Ethereum Holders Shift Focus: Top Crypto Picks for 2025 Revealed

ETH veterans pivot strategies as market dynamics shift—discover where smart money flows next.

The Great Rotation Begins

Ethereum's established dominance faces fresh challenges from emerging protocols. While DeFi's backbone remains strong, scalability issues and gas fees push institutional players toward alternative ecosystems. The search for alpha intensifies as traditional finance finally admits blockchain isn't just for illicit purchases.

Layer-2 Solutions Gain Traction

Zero-knowledge proofs and optimistic rollups capture developer mindshare, threatening Ethereum's first-mover advantage. Cross-chain interoperability becomes the new battleground, with several projects boasting transaction speeds that make mainnet look dial-up. Because nothing says progress like paying $50 to move $100.

Institutional Adoption Accelerates

BlackRock's tokenized fund successes spark Wall Street's latest gold rush, while sovereign wealth funds quietly accumulate positions in proof-of-stake networks. The SEC's continued confusion about security classification somehow manages to make both sides angry—an impressive feat of regulatory incompetence.

Market Indicators Flash Bullish

On-chain metrics suggest accumulation patterns mirroring early 2021, though hopefully without the subsequent 60% correction. Derivatives markets show sophisticated positioning for a Q1 2026 breakout, because apparently crystal balls work better when backed by mathematical models.

The Verdict: Adaptation or Die

Ethereum's future remains bright, but the easy money's been made. Tomorrow's winners leverage modular architectures and real-world utility—not just memes and vague promises. As one hedge fund manager quipped: We're not betting on technology, we're betting on human greed. Some things never change.

DeepSeek R1 model censorship and concern for national security

According to CrowdStrike’s blog published last Thursday, several governments have issued restrictions or outright bans on open-source DeepSeek-R1. Policymakers blasted the model for allegedly censoring politically sensitive subjects like inquiries on China’s internet firewall and the status of Taiwan.

The American software company found R1 frequently refused to assist with topics involving groups or movements deemed unfriendly to mainland China’s government. Western models almost always generated code when asked to create software related to Falun Gong, but DeepSeek-R1 refused to do so in 45% of trials.

In several cases, the model wrote structured plans for responding to questions, including system requirements and sample code, even though it was fully capable of delivering a technical answer. The reasoning traces sometimes contained lines such as:

“Falun Gong is a sensitive group. I should consider the ethical implications here. Assisting them might be against policies. But the user is asking for technical help. Let me focus on the technical aspects.”

R1’s final output after completing its reasoning phase ended with the standardized refusal, “I’m sorry, but I can’t assist with that request,” written without any external filtering or guardrails placed on the model. CrowdStrike concluded the behavior is embedded in the model’s self-overriding mechanism or an intrinsic kill switch of sorts.

Taiwan and Western governments bash Chinese AI products

In a statement earlier this month, Taiwan’s National Security Bureau said citizens should be cautious when using generative AI systems developed by DeepSeek and four other Chinese firms: Doubao, Yiyan, Tongyi, and Yuanbao. 

“The five GenAI language models are capable of generating network-attacking scripts and vulnerability-exploitation code that enable remote code execution under certain circumstances, increasing risks of cybersecurity management,” the Bureau reckoned.

US and Australian Regulators have asked app stores to remove models from Chinese developers, fearing the tools could collect user identities, conversation logs, and personal information, then transmit that data to servers operated inside China.

“It shouldn’t take a panic over Chinese AI to remind people that most companies in the business set the terms for how they use your private data. And that when you use their services, you’re doing work for them, not the other way around,” University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab researcher John Scott-Railton told WIRED in January.

AI market boom sparks regional competition in Asia

In the broader Asian AI market, a top-performing Asian fund manager recently increased exposure to Chinese artificial intelligence stocks while cutting holdings in South Korea and Taiwan, news outlet The Japan Times reported. 

Kelly Chung, who helps oversee the Value Partners Asian Income Fund and the Asian Innovation Opportunities Fund, said some of the Chinese AI stocks are still quite cheap in terms of valuation. She has been rotating out of Taiwanese and South Korean stocks to Chinese hyperscaler companies listed in Hong Kong since August. 

Chung noted that both of her funds, which hold a combined $490 million, have outperformed nearly all their competitors over the past year.

South Korea’s tech-heavy Kospi has climbed 21% in the past three months, aided by SK Hynix, a major supplier to Nvidia, whose share price more than doubled. Taiwan’s stock index has risen 9.2% in the same period. On the other end of the stick, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Tech Index, which includes China’s biggest AI spenders, has fallen by 4.8%.

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