The bull market has paused, and here are four key points to screen potential altcoins in 2025

Written by: The DeFi Investor

Compiled by: Tim, PANews

The crypto bull market vibe is back, at least recently.

The question arises: which altcoins are performing to deliver outsized gains?

During the 2021 bull market, almost any altcoin skyrocketed. But things have changed since then.

At present, millions of new altcoins have been launched on the market, and if you want to get excess returns, you must carefully select investment targets.

In this article, I would like to share my list of crypto projects and the key points of focus for project screening.

Here we go

1. Narrative popularity and user mentality

Think about the top-performing coins over the past 12 months.

The first ones that come to mind are HYPE, VIRTUAL, and memecoins.

Do they all have strong fundamentals? Platforms like HYPE do have them, but the vast majority of the top performers on the following list certainly don't.

Source: Coingecko's Top Crypto Gainers in 2024 article

They all have one thing in common: they have a very high percentage of user minds on social media, and there is always a group of die-hard fans who work tirelessly on the X platform.

In addition to this, the success of most of the standout is associated with a strong narrative.

Virtual continues to skyrocket as the AI concept gains momentum
Meme coins rose from Q4 2024 to early Q1 2025 due to the popularity of memes on the network

My advice is to find the current trending narrative, search for it, and pick tokens that have a very active community on Twitter.

2. Growth indicators

In a bull market, market heat is (unfortunately) far more important than fundamentals, but the good news is that some projects can both capture high attention and achieve a high level of product and market match.

If a project can have both, it can be a great investment. Especially when the main indicators of the project have shown explosive growth recently.

Let me give you an example: stablecoin protocol Ethena has seen its TVL soar by 50% in the last 30 days. At the same time, there are also many users and analysts on the Twitter platform who follow and analyze the project.

The result? Ethena's token, ENA, is up 154% over the past month.

By betting on projects that are in their early stages and have growing metrics (e.g., TVL, revenue, fees) and a certain level of community popularity, you can make a lot of money.

I often use DeFiLlama to discover the fastest-growing projects.

3. Reasonable tokenomics

If you plan to buy a token and hold it for only a few days, tokenomics doesn't make much sense; But if it is a medium- and long-term investment plan, the situation is completely different.

As an example, the TIA token has plummeted by over 90% in the past 17 months due to massive sell-offs from early investors after each token unlock.

That's why it's important to figure out the tokenomics before buying a token.

A few points that I focus on when researching a token:

Token unlock table

Tokenomist can check the tokenomics and unlocking status of many popular tokens.

Generally speaking, I want the circulating supply to be at least 30% and the annual token release (i.e., inflation rate) to be no more than 20%-35%.

Also, if there is a large-scale token unlock in the near future (e.g., more than 20% of the current circulating supply), I would rather not buy the token.

Token utility

I always ask myself two questions:

Will I benefit from the success of the protocol with this token I want to buy? Why would anyone want to buy it at a higher price than me?

The dividend mechanism or token buyback plan is the best I can think of.

Admittedly, while strong token utility is a huge advantage, it is not a requirement. I've seen many tokens with little to no utility still outperform.

4. Community first

Today, a community first project is more important than ever.

More and more people are reluctant to invest in vague and uninteresting projects, preferring to support teams that care about their communities.

This is one of the reasons why I think tokens like HYPE and PENGU have performed so well lately.

Some characteristics of crypto projects that are community-first-oriented:

A massive airdrop was carried out
His team always makes promises lightly and honors them.
Team-led marketing: The team is active on X and continuously engages with the community
A significant portion of the token supply is allocated to the community.

These are some of the factors I mainly consider when choosing a token.

Another important factor that could drive the token's price rally is the imminent major catalyst that has not yet been factored into the current price.

Possible benefits include upcoming protocol upgrades, improvements to the tokenomics, or the release of new products that can significantly increase the project's revenue.

No matter how good an asset is, it is a bad investment to buy expensive.

Wait for the right opportunity to take action, and don't rush to chase FOMO.

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