Altcoins and narratives

First posted on https://www.publish0x.com

Good morning/evening
 
If you read my post about my portfolio update, you may think it was a bit 'chaotic' well it was to some degree but let me tell you why.
the-portfolio-looks...
 
Narrative
 

 
I am learning all the time, but I try things to see if it suits me. Back in the beginning I was just Helium mining, I new nothing about cycles, narratives or trading.
 
I started off putting my profits into dodgy DeFi protocols and rug pulls......You know, the kind that make you lose sleep at night, I started reading whitepapers and audits which did not always help much. Then enough was enough and I moved on to L1s but back then I chose Cardano (the tech sounded great) XRP (I don't think it moved in all the time I had it lol) and Polkadot (it sounded like the best blockchain ever!) So I continued learning and then then I uttered the words 'All I want is Bitcoin' and suddenly all was good, I could sleep at night. It always seems like 1 Bitcoin is miles away (not there yet by the way) but all I thought was, end the day with more BTC than I started with.
 
Then all you hear about is narratives, so I set aside some seperate funds for an experiment as such, I was learning to research tokens and then I would buy some to see if my research was right, but I also tried to cover a lot of the narratives so there were gaming tokens, RWA, DePin (although I have that with Helium and WXM mining) and L1s to name a few.
 
Why were narratives such a 'thing' well there was a time when all it took was a whisper of a new narrative and your favorite low-cap gem would do a 5x overnight. 'Real yield, layer 1 wars, modular blockchains, AI coins, DeFi Summer, NFT mania, the metaverse explosion,' each one came with its own cult following and promises of life changing wealth. Narratives were everything But here we are in 2025, and I can’t help but wonder…Do altcoin narratives still matter? Or are we just clinging to them for a dose of hopium?
 
Then there was a trading fund and both my husband and me were learning about what style of trading suited us, how to read charts and which trading platforms suited us. Most of this work was during the bear market and as I then knew we had cycles I wanted to learn as much as possible, so we set aside a few months with no plans, just work and when I say we were working 10 - 12 hours a day it was constant, we both have different skill sets so would both learn about different things, mine was more reading and research, he was more numbers and trading, then we share what we have learnt.
 

pixabay.com/users/graphicmama-team
 
Now don't get me wrong, neither of us is great but we have come a long way and I don't consider myself to be such a noob but now it feels different, I do not feel the need to research countless tokens, yeh I would like the ones I have to pump, Im sure we all do, will I do the same thing next cycle? No, I will buy more BTC at what I will believe to be the bear market low, I will see if Solana is still the best L1 (IMO), there may be a 'Solana killer' and perhaps I will invest in that, but will I buy loads of ALT's to try and cover narratives and end up with way too many? No. Narratives may still move the market, but they need more than just a whitepaper. Real traction, community, and an actual use cases may matter. (Shocking, I know.) Perhaps even though we know better, some part of us wants to believe so we ape in early, hoping this is the one that goes parabolic. We tell ourselves stories about adoption curves and tech revolutions, when really… we just don’t want to miss the next pump.
 
So to conclude, I will try to pick my bags wisely, I may seem Bitcoin heavy now but that will stay the same, between 70/80%, I will continue to learn about trading and I will degen a little in a decent DeFi project but what I won't do is have 20 or 30 ALTs or micro caps that are hard to follow and manage (the time V reward ratio does not seem to work for me either). I will not try to cover all crypto narratives driving the next bull run.
 
 
Remember that my experimental portfolio is only a small percentage and yes, don't invest more than you can afford to lose, I know that sounds like rubbish because no one wants to lose money! It is about finding what suits you, some farm airdrops and do really well out of it but it seems each area needs a different skill set. Farming airdrops is not mine, and to top it off I am useless at using and getting referrals. So for me it was all about finding my niche, what I wanted to do and how I wanted to trade. This cycle was always going to be an experimental one for me, to find my path and prepare for the next cycle. My path is the Bitcoin path with a few other things thrown in to keep me active and have some fun along the way. 
 
So what are your thoughts? What would you do differently in the next cycle, if anything? Do you think narrative based investing in crypto is still important? Please feel free to comment and share your views, and as always, thank you for reading.