Capital that would have stayed in crypto is rotating into AI, which may thin the competition for those who remain.
Crypto analyst and trader Flood made a candid post this week arguing that the sector has reached a level of apathy comparable to 2019 to 2022, and that smart money is rotating into AI.
His argument, however, is less a warning than a counterintuitive call to action for those willing to stay.
Years of Scams Have Taken Their Toll
The mood across crypto right now resembles those prior lows more than most people want to admit, and Flood says that is exactly the point.
“Crypto is paying a high price for years of altcoin scams and grifts,” the analyst wrote. “It can feel like a toxic industry where very little value is created.”
The observation tapped into something that has been building for a while. Many companies and investment firms have already started moving capital toward AI-related businesses and startups, and Flood is not dismissing that choice, saying that if someone feels the pull, they should go. But for those who stay, his read on the setup is blunt:
“The risk-reward will be as asymmetric as it’s been in recent history.”
With less capital watching the space than at any point he can remember, he thinks the concentration of upside will actually make large returns easier to generate, not harder, and the argument rests on a simple dynamic: thinner competition for the same opportunities.
His reference to 2019 and 2022 carries weight, considering that those were the years widely regarded as the most painful in recent memory, when casual participants left, and the remaining community shrank. They were also, by his own account, the periods that generated the bulk of his returns outside of his position in Hyperliquid.
“I almost quit crypto to go back to TradFi,” he admitted, framing the current moment as a near-identical setup.
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Flood’s longer-term view is straightforward. Bitcoin will reprice sharply this year, he believes, and when it does, the reset in attention and capital flows will be rapid.
He wasn’t specific about timing or targets but framed it as inevitable, with the current regime, in his words, being “new” and different from the prior cycle’s problem of too much capital chasing too little opportunity.
For builders, his message is almost optimistic. Companies still operating and developing during this downturn will be positioned better than those that only show up when conditions are easy.
That read aligns with what some prominent players in crypto are doing. For instance, Michael Saylor’s Strategy recently added another 3,273 BTC at the start of this year’s Bitcoin conference, bringing its total holdings to 818,344 BTC, even with the asset trading more than 30% below last year’s conference highs, a gap that critic Peter Schiff has been quick to cite as validation of his 2025 sell call.
