When smart money no longer tells stories: where are they looking?

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0xResearcher
7 hours ago
This article is approximately 1104 words,and reading the entire article takes about 2 minutes
Smart money has already quietly boarded the train. They don’t tell stories or chase trends, but they always stay ahead of others.

You may not have noticed, but Avalanches C chain has become popular again recently.

While the TVL of most ecosystems is slowly declining and the market topics are crowded with AI, Restaking and Meme, C Chain has quietly rebounded against the trend: active addresses have increased for three consecutive weeks, the TVL of mainstream protocols has risen again, and even the forgotten old project BENQI has returned strongly.

At the same time, Avalanche launched a Visa virtual card, the Core wallet supports gas-free operations, and the on-chain infrastructure continues to upgrade - these signs all hint at one fact:

The value of infrastructure is being repriced.

Smart money has already quietly boarded the train. They don’t tell stories or chase trends, but they always walk ahead of others.

What is smart money? Its not the richest, but the longest-lived

Many people think that smart money is “whales”, but in reality, “smart” ≠ the biggest wallet, but the highest long-term winning rate.

Their three magic weapons:

  • Bet calmly, without greed or fear: Dont be aggressive in a bull market, and dont be pessimistic in a bear market. Only those who can survive three rounds of bull and bear markets can be called alive.

  • Risk control comes first, returns come second: Don’t look at how high the APY is, just care whether the protocol code has been reviewed.

  • The chain is transparent and the liquidity is controllable: we are not afraid of locked positions, but we are afraid that they are locked but not told to you; we are not afraid of falling, but we are afraid that there is no place to check the data.

These people are more like a hybrid of fund managers and hackers in Web3: they understand financial modeling and can read smart contract codes. They don’t talk much, but their actions often become the vane of the ecosystem. For example, the recent surge in BENQI’s liquidity is one of the choices made by these “quiet smart people” on the chain.

The risk-avoidance posture of smart money: Dont be crazy, just be Buddhist

In the second half of 2024, when the market was volatile and sentiment was low, smart money began to deploy stable income agreements.

For example, BENQI, an old project in the Avalanche ecosystem: TVL soared to US$520 million, of which Liquid Stakings $sAVAX reached nearly 10 million AVAX, setting new highs almost every day.

What they chose was not the coin that could increase tenfold, but:

  • APR stable: currently about 5.2%

  • Assets can be reused: sAVAX can participate in lending and staking without affecting liquidity

  • Clear mechanism and transparent operation: no fancy lock-up clauses

  • Friendly interface: even non-technical users can use it easily

You may not have seen it, but the data on the chain does not lie: there is an address that has converted AVAX into sAVAX for several consecutive days, and then used it for loan cycles, totaling over one million US dollars. This **income-collateral-compound interest** combination is a typical fear of death but not idle strategy of smart money.

Not a discarded pawn, but a trump card

Many people mistakenly believe that Avalanches promotion of Subnet multi-chain means that the main chain C-Chain will be marginalized. But the reality is that C-Chain is becoming the core of infrastructure construction.

Check out these silent moves:

  • Avalanche Visa virtual card is now online: USDT / USDC / AVAX can be used for direct spending, and even Alipay can be linked.

  • Core wallet supports gas-free operations: the threshold for new user experience is greatly reduced.

  • On-chain data service upgrade: developers and investors can query contract and asset data with one click.

The meaning behind this is that the C chain is not about showing off, but about absorbing real users and asset inflows.

For smart money, this is the core logic behind their bet on Avalanche: when everyone is telling stories, only infrastructure is the real armor that can survive the cycle. And BENQI, as part of the early infrastructure, is gradually being re-evaluated and re-priced.

When smart money no longer tells stories: where are they looking?

Stable income is not just a transitional solution to wait for the bull market

If you zoom in, you will find that smart money is not investing in a specific project, but investing in a long-term logic:

Stable returns are the moat during market panic periods.

Whether it is BENQI’s $sAVAX, Lido’s $stETH, or Frax’s sfrxETH, they are all finding new release paths for “non-trading assets”.

You’ll also find that they are continuously laying out:

  • Frax focuses on stable pools such as sDAI to improve asset utilization;

  • Pendle’s structured income products continue to be popular, and the combination of various APR curves has triggered innovation in arbitrage strategies;

  • Maker launches SubDAO to disperse governance pressure and enhance long-term stability;

  • EigenLayer uses Restaking to leverage a new revenue layer and attract TVL to reunite.

These choices may seem conservative, but they are the foundation of the next bull market - sophisticated, transparent and sustainable.

Don’t ask about the story, ask about the underlying logic

If you are still asking “Which coin can increase 10 times”, then smart money will tell you:

“What has increased 10 times is sentiment, not value.”

What they really care about is:

  • Can the risk exposure of this agreement be controlled?

  • Is the source of income real and sustainable?

  • Is on-chain liquidity real? Is the TVL data solid?

  • Is the team iterating continuously? Is the community active and providing feedback?

Only when the answers to these questions are YES will they press the familiar “Confirm” button.

The starting point of the next bull market is not a certain magical chain or a certain magical narrative, but these quiet but firm smart choices.

If you want to be smart, start with these four things

If you have read this far, congratulations, you are already smarter than 90% of the market. Here is another checklist to help you avoid pitfalls:

  • Look at audit and open source: Does the project have a third-party audit? Is the contract open source?

  • Check on-chain data: TVL, active wallets, asset structure, can they be verified on-chain?

  • Analyze asset availability: Can staking be used for lending or combination?

  • Assess team and community vitality: Are there continuous product updates and community dialogues?

The bull market is not far away, but learn to be smart first. The trend is expected, but the foundation must be stable. Dont chase the popularity, be smart.

Original article, author:0xResearcher。Reprint/Content Collaboration/For Reporting, Please Contact report@odaily.email;Illegal reprinting must be punished by law.

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