Research Viewpoint: The Bull Market Persists, and the Agent Wave Has Arrived

The past week witnessed an extreme "heart-stopping moment" in the markets: total liquidations surged to $2.5 billion on January 31st-February 1st, ranking as the 10th largest liquidation event in crypto history. BTC briefly fell below the 75K mark, touching MicroStrategy's cost basis. Despite the market being flooded with "zero-out" and "deep bear" narratives from many bloggers and KOLs, a macro and technological evolution analysis suggests this is not the end of the bull market. Instead, it is a deep structural adjustment triggered by the resonance of institutional deleveraging and macro risk-off sentiment.

First, the two central figures of this liquidation wave: one is the rumored 10.11 insider whale linked to Trump's son, who suffered a single full liquidation exceeding $700 million on Hyperliquid, with cumulative losses surpassing $128 million since operations began in October 2025. The other is Yilihua's Trend Research, which had been loudly leveraging into ETH from 2700 and has been continuously selling these past days to meet margin calls, effectively surrendering. With these two capitulating, the on-exchange leverage has been largely cleared.

Macro-Level Driving Factors

On the macro front, the partial U.S. government shutdown, Trump's negotiations with Iran, and the substantive ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine are short-term disturbances. The deeper driver is AGI (Artificial General Intelligence), which will likely pump the U.S. stock AI sector again (NVIDIA, MSFT, GOOG, etc.). The precious metals sector serves two main purposes: hedging against dollar decline and geopolitical risk. When these two risks subside (Russia-Ukraine peace, temporary dollar stabilization), gold and silver won't crash sharply but may enter a stagnant phase.

Of course, some argue that a certain major power's massive gold purchases back RMB internationalization, while silver purchases are driven by hard demand from high-tech sectors (photovoltaics, electronics, AI chips). This logic is solid, but it doesn't change the short-term consolidation pattern for precious metals. The crypto market is strongly tied to U.S. stocks. The primary narrative U.S. stocks can borrow is AI, and this time, AGI is particularly crucial. Otherwise, post Russia-Ukraine peace, significant capital might flow out of the U.S. back to Europe, which would be bearish for risk assets.

Technical Layer: The Foundational Support and Application Realization of the Agent Wave

Then, on the technical front, the most underrated event of the past few days is the official launch of ERC-8004. This is an Ethereum protocol specifically designed for "trustless AI agents," providing three core modules: on-chain identity registration, reputation scoring, and a verification registry. Combined with the x402 payment protocol promoted by Coinbase, AI Agents can finally achieve "trustless discovery, seamless payment, and autonomous collaboration."

Recently, Moltbook (an AI Agent-exclusive social network derived from OpenClaw/Clawdbot) has been trending, with millions of Agents socializing, posting, and even founding "religions" (Crustafarianism). Agent-themed memes on Base like $CLAW, $MOLT, and $CLAWNCH surged over 10x in the short term before correcting, but their trading volume and on-chain activity far exceed traditional memes.

Unlike the pump-and-dump Shitcoins on BSC, this isn't a fleeting hype wave but a signal that the era of Agent applications has truly arrived. The new market cycle will be led by "technology-driven" forces rather than "narrative-driven" ones. The Claw concept sector on Base is becoming a testing ground for Agent implementation: low fees, high throughput, and a native Agent toolchain, avoiding the hollow hype trap of Solana memes. Emotional narratives persist but are leaning towards tangible utility.

The Resonance Effect Between Traditional AI and Crypto Circles

Simultaneously, resonance is occurring between the traditional AI circle (OpenAI, Anthropic, etc.) and the crypto circle. The approach of AGI is narrowing the gap that existed over the past two years between stagnant crypto tech and the traditional tech sector. The arrival of zero technical barriers means vertically-focused, functional applications will see widespread adoption. The past phenomenon of "bad money driving out good" in crypto will change. This is because Agents react faster, spread information more widely, and execute more decisively than humans. Even in memes, humans can't outrun the quantitative charge of Agents.

The era of micro-quantitative trading has truly arrived: Agents can monitor 24/7, execute micro-transactions, perform arbitrage, and engage in social propagation. x402 and ERC-8004 are no longer just narratives; they are entering an era of explosive technological application. Projects like Virtuals Protocol and the Claw ecosystem on Base will be among the first to benefit after this downturn. The Claw concept sector belongs to an emerging track: they rise with incremental capital during market rebounds, and during market declines, they become a risk-off narrative sector. This is also why memes never die—narratives are constantly iterating.

On-Chain Drama: The Siege of the Six Major Sects

Besides the great cleansing, the juiciest drama has been the infighting among CEXs. After Cathie Wood fired shots at Binance during a Fox Business live broadcast, she directly pointed the finger at Binance as the culprit behind the 10.11 event, sparking a wave of criticism in the international community. Subsequently, OKX founder Star Xu posted a series of lengthy threads, accusing Binance of using USDe's 12% high-yield marketing and zero-risk-control margin recycling to amplify leverage, leading to a chain of liquidations "more severe than FTX." The public opinion suppressed since 10.11 erupted, followed by collective condemnation from the entire crypto space—truly a spectacle akin to the siege of the six major sects.

Consider Lei Jun's (founder of Xiaomi) early years: relying on enthusiasts, hunger marketing, and a cost-performance narrative to dominate. Once a technological iteration arrived and the traffic红利 (红利 =红利) faded, all the previously suppressed technical criticisms rebounded.

The crypto space is similar. Those deeply integrated with Agents will have a first-mover advantage when the technology narrative returns.

Final Thoughts

Regarding whether to buy the dip, my view is simple: if you didn't buy at 80k, you might regret it seeing 98k, but feel relieved seeing 75k. However, as Livermore said, to know if you win or lose, you have to place a bet first.

Spot holdings + long-term holding of technology-narrative assets is the correct strategy to weather cycles.

This Agent wave represents the most certain Alpha opportunity of the past five years.