Arca CIO Says 2025 Crypto Rally Isn’t a True Bull Market, Highlights Select Winners

Jeff Dorman, Chief Investment Officer at digital asset manager Arca, is challenging the narrative that 2025 represents a broad-based crypto bull market, arguing that gains this year are concentrated in a handful of large-cap tokens.

In a thread on X Tuesday, Dorman noted that “more than 75% of tokens in our coverage universe are negative year-to-date, and over 50% are down 40% or more YTD.” He added that some of the few top performers are largely “nonsense coins and memecoins,” while well-known tokens like Bitcoin (BTC $115,766), Ether (ETH), Solana (SOL $237), Binance Coin (BNB $982), and XRP have risen between 20% and 40%.

Dorman compared the dynamic to traditional finance: “This is the TradFi equivalent of the DJIA and GameStop having a good year while small caps are down 40%.” He argued that this selective performance is ultimately healthy, forcing investors to focus on projects with real business models rather than relying on broad momentum. “The days of throwing darts to make a fortune are over—Alt Season isn’t a thing,” he wrote.

Who’s Leading the Pack?
Dorman highlighted several categories of relative winners in 2025:

• Large-cap tokens and ETF/trust-backed assets: BTC, ETH, SOL
• Crypto-related equities: Circle, Galaxy Digital, Coinbase, miners like Iris Energy and TeraWulf
• “U.S. government coins”: XRP and Chainlink’s LINK
• Revenue-generating tokens returning value to holders: Hyperliquid (HYPE), Pump.fun (PUMP), Maple Finance (MPL/SKY)

Earlier this year, Dorman suggested a crypto equivalent of FAANG stocks, initially dubbed the “BACHELORS” and later updated to the “BARHEAPs” to include newer projects like PUMP.

For Dorman, the takeaway from 2025 is that crypto’s growth story is narrower and more selective than headline gains suggest. Calling it a “bull market” is misleading; at best, it’s a cycle led by major tokens and a few 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 concluded.