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On October 28, Strategy was downgraded to junk status by S&P, causing its stock price to drop more than 15% over three trading days, dragging down the entire DAT sector. More concerning is that the continuous decline of DAT companies' mNAV has severely weakened their financing capabilities. According to Blockworks, the buying scale of DAT companies this week was only $342 million, hitting a nearly five-month low. As the main growth engine of this bull market, if DAT companies continue to lose momentum, the market may face pressure.
Although Strategy's mNAV is as high as 1.25 and can still "top up" through ATM financing, its stock price remains weak and its financial attributes are increasingly pronounced, putting it at risk of being removed from the Nasdaq 100 component assessment in December. Over the past year, thanks to global index funds tracking the Nasdaq 100, Strategy has received billions of dollars in passive fund inflows. More importantly, whether Strategy can establish a systemically important position in the U.S. stock market will directly affect the further allocation willingness of long-term institutional investors such as sovereign wealth funds and pensions. At this critical juncture, if Strategy is removed from the Nasdaq 100, its liquidity and financing capabilities will significantly decline, and the influence of the DAT camp in the U.S. stock market will plummet.
So the key question is: Will Strategy really be removed from the Nasdaq 100? From the three admission criteria of the Nasdaq 100 index, Strategy's risk structure is very clear: its market capitalization ranking (consistently in the top 100) and index weight (about 0.37%, above the 0.1% threshold) have both met the hard indicators. The only core risk currently is its increasingly obvious trend towards financialization. However, the decisive judgment still lies in the official ICB industry classification— as long as this classification does not adjust it from the "Technology" sector to the "Financial" sector, Strategy still meets the basic admission qualifications for the Nasdaq 100. Therefore, in the short to medium term, the likelihood of Strategy being kicked out of the Nasdaq 100 is low.
In the past week, although the market has not completely emerged from its slump, a key narrative shift is occurring: funds are gradually withdrawing from emotionally driven MEME coin speculation and are instead flowing into value targets with solid technical foundations and clear application prospects.
This shift is particularly prominent in the following two areas:
- AI Agent Infrastructure represented by X402
Such projects build the next-generation infrastructure supporting decentralized business automation through the deep integration of blockchain incentive models, decentralized identities, and autonomous AI agents. The fundamental breakthrough lies in systematically activating the HTTP 402 protocol, embedding payment capabilities into the internet's underlying layer, allowing machines to autonomously complete micro-payment settlements without relying on traditional accounts or human intervention. This means that the greatest role of the X402 protocol is to construct a critical foundational payment layer for the upcoming AI Agent economy, enabling AI agents to autonomously discover and pay for the required APIs, data, or computing resources, just like humans browsing the web. Currently, representative projects such as VIRTUAL and PAYAI have emerged in this track, initially outlining the protocol prototype for a machine-driven economy.
- Cryptographic technology applications represented by ZK-SNARKs
This direction encompasses two key areas: first, the ZK Rollup scaling solution represented by ZKsync is undergoing rapid iteration, with its "Atlas" upgrade pushing network throughput to new highs and achieving extremely low transaction fees, clearing performance barriers for the large-scale adoption of decentralized applications; second, privacy coins represented by Zcash continue to optimize their anonymity architecture by introducing more efficient proof systems and cross-chain privacy solutions, enhancing usability while ensuring transaction confidentiality. Meanwhile, industry leaders, including Vitalik Buterin, have recently been vocal, actively discussing new protocol architectures that can support extremely fast ZK proofs, theoretically pushing the boundaries of this technological route. These advancements collectively confirm that ZK technology has not only transitioned from theory to engineering practice but also demonstrates disruptive potential across three key dimensions: performance, cost, and privacy, further solidifying the market's consensus on its long-term value.
Starting last week, the reshuffling of Binance's gainers list is a confirmation of the market style switch: it marks a systematic retreat of emotion-driven speculative investments lacking fundamental support, while the value logic based on technological innovation and substantive applications is re-emerging as the dominant force in market funding. This shift suggests that the blockchain industry may be entering a healthier and more sustainable development phase, laying the groundwork for the next growth cycle driven by real demand.
In the current context of a persistently sluggish crypto market, an increasing number of KOLs and investment institutions are showing a highly consistent expectation that the market has entered a bear phase. Even the analysis firm Glassnode, which has consistently held a cautious stance on price predictions, has changed its position, believing that Bitcoin is likely to further decline to around $88,000 after losing the critical support level of $113,000.
However, historical experience shows that collective pessimism in the market is often a precursor to a reversal. When most investors are dominated by panic, real value opportunities are quietly emerging. For builders focused on long cycles, this is a critical moment to maintain strategic resolve and lay out core tracks.
Related: Trump defends pardoning CZ: does not know this crypto executive, but his sons "are involved"
Original article: “Buy When No One Cares!”
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