 months; during this time, ETH was mainly slowly rising around 200 USD.

Policy Bull Market (July 2020 - February 2021)

With the strengthening of quantitative easing policies, the world has begun to flood the market with money, and banks have entered an era of 0% interest rates and even negative interest rates, prompting global funds to start seeking returns everywhere. At this time, the Ethereum ecosystem in the crypto market began the DeFi Summer frenzy, and various DeFi Farming models started to emerge.

During this phase, ETH continued to rise sharply, soaring from $200 in July 2020 to $1900 in February 2021, an increase of nearly 10 times; while BTC during this phase rose from $10,000 to $39,000, less than 4 times, indicating that BTC's rise was lower than that of ETH, which aligns with the characteristics of a bull market.

Policy Bull Tail (March - May 2021)

At this stage, in addition to the astonishing DeFi protocols with high APY, various meme assets driven entirely by emotions and lacking any fundamentals have started to soar, with funds entering a final frenzy mode.

Soon, around April 15, 2021, BTC reached 62800 USD and began to fall; one month later, around May 14, 2021, ETH reached 3900 USD, and the market started to plummet rapidly, various DeFi Farming began to collapse, Meme crashed, and the market crashed again.

The crypto bull market driven by quantitative easing policies has come to an end, with the market falling until the end of June 2021.

Immediately afterwards, from July 2021 to December 2021, the crypto market entered the regular bull market cycle of 2021.

Due to the influence of the previous bull market policy, in July 2021, the prices of BTC and ETH were both higher than the highs of the last bull market (2017) (BTC $30,000 > $19,000, ETH $1,900 > $1,400). Therefore, the initial bullish sentiment of the 2021 crypto bull market had already been previewed in the previous months, leading the crypto market to directly enter the bullish phase from July.

Crypto Bull in 2021 (July 2021 - Early September 2021)

ETH rose from 1900 USD to 3900 USD, an increase of over 2 times, while during this time, the price of BTC rose from 30,000 USD to 50,000 USD, an increase of 1.6 times. The increase of BTC is lower than that of ETH, which completely aligns with the characteristics of the mid-stage of a crypto bull market.

Crypto Bull Tail of 2021 (September 2021 - November 2021)

In this stage, the crypto market has seen a large number of derivative models of DeFi, such as Gamefi and SocialFI. These are rough imitations of the DeFi model and are also a residual heat of the DeFi boom. At the same time, a new round of Meme frenzy has re-emerged, with Shib experiencing a ten-thousandfold rise in just three months from its inception at the end of August to November. Various animal Memes are flying all over, and the market has once again entered the final crazy stage.

On November 10, 2021, BTC surged to $69,000, reaching an all-time high. On the same day, ETH also reached an all-time high of $4,878. Then the market took a sharp downturn, the narratives of GameFi and SocialFi collapsed, various Memes plummeted, and the market entered a slow bear phase again.

So, what will the script of this bull market in 2025 look like? Will it be different from the previous two bull markets?

What stage is the current crypto bull market in (as of August 31, 2025)?

This bull market will indeed be different from the previous two bull markets. Because, institutions have entered the market.

The entry of institutions will inject new and different forces into the crypto market. However, the basic rules of the three phases of a bull market will not change, because human nature does not change.

Let's take a look together:

From January to May 2024, due to the approval of BTC spot, the crypto market experienced a brief institutional bull.

On January 10, 2024, the BTC spot ETF was approved, and BTC rose from $39,000 at the beginning of January to $69,000 in May, reaching the peak of the last bull market. During this period, ETH also rose, reaching a high of $4,000, but did not break the previous high. Approaching this, the market entered a three-month adjustment phase (May-August).

(Have you noticed that this round of institutional bull market is very similar to the policy-driven bull market from March 2020, which was driven by quantitative easing?)

From September 2024 to December 2024, as ETH spot trading officially began in July, more and more institutional funds entered the cryptocurrency market. Especially on November 6, the crypto-friendly Trump officially announced his candidacy for the President of the United States, further accelerating the influx of institutional power. Institutional forces began to take control of the cryptocurrency market.

From September to December, BTC rose from $53,000 all the way to $109,000, doubling in value and breaking the $100,000 barrier; ETH also broke through $4,000 from $2,100, but still has not surpassed its previous high. During this period, there was a situation that had never occurred in the previous two bull markets, where traditional altcoins remained stagnant while Meme coins were wildly fluctuating.

The core reason is that the crypto market has not seen a paradigm shift similar to the ICOs of 2017 (which essentially are token issuance via smart contracts) and the DeFi model of 2020; therefore, traditional altcoins have not taken off. However, during this period, an alternative meme paradigm has emerged, namely the pump.fun paradigm.

Therefore, from September 2024 to December 2024, there was a brief rise in BTC, with memes everywhere and a barbell-style bull market where traditional altcoins were ignored. This phase is essentially still the institutional bull market brought by ETFs.

As this bull market comes to an end, many believe this round of the bull market is over because BTC broke its previous high, and memes are everywhere, resembling the tail-end of the previous two bull markets.

As expected, starting from January 2025, with the Trump administration launching a tariff war and the Middle East war breaking out again, the market continued to fall, with BTC dropping from a high of 109,000 to 75,000 USD, a decline of up to 30%. ETH plummeted from 4,000 USD to below 1,400 USD, and the Meme market was in freefall, leaving the market in despair.

Many people are calling it, the bull market is over, it really looks like the bull market has ended.

However, starting from April 9, 2025, BTC began to rise from 75,000 USD and continued to soar. By July 14, 2025, BTC broke through 120,000 USD, reaching 123,000 USD. At this time, ETH surged from 1,400 USD to over 3,000 USD.

A new round of bull market has started again, although it is also an institution-led bull market.

(At this point, we will find that the market conditions from January to May 2024 and from September to December 2024 are indeed very similar to the policy bull driven by the quantitative easing policy in 2020, both driven by strong forces outside of cryptocurrency.)

From April 9, 2025, to July 14, it resembles the initial phase of the current crypto bull market, with BTC leading the rise and ETH following (still not breaking the previous high), while other altcoins have shown almost no movement.

If we consider the period from April 9 to July 14 as the beginning of this bull market, then from July 14 to today (August 30), we are in the middle of the bull market.

The characteristic of the market in the bull phase is that ETH leads the rise, with ETH's increase surpassing BTC, and there are even instances where ETH rises while BTC falls.

The market situation from July 14 to August 30 is indeed like this.

After ETH broke through 3000 USD on July 14, it has been on a steady rise, while BTC appears slightly weak.

On August 9th, ETH broke through 4000 USD, BTC 118,000 USD.

On August 24, ETH reached a historical high of 4956 USD, BTC 116,000 USD.

On August 31, ETH 4450 USD BTC 108500 USD

We have indeed seen that ETH has risen more than BTC, and there has been a situation where ETH rises while BTC falls. Similarly, altcoins still have not exploded. This is indeed a typical characteristic of a bull market.

Therefore, Yijian believes that we are currently in a bull market.

So, how long will this bullish market last?

In 2017, the bull market lasted for 6 months; in 2020, the policy bull market lasted for 5 months; in 2021, the bull market lasted for 3 months.

To be conservative, assuming this bull market lasts for 2-3 months, then the bull market that started in mid-July will roughly continue until mid-September to mid-October. During this period, ETH will continue to lead the rise, while BTC's increase will remain lower than that of ETH.

The bull market continues from late September to late October, and from October to December, altcoins will surge, with various Memes flying everywhere, as the bull market enters a completely crazy bull tail phase.

Of course, in this round of bull market, we may see another type of altcoin season — altcoin ETFs and altcoins driven by institutions and publicly listed companies. During this period, BTC and ETH will reach new highs again.

Finally, the market suddenly comes to a halt at the craziest moment, and then enters the next cycle.

summary

The bull market is divided into three stages: early bull, mid bull, and late bull, which are driven by the change in capital risk appetite from low to medium to high. Essentially, it is driven by human emotions of fear and greed.

• Niu Chu: BTC leads the rise, ETH slightly rises, altcoins remain unchanged.
• In the cow market: ETH leads the rise, BTC follows, and there are even cases where ETH rises while BTC falls, with altcoins making slight movements.
• Bull Market: The altcoin season erupts, memes are flying everywhere, BTC and ETH hit new highs again, and then the market crashes.

The bull markets of 2017 and 2021 basically verified these patterns, and the bull market of 2025 will also follow these patterns.

Although the entry of institutions has brought new strength to the crypto bull market, the essence of the bull-bear transition will not change, as human nature does not change.

Given the current situation, ETH is leading the rise, with ETH's increase exceeding that of BTC, and there are even instances where ETH rises while BTC falls, and the altcoin season has not yet arrived; therefore, currently, the market is in the mid-cycle of the 2025 crypto bull market, roughly lasting until the end of September or October. Then from October to December, it will enter the bull tail market, with altcoins exploding, memes flying around, and then, the market will enter the next cycle again.