SINGAPORE, May 20, 2025 — As we move through mid-May, the cryptocurrency market is showing increasing optimism. With major cryptocurrencies maintaining a steady upward trend, investment is beginning to shift towards altcoins with strong underlying fundamentals. In this edition of HTX DeepThink, Chloe (@) from HTX Research provides her insights on the macro environment and strategic recommendations, particularly focusing on opportunities for rotation within the SUI ecosystem and the burgeoning AttentionFi sector.
Macro Outlook: Bullish Sentiment Grows Amid Gradual Short-Term Gains
This week’s U.S. economic schedule has few significant data releases. The market’s focus is mainly on how Federal Reserve officials interpret recent comments that suggest only one potential interest rate cut in 2025.
Analysis of options market data indicates a generally positive outlook: the ratio of Call to Put open interest has reached 1.55, along with higher premiums for call options. Simultaneously, short-term implied volatility (IV) has decreased to a new 18-month low of 35–40%.
In summary: the market is displaying “euphoric sentiment amid calm volatility.” Under these circumstances, Bitcoin could potentially retest new highs within the next 30–45 days, aiming for the $105K–$115K range. However, this combination of strong sentiment and low volatility often masks the accumulation of excessive leverage. An abrupt increase in IV or a significant drop below $100K could lead to a rapid deleveraging event.
Strategic Positioning: Shifting Capital into High-Quality Altcoins to Capture Momentum
From the perspective of capital allocation, moving a portion of funds into fundamentally sound and liquid altcoins could offer a chance to benefit from the potential spillover momentum from Bitcoin’s upward movement. This edition of HTX DeepThink highlights promising sectors and projects that may be of interest to investors.
SUI Ecosystem: Market Cap at All-Time High, Core Project Under Valued
The SUI chain has reached its highest-ever market capitalization, but projects within its ecosystem have not yet seen similar gains. This creates an opportunity to invest early in leading, undervalued projects within the ecosystem. HTX has listed two notable projects in the SUI ecosystem: Haedal and Bluefin.
- Haedal is the leading LST (liquid staking) protocol on SUI, holding 76% of the market share and benefiting from strong network effects.
- Bluefin, SUI’s primary perpetual DEX, currently has a market cap of only $31.6M, yet it has achieved an annualized revenue of $8.2M, resulting in a price-to-sales (P/S) ratio of just 3.8x—significantly lower than GMX (9.1x) and Drift (12.4x). The upcoming V2 upgrade will include veTokenomics and new trading incentives, which could increase both user activity and protocol revenues.
Given the growing attention on SUI’s mainnet, Haedal and Bluefin appear to have dual potential for valuation recovery and Beta-driven upside, potentially making them worthy of medium-term attention from market participants.
AttentionFi: Leveraging the User Acquisition Premium in a Bull Market
New Web3 projects are launching quickly, and the cost of acquiring users is increasing significantly. In traditional channels like Telegram, Google, or Red Note, user acquisition cost (UAC) is calculated using “traffic × conversion rate.” With CPCs at $0.5–1.0 and conversion rates around 10%, it can cost $5–10 to acquire a real, retained user.
Kaito provides a more efficient “attention engine.” Its API charges based on a combination of reputation score and meaningful engagement. As a result, project teams can acquire real users with 3–4x higher retention at just $2–3 per user—much less than traditional channels. Thanks to this model, Kaito has grown quickly, expanding from 30 to 120 integrated projects in the last three months and quadrupling API call volume.
Meanwhile, $KAITO staking has increased to 19.7M tokens, and the protocol has cumulatively bought back and burned 3.7M tokens, creating a strong imbalance between demand and supply and deflationary pressure that supports higher price ceilings.
On Base chain’s IDO platform Virtuals, users who stake ≥5,000 $KAITO can earn Virgen Points to redeem IDO allocations. Several recent IDOs have seen returns of 10–30x on the first day, creating a profitable cycle: stake → points → arbitrage.
With the recent listing of $KAITO on HTX, its liquidity is increasing—and in a bull market where competition for user attention is intensifying, Kaito’s combination of low-cost, high-precision targeting and deflationary tokenomics makes it a promising asset to watch.
*The above content is not an investment advice and does not constitute any offer or solicitation to offer or recommendation of any investment product.
About HTX DeepThink:
HTX DeepThink is a key market analysis series created by HTX, designed to explore global macro trends, significant economic indicators, and major developments in the crypto industry. In an environment of high volatility, HTX DeepThink aims to help readers “Find Order in Chaos.”
About HTX Research
HTX Research is the dedicated research division of HTX Group, responsible for conducting detailed analyses, producing comprehensive reports, and providing expert evaluations on a wide range of subjects, including cryptocurrency, blockchain technology, and emerging market trends.
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