BTC returns to 94,000, but VC can't be happy.

On April 23, as Trump announced a drop in tariffs on China, this news reignited market sentiment.

Investor confidence in risk assets has rebounded rapidly, with BTC quietly rising 7%, bringing the price back to $94,000.

Everything seems to have come back again for a night.

BTC is one step closer to breaking the historic high of 100,000 USD since the beginning of the year. Twitter is filled with expectations for a new bull market, and traders in the secondary market are busy chasing gains and cutting losses, as if the market has returned to the fervent spring of 2021.

However, this return of sentiment does not belong to everyone.

It is lively for them, while the first-level investors may be silent in the face of signs of a bull return.

The cow returns dead due to locking.

The news of BTC returning to 94,000 USD has excited secondary market investors, but for primary market investors, this carnival feels like a distant dream.

Most of their tokens are in a locked state and cannot be freely traded, and the market performance over the past year has caused them significant losses.

A chart from STIX (@stix_co) reveals this harsh reality.

@stix_co is a platform focused on cryptocurrency OTC (over-the-counter) trading, providing liquidity support for locked tokens.

The above chart compares the valuation changes of multiple tokens in May 2024 and April 2025: May 2024 is the valuation of these tokens during over-the-counter trading (i.e., the price at which first-level investors can sell during the lock-up period), while April 2025 is the actual valuation of these tokens in the public market (i.e., the current market price).

The results show that, on average, the valuation of these tokens has dropped by 50% over the course of a year.

Let's take a look at a few specific examples.

The off-exchange valuation of BLAST last year was 250 million USD, and now the market valuation has dropped to only 30 million USD, a decrease of 88%; EIGEN dropped from 600 million USD to 150 million USD, a decrease of 75%; SCR fared worse, dropping from 170 million USD to 25.5 million USD, with a decline of as much as 85%.

Almost all tokens have dropped significantly, with only JTO being an exception, rising from 100 million dollars to 175 million dollars, an increase of 75%.

But this is just a special case, which cannot obscure the overall grim situation.

In simple terms, the tokens in the hands of these primary investors, if not sold through OTC trading last year, have directly dropped their average value by half, with some even remaining at only one or two percent.

To provide some background knowledge, over-the-counter trading refers to the ability of primary investors to sell tokens privately before they are unlocked, usually at a discount.

Taran mentioned in the post in the above image that last year these tokens were traded off-exchange at a price roughly around 80 to 90 percent of their valuation.

In other words, if they had sold last year, they might have only lost 10%-20%, or even not lost at all. However, some investors chose to hold for a year, waiting for the unlock, but as a result, the average value of the tokens dropped by 50%, with some even falling by 70-80%, leading to a significant shrinkage of their wealth.

You might say that their investment cost is low, and even if it has dropped so much, there is still profit to be made.

But the problem is that there is something in economics called opportunity cost. As an investor, what feels worse than earning less (or possibly even losing) is the theoretical loss of opportunity cost.

In an ideal theoretical situation, Bitcoin (BTC) has increased by 45% over the past 12 months.

If a first-level investor sold their tokens last year and exchanged them for BTC, their money might have increased to 1.45 times the original amount.

But now, their token value is only 0.5 times, and it may even have to be further discounted by 50% after being unlocked in the future in order to sell, ultimately possibly worth only 0.25 times.

In other words, compared to the increase in BTC, their actual loss reached 82.8%; even in terms of USD, they lost 75%.

It's like watching others make a lot of money while the assets in your hands keep shrinking.

"Niu Hui" may have already died from lock-up for them.

Locking for a year, losing half, the most frustrating part of this matter is:

Researching, comparing, identifying, and investing in projects, after all the effort, it is more cost-effective to just hold BTC directly.

In the classic investment book "A Random Walk Down Wall Street", there is a famous "monkey throwing darts theory".

Author Burton Malkiel suggested that if a blindfolded gorilla randomly threw darts at a stock selection, its long-term returns might not be worse than those carefully picked by professional investors.

This theory was originally used to satirize the ineffectiveness of over-analysis in the stock market, but now placed in the cryptocurrency market, it feels particularly ironic.

First-level investors spend a lot of time and effort researching white papers, analyzing project prospects, and even locking their assets for a year to seek high returns, but the result may be: it might be better to just throw a dart at Bitcoin.

BTC has risen by 45% in the past year, while their locked tokens have dropped by an average of 50%, or even more.

The valuation and investment logic of the entire altcoin market may need to be reshaped.

Spring will not come back

Will the next wave of cryptocurrency altcoin strategies still involve locking up assets like this?

VC enters at a low price, and the lock-up mechanism was originally designed to protect the project in its early stages, preventing early investors from大量 selling off and causing a price collapse. However, looking at the data from the past year, this mechanism has also imposed significant risks on primary investors.

The aforementioned chart in the original post also mentioned that over 40 billion USD worth of locked tokens will be gradually unlocked in the future, which means the market may face greater selling pressure. If new tokens continue to be locked at high valuations, investors may once again fall into the vicious cycle of "locked for a year, half the loss."

It is clear that the practice of locking funds is no longer suitable for the current market environment.

Will first-level investment in the cryptocurrency market still be hot? Can the spring of first-level investment return? Judging from the current situation, the answer may not be optimistic.

In recent years, the high valuations of altcoins have often been based on market enthusiasm and liquidity premiums. However, as the market matures, investors are beginning to place greater emphasis on the actual value and liquidity of projects.

The high risks of locked tokens deter first-tier investors, and more and more people may choose projects that are more transparent and liquid.

Some emerging trends have become apparent: for example, shorter lock-up periods, lower valuation multiples, and even directly issuing Memes to reduce the bubble in first-round investments;

Of course, it is also possible that it is still old wine in a new bottle. Beneath the fairer appearance of Meme coins, the primary logic still exists, creating a market and making it so you cannot see the existence of the primary tier.

For the entire cryptocurrency market, a more transparent mechanism has become particularly important. The lock-up mechanism also needs to find a better balance, one that can protect the project in its early stages while not exposing investors to excessive risk.

But the question arises, if the first level doesn't lose, the second level doesn't lose, and the retail investors don't lose, then who will lose?

Cryptocurrencies do not produce value, they transfer value; if someone profits, someone else must incur losses.

The spring of one wave of people will inevitably be the winter of another wave of people.