Price is Winter, Infrastructure is Summer: The Coin Market Divides Between Profit Makers and the Rest, Widening the Gap
Price is Winter, Infrastructure is Summer' The Coin Market is Divided Between Those Making Profit and Those Not, The Gap Widens Further | Seo Dong-ju, Kim Dong-hwan, Kim Jun-woo Xangle CEO [Crypto PLUS]
Speakers
Kim Jun-woo
— CEO, Xangle
Summary
Kim Jun-woo, CEO of Xangle, explains why blockchain infrastructure is thriving while many crypto token prices are falling. He argues that the market is now structurally separating projects that generate real revenue and have strong token value capture from those that do not. He names Hyperliquid and Aave as top picks with robust fee-based models, suggests watching Ethereum, Solana, and Tron as they improve their tokenomics, and advises avoiding Arbitrum, Chainlink, Morpho, and XRP due to weak value accrual.
- Blockchain adoption and infrastructure deployment are at all-time highs, but prices of many tokens are declining, creating a 'price winter, infrastructure summer' divergence.
- The crypto market is undergoing structural change where fundamentals and revenue models now matter, similar to the dot-com bust that separated survivors from failures.
- Hyperliquid is highlighted as the strongest model with ~1.2t KRW annual revenue and a near-100% fee burn mechanism that directly benefits token holders.
- Aave is praised as a quiet strong performer with over 200b KRW annual revenue and a solid price mechanism comparable to Hyperliquid.
- Ethereum, Solana, and Tron have meaningful revenue but weak token value capture, requiring monitoring for improvement before becoming fully investable.
- Arbitrum, Chainlink, Morpho, and XRP are flagged as having poor correlation between platform success and token price, making them unattractive in the current environment.
- Approximately 18t KRW exited Bitcoin ETFs and gold since April, with twice that amount flowing into AI ETFs, pressuring crypto prices.
- Investors should actively reevaluate portfolios and shift toward coins with proven revenue and value capture rather than passively holding underperformers.
Ideas
Avoid tokens with weak value capture.
Arbitrum has a huge TVL but generates only tens of millions KRW in daily revenue, and Chainlink and Morpho have good models but token price benefit remains unresolved; these tokens lack a clear value capture mechanism.
Hyperliquid has massive revenue and token burn.
Hyperliquid generates over 1.2 trillion KRW in annual revenue and captures nearly 100% of fees to burn its token, creating an exceptionally strong value accrual mechanism that drives token price higher.
Watch ETH, SOL, TRX for value capture.
Ethereum, Solana, and Tron generate significant revenue (Ethereum ~38 billion KRW/month) but their mechanisms to capture value into the native token are weak, though they are actively working on improvements; they need to prove value accrual before becoming compelling investments.
Aave has strong revenue and token mechanism.
Aave generates over 200 billion KRW in annual revenue and has a solid price mechanism that resembles Hyperliquid's model, making it a strong candidate for sustainable token value growth.
Avoid XRP due to poor token economics.
XRP (Ripple) faces the same problem: the correlation between Ripple Labs' performance and XRP token price is logically weak, making it an unattractive hold in a market that now demands token value capture.
