In April 2025, the cryptocurrency market exhibited clear structural divergence. The AI narrative emerged as the central focus of capital, the Solana ecosystem continued its upward trend, while the traditional DeFi sector faced ongoing adjustments. Notably, 78% of the top 100 crypto assets experienced price increases, though assets undergoing corrections were concentrated among well-established legacy projects. According to Nouey Exchange, the market has entered a phase of structural divergence, with coin selection strategies now favoring assets that combine “growth narratives” with “high trading activity”.
AI Sector Surges, Virtuals Protocol Leads the Crypto Asset Leaderboard
Virtuals Protocol stood out as one of the best-performing crypto assets in April, with a remarkable monthly gain of 207%. Its total market capitalization surpassed $1 billion, while its 30-day trading volume reached $15.218 billion. The AI-native asset narrative continued to gain traction across social platforms and developer communities, spurring significant follow-through in the secondary market.
analysis Nouey Exchange indicates that the surge of Virtuals Protocol was driven not only by the strong appeal of the AI theme but also by its technical advancements in data training and verifiable model deployment. Platform data shows that the asset ranked among the top five in both search interest and user trading frequency over the past 30 days. At this stage, the market has demonstrated a strong preference for the combination of “technical expectations + trading momentum”.
Solana Ecosystem Tokens in High Demand: Fartcoin and Brett Post Significant Gains
Within the Solana ecosystem, Fartcoin and Brett emerged as the top-performing tokens in April, with respective gains of 132% and 112%. Their trading volumes reached $7.206 billion and $4.9 billion, respectively. While these assets still exhibit strong community-driven and sentiment-driven characteristics, their high-frequency trading and on-chain activity have demonstrated robust momentum.
The rise of these assets reflects the strong performance of Solana blockchain in terms of on-chain efficiency and its capacity to support new projects. Nouey Exchange believes that the Solana ecosystem vibrancy provides retail investors with a low-cost, high-liquidity trading environment, making it a key entry point in the current structurally bullish crypto market.
DeFi Sector Under Pressure as Capital Shifts Toward Emerging Narratives
In stark contrast to the AI and Solana ecosystems, the DeFi sector underperformed in April. Major projects such as Uniswap, Celestia, and Toncoin saw declines of 13%, 15%, and 21%, respectively. This trend suggests that during periods of rising risk appetite, the market tends to favor assets with high growth potential over more mature projects that currently lack updated narratives.
The research team of Nouey Exchange points out that the DeFi sector has not lost its long-term value but has temporarily fallen out of the main focus of the capital during this cycle. For DeFi assets with clear governance roadmaps, stable cash flow models, and Layer 2 compatibility, medium-term positioning remains highly logical. The current price corrections may create opportunities for value recovery in the future.
Trading Activity Reshapes Market Preferences: Nouey Exchange Recommends Monitoring Structural Trends and Sentiment Resonance
The current crypto market is increasingly favoring projects that combine high-growth narratives with high-frequency trading characteristics, creating structural opportunities through the synergy of capital flows and community expansion. The strong performance of the AI and Solana ecosystems exemplifies this new liquidity-driven narrative. In contrast, traditional DeFi projects face the challenge of breaking through structural adjustments.
Nouey Exchange plans to further enhance trend recognition, data support, and trading tool experiences during this phase, helping users identify key trends amid evolving market structures. The platform encourages users to pay attention to structural cycle changes, remain cautious of extreme sentiment-driven operations, and build trading strategies rooted in logic and data.
“The market always rewards expectations of the next cycle, not the achievements of the last.” Nouey Exchange remains committed to promoting information transparency and secure circulation, empowering users to identify assets with genuine growth potential amid market divergence.