Filip Szymkowiak looks more toward altcoins. The 28-year-old from Poznan, Poland, has backed tokens such as Sensei, a “deflationary memecoin,” and DEAI, a coin for a “decentralized artificial intelligence ecosystem,” and saw his portfolio tumble some 35% this year. Still, he said he wants to stay with smaller tokens because that’s where he sees more innovation and potential for big returns.
Szymkowiak said he aims to filter out the noise from useful information.
“There’s a lot of crap online, 99% of things you see, it’s slop,” he said. “For me, I believe that the space is maturing, and with that comes putting the hype aside and the market being driven on utility and real infrastructure.”
“Among retail investors, we’ve seen sort of this bimodal market,” said Stephen Sikes, chief operating officer of the trading platform Public. He sees an emerging spit between “blue-chip” assets like Bitcoin and smaller altcoins, describing it as a “bimodal market” among retail investors.
On the other side of the split is the longer-term approach of Jose Esteban Arrapalo, who avoids altcoins. The 36-year-old loan officer from Hollywood, Florida, missed out on the big rallies that Bitcoin posted before October, so in late November, when the token was hitting lows around $85,000, he bought $10,000 worth. At least so far, his timing worked out — that purchase was near Bitcoin’s lowest price this year.
“I believe in the asset long term,” Arrapalo said. “I do believe that within next three quarters, it will reach back to its numbers of greater than $110,000.”
