Sell in May and Go Away: 3 Cryptocurrencies to Unload Before Summer

The article argues for taking profits in three crypto assets that are up sharply this year: Tron (+25%), Hyperliquid (+80%), and MemeCore (+100%). It warns that the Clarity Act could pressure offshore-oriented Tron and Hyperliquid, while meme coins are losing favor in a risk-off market. Bittensor is the main constructive exception, with the author saying AI-driven demand could keep supporting the token, which is up nearly 20% השנה.

Analysis

The market is likely underestimating how quickly the Clarity Act can reprice the economics of offshore crypto rails. The real second-order effect is not just regulatory friction for TRON and Hyperliquid, but a relative advantage for U.S.-domiciled exchanges, custodians, and stablecoin intermediaries that can package compliance as a product feature rather than a cost center. If the bill advances, capital should rotate from “protocols with distribution” to “infrastructure with legal durability,” especially names that monetize volume without carrying token-specific regulatory overhang.

TRON’s risk is more structural than directional: even if USDT activity stays sticky, the valuation multiple can compress if the market starts treating offshore stablecoin plumbing as a transitional utility instead of a durable moat. That matters because network effects in stablecoins are path-dependent; once large U.S. venues offer regulated dollar substitutes, incremental liquidity may migrate faster than headline volumes imply. The time horizon here is months, not days, but the repricing can be abrupt once legislation moves from concept to markup.

Hyperliquid faces a classic incumbent-displacement problem. Its edge in perpetuals is vulnerable to a wave of lower-friction copycats from centralized venues and fintechs that already own user acquisition and fiat rails, so the risk is not lower fees alone but distribution compression. In a risk-off tape, perpetuals are also a levered beta product; if volumes soften, the market tends to punish the growth narrative long before fee income fully rolls over.

MemeCore is the cleanest expression of fading speculative appetite, but the broader signal is that crypto beta is fragmenting by narrative quality. The market is still willing to pay for AI-linked tokens with a plausible capital-allocation story, while meme exposure is increasingly a funding source rather than a destination. The contrarian risk is that policy progress can briefly reignite broad crypto risk appetite, but that should be treated as a tactical bounce, not a regime change, unless spot inflows and retail activity reaccelerate together.

Key Decisions for Investors

• Reduce or short TRON over the next 2-6 weeks into any legislative headlines; best risk/reward is a rally fade rather than a blind outright short, since stablecoin utility can delay the drawdown. Use tight risk controls above recent highs because the unwind may be slow until the bill actually advances.
• Short Hyperliquid or buy downside via puts expiring in 2-4 months; the thesis is multiple compression from first-mover erosion, not necessarily an immediate collapse in usage. Prefer the trade if volume growth starts decelerating while competitor launches are announced.
• Pair trade: long U.S.-listed crypto infrastructure / exchange proxies, short offshore token exposure, to express the policy wedge created by the Clarity Act. This is the cleaner way to isolate regulatory winners without taking broad market beta.
• Avoid adding to meme-coin-linked exposure for now; if forced, use only short-dated tactical trades with predefined exits. The expected value is poor until risk sentiment improves and speculative breadth widens.
• Take partial profits on remaining high-beta crypto winners and redeploy into AI-adjacent crypto only on pullbacks, not breakouts. The relative-strength trade is to own narratives with institutional capital inflow, not purely retail-driven momentum.