I've been thinking about a question lately—does fundamentals still matter in this market cycle?

I looked at the price action after the big liquidation on October 11, and picked a few representative tokens for comparison. Honestly, the results are pretty interesting.

Lista is still in its unlocking period, with no real profit-making ability on paper, and its price has already dropped below the previous wick low, continuing to trend down. GMX, on the other hand, has shown decent profits, and its price has steadily held in the middle of the wick range, grinding between $8-10, looking like it's building up for a big move.

Sky is an even more classic case—a leading decentralized stablecoin player, making money from the interest spread between stablecoin issuance and RWA business, backed by real profits, and even running buybacks. After dipping below its previous low, it quickly bounced back to the middle of the wick range, with strong support around $0.05.

Now look at sentiment-driven DOGE, which hit a new low this cycle, with the price dropping below the bottom wick. CAKE, however, has held steady, consolidating around $2.2. Its leading position as a DEX on BSC and its high correlation with Alpha means there hasn't been much of a discount for bottom buyers.

Looking at these cases together, the conclusion is pretty clear: projects with real profits and mechanisms for buybacks, dividends, or token burns for holders have shown much stronger price action than pure sentiment-driven meme coins or projects without any holder incentive mechanism.

At the end of the day, the law of value still works in the crypto market.