Crypto Has Changed, Here’s Where To MAKE MONEY!

If crypto seems like a crazy place to be today, it used to be even crazier. Once upon a time, it was a world of nerve-wracking peer-to-peer transactions, dodgy exchanges that might lose all your money and having to go to a gas station in order to buy Litecoin.

Fast forward to today, and the space has changed almost beyond recognition. We have exchanges listed on the NASDAQ, ETFs being offered by the world’s largest asset managers and pro-crypto regulations being passed on Capitol Hill. But, while all the above have changed the industry almost beyond recognition - and mostly for the better - they’ve also changed how the game is played and won.

If you want to succeed in crypto these days, then you have to understand how the market is structured. Whether you’re a newcomer or a hardened veteran, you need to grasp the forces that drive the crypto market in its teenage years.

In today’s video, we break down what’s changed in crypto since the early days and how the game is played in 2025. We also explode a few myths about the market today and reveal the one missing factor that will someday take us to the moon and beyond.

You can watch that video here.

📈 Crypto Market Forecast 📈

It’s now been two weeks since September started, and it looks like the crypto market is on track to defy the historical trend of September being a red month. Whether this September turns out to be green or red likely depends on what happens at the Fed’s next meeting. That’s because a lot of September’s rally has been driven by expectations of rate cuts and general dovishness.

In case you missed the memo, the Fed’s next meeting will be this Wednesday, and it will technically amount to a trifecta of catalysts. First, you’ll have the Fed’s actual interest rate decision. At the same time, you’ll have the Fed’s updated forecast for inflation, the economy, and future interest rate policy. Then, Jerome Powell will do his speech about all of the above.

At the time of writing, investors are expecting a 92% chance of a 25 basis point rate cut, and an 8% chance of a 50 basis point rate cut. This means that it’s possible that a 25 basis point rate cut could be mildly bearish, as some degree of extra dovishness has been priced in, and will need to be priced out. If the Fed delivers a 50 basis point rate cut, it would likely be bullish.

Regarding the updated Summary of Economic Projections (SEP), ideally the Fed will forecast lower inflation, mildly higher unemployment, and slightly more easing. At the least, the Fed’s forecast should be more supportive of easing compared to the previous SEP. To put things into perspective, the last SEP was back in June, so there will likely be lots of changes.

As far as Jerome’s speech goes, the most important thing to pay attention to is how much weight his speech gives to inflation vs. unemployment. If the speech highlights caution over unemployment and pays less attention to inflation, this is likely to be bullish. Conversely, a continued focus on inflation would be bearish, especially if it's paired with a hawkish SEP.

With that said, it’s worth noting that major stock indices including the S&P500, NASDAQ100, and the Russell 2000 seem to be in the process of breaking out of ranges they’ve been chopping in since late July/early August. Chances are this rally will continue into the Fed meeting. The trifecta of factors noted above will determine if it accelerates or stops in its tracks.

And, because crypto continues to be highly correlated to the stock market, this means that crypto is likely to rally into the Fed meeting alongside stocks. At this point, it’s important to remember how much volatility will be caused by long liquidations and short squeezes on that day. Check the short-term charts for when last week’s CPI came out to see what that looks like.

Another indicator to watch closely this week is Bitcoin Dominance. Historically speaking, when BTC.D starts falling on longer-term timeframes like the monthly, it tends to go down only. Right now, BTC.D is just below a critical level of around 58% which, if breached, would likely mark the official start of altcoin season. And yes, the trifecta of factors above will confirm or deny this.

In sum, it’s going to be a volatile week for the crypto market, and one that will decide whether we get Rektember or Uptember. Again, this is because most of the rally in crypto over the last few weeks has been the result of rising expectations around rate cuts. If the Fed delivers anything less than what the markets are pricing in, prepare for a sizable pullback.

There’s just one last thing to note regarding rate cuts, and that’s that the Fed’s rate cutting cycle has historically corresponded to a recession. This was once a well known fact that was frequently pointed out by crypto analysts, but it seems to have been mysteriously forgotten. As such, some would argue that fewer cuts, or even no cuts, would be ideal for a long bull market.

🚀 $PUMP Revisited 🚀

After months of trading below its ICO price, the $PUMP token seems to have finally gotten the memo to live up to its ticker. Over the past couple of weeks, $PUMP has nearly doubled in price – rising from a market cap of $1.1B on September 1st to nearly $2.2B at the time of writing.

One major contributor to this revival was the team’s decision to conduct token buybacks using almost the entirety of the platform’s daily revenue. While these buybacks have been happening since early August, they’ve only recently begun impacting price. This is partly because it takes time for buybacks to have any noticeable effect on circulating supply, and sell pressure by extension. But when it does start kicking in, the effects tend to be compounding in nature – granted the project is actually decent and there’s inherent demand for the token.

As it stands now, Pump.fun seems to be averaging a daily buyback between $1.5M and $2.5M worth of $PUMP tokens. Over the past couple of months, this has resulted in a total of $87M being spent on buybacks. This has effectively removed 6.3% of the token’s circulating supply from the market. Adam Tehc’s Dune Dashboard does a great job of visually illustrating the impact of these token buybacks - the graph is a straight line from the bottom left to the top right.

That said, a good part of the current rally also comes from speculation and comparisons of Pump.fun to Hyperliquid. As X user Jermaine W points out, Pump.fun’s market cap is a mere 2x of its annualized revenue. Meanwhile, Hyperliquid’s market cap is 12 times its annualized revenue. This comparison makes $PUMP seem undervalued relative to its peers.

On that note, buybacks also scale with revenue. Pump.fun currently does less than half the revenue it used to do back in late 2024 and early 2025. If we manage to see a revival back to those levels, the effect on price could be exponential - especially since $PUMP’s circulating supply has virtually no inflation until July 2026.

That said, for this thesis to work, revenue needs to stay consistent over the long term. This is where the second contributor to the recent rally plays a huge role. You see, a larger contributor to the token’s early underperformance was the seeming lack of direction for the platform. There was too much uncertainty around token utility, buybacks and airdrops. Competitors used that confusion to dethrone Pump.fun as the leader in its field. In an effort to attract users, they offered boosted creator incentives and aggressive token buyback and burn programs for their native tokens. For a brief time, this worked, until it didn’t.

Just as quickly as it fell, Pump.fun regained its position as market leader once it provided additional clarity on its plans for the future. The most notable of which is ‘Project Ascend’ – a series of platform updates aimed at making coins more sustainable and aligned with their communities.

You see, one of the primary problems with memecoin launchpads is that memecoins are inherently attention driven. In practice, it’s easier to draw attention to a coin in the short term if it’s based on a currently viral meme or social media trend. When the virality dies, it becomes harder for the token to sustain that attention. In the absence of external incentives, it’s more profitable for the creator to just move on and launch a new coin based on the next viral trend. In effect, this makes memecoins a game of musical chairs. Understandably, this makes for a not-so-healthy ecosystem.

Well, Project Ascend hopes to change that. The first in the series of upgrades is boosted creator earnings via dynamic fees. Instead of a flat rate, fees are now linked to market cap. It follows a bell curve model – the creator’s percentage share of fees grows from 0.3% to 0.9% up to a certain market cap (~$10M) and then falls back down as the token’s market cap grows exponentially larger. Essentially, the point is to incentivize token creators to put more effort in growing the market cap of the token to a point where it becomes large enough for volume to offset perceived loss of earnings from a smaller piece of the pie. In effect, it gives new launches more capital to grow aggressively while allowing whales to trade larger projects with lower slippage and fees. According to Pump.fun, this could boost creator income by as much as 10 times. Well, data from Dune seems to confirm it. In the first week since the new fee system went live, creators claimed nearly $15.5M creator earnings on Pump.fun – well above average earnings seen before dynamic fees.

Unsurprisingly, the number of token creators and streamers on Pump.fun has also increased significantly thanks to Project Ascend. On that note, this seems to have led to the creation of a new narrative called ‘Creator Capital Markets’ (CCM). In essence, this refers to tokens/memecoins launched by streamers on Pump.fun. While it’s too soon to tell if this narrative will catch fire, it’s definitely one worth keeping an eye on. Early movers in this niche include $STREAMER and $BAGWORK. Watch this space.

🔥 Hot Deal Of The Week 🔥

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🔮 Video Pipeline 🔮

* Buy Tokenized Stocks: How they work, the pros and cons and where to buy them?
* Secret Trading Tricks: A guide to top trading strategies and indicators.
* China Summit: Analysis on the closer ties between China, Russia and India!
* Commercial Real Estate: Deep dive into the potential collapse of this $20 trillion market!

🏆 What's New at CoinBureau.com This Week? 🏆

* Is the Tangem Wallet Right for You? A Complete Review
* Crypto.com Review: Features, Security and Top Alternatives in 2025
* Is OKX Worth It? Pros, Cons, and Key Features Reviewed
* Bybit Exchange Reviewed in 2025: Features, Benefits, and More
* Trust Wallet Review: Is It Safe and Worth Using in 2025?
* Evaluating Coinbase: A Review of User Experience, Features, Pros & Cons

📖 Quote of the Week 📖

Right now the calls of “alt season” are getting louder. Last month it was “all over”. Rarely is there ever a happy medium.

"The market is a pendulum that forever swings between unsustainable optimism and unjustified pessimism" - Benjamin Graham

Team Coin Bureau

Disclosure: Authors may own cryptoassets named in this newsletter. These are unqualified opinions, and a Coin Bureau newsletter, is meant for informational purposes only. It is not meant to serve as investment advice. Please consult with your investment, tax, or legal advisor.