Arca CIO Reveals: Why Crypto’s 2025 Rally Isn’t a True Bull Market & Which Tokens Are Crushing It

Crypto's pumping—but don't call it a bull market just yet.

Arca's chief investment officer breaks down why the current surge lacks the fundamentals of a real breakout. While Bitcoin flirts with previous highs, institutional adoption remains sluggish and regulatory uncertainty still looms large.

So why are some tokens mooning?

Select altcoins are posting triple-digit gains while blue-chips lag. The winners share common traits: real utility, aggressive tokenomics, and communities that actually use the damn things. Meanwhile, legacy coins are getting exposed as digital paperweights.

It's not a rising tide lifting all boats—it's a speculator's game where fundamentals finally matter. The market's separating the builders from the bagholders.

Remember: Wall Street still calls this 'innovation' while charging 2-and-20 for the privilege of losing your money slower than you would on your own.

'FAANG' of crypto

According to Dorman, the tokens and companies that have held up in 2025 generally fall into a few categories.

Assets connected to exchange-traded funds or digital asset trusts, such as BTC, ETH and SOL, are leading the way.

Crypto-related equities have also performed well, including Circle, Galaxy Digital, Coinbase and miners like Iris Energy and TeraWulf.

He also pointed to what he called “U.S. government coins,” namely XRP and Chainlink's LINK token.

Finally, Dormann noted that revenue-generating tokens that distribute value back to holders — among them Hyperliquid's HYPE, Pump.fun's PUMP, Maple Finance’s MPL/SKY — have stood out as relative winners.

Earlier this year, Dorman had floated the idea of a crypto equivalent to the “FAANG” stocks. He suggested an acronym called the “BACHELORS”, naming tokens such as BNB, AERO, CAKE, HYPE, ENA, LEO, OKB, RAY and SKY (MKR). In his Sept. 16 thread, he updated that list to the “BARHEAPs,” incorporating newer projects like PUMP.

For Dorman, the lesson of 2025 is that crypto’s growth story is more complicated than headline gains might suggest. He argued that calling the year a “bull market” is misleading, since at best it represents a narrow cycle led by a few majors and select revenue-focused projects.

“The reason this has been a hard bull market is because it’s barely even a good year for crypto, let alone a bull market,” he wrote.