Avalanche C Chain has quietly warmed up, stable returns have become a safe haven for smart money.

In the current market environment, Avalanche's C Chain is experiencing a quiet resurgence. Despite the slow downward trend of the total value locked (TVL) in most ecosystems, and the market's focus being occupied by artificial intelligence, re-staking, and meme coins, the C Chain is rising against the trend. Recent data shows that its active addresses have increased for three consecutive weeks, the TVL of mainstream protocols has climbed back up, and even some forgotten legacy projects like BENQI are making a strong return.

At the same time, the Avalanche ecosystem continues to improve its infrastructure. Initiatives such as the launch of virtual card services and wallet functions that support gas-free transactions are continuously enhancing the user experience. These signs indicate that the market is reassessing the value of infrastructure.

In this process, some visionary investors have quietly positioned themselves. They do not follow short-term trends or are keen on storytelling, but instead focus on long-term value, always staying ahead of the crowd.

These investors are often referred to as "smart money". Their characteristics lie not in the scale of funds but in long-term stable profitability. They adhere to three core principles: staying calm and rational, not being overly greedy or easily panicked; prioritizing risk control over blindly pursuing high returns; and focusing on on-chain transparency and liquidity.

Investors of this kind often possess a dual background in financial analysis and technical skills, enabling them to conduct financial modeling and smart contract code reviews simultaneously. Their investment behavior often serves as a barometer for the ecosystem. Recently, the significant increase in BENQI liquidity is one of the choices made by these "silent Satoshis" on-chain.

In an environment of market volatility and low sentiment, these investors are beginning to turn to stable yield protocols. BENQI is a typical example: its TVL has surged to $520 million, with the liquidity-staked $sAVAX recently hitting new highs almost every day, reaching nearly 10 million AVAX.

They chose projects that do not have the potential for high multiple growth, but possess the following characteristics:

1. Stable annualized yield (currently about 5.2%)
2. Strong asset reusability (for example, sAVAX can participate in both lending and staking simultaneously)
3. Transparent mechanism, simple operation
4. The user interface is friendly and suitable for non-technical users.

On-chain data shows that certain addresses have been converting AVAX to sAVAX for several consecutive days and using it for lending cycle operations, with amounts exceeding one million dollars. This "yield-staking-compounding" strategy combination is a typical robust appreciation method for smart money.

It is worth noting that the Avalanche main chain C-Chain has not been marginalized due to the development of subnets; instead, it has become the core of infrastructure construction. Recent important updates include:

1. Launch virtual card services that support direct consumption of USDT/USDC/AVAX.
2. The wallet supports gas-free transactions, significantly lowering the barrier for new users.
3. Upgrade on-chain data services to facilitate developers and investors in querying contract and asset information.

The core purpose of these measures is to attract real users and asset inflow. For smart money, this is precisely the reason they are optimistic about Avalanche: amidst a market filled with various concepts and stories, only solid infrastructure can truly withstand the test of market cycles.

From a more macro perspective, smart money is not just investing in a specific project, but is betting on a long-term logic: stable returns can serve as a strong defense mechanism during market turmoil. Whether it's BENQI's $sAVAX, Lido's $stETH, or Frax's sfrxETH, they are all opening up new avenues for value release for non-trading assets.

This trend is reflected throughout the cryptocurrency market:

• Frax focuses on developing stable asset pools such as sDAI to enhance capital efficiency.
• Pendle's structured yield products continue to be popular, with a diverse set of APR curve combinations stimulating new arbitrage strategies.
• Maker enhances long-term stability by distributing governance pressure through the launch of SubDAO.
• EigenLayer creates a new layer of yield using the concept of "Restaking" to attract TVL back.

These seemingly conservative choices are actually laying a solid foundation for the next bull market. They emphasize refined operations, transparency, and sustainability.

For ordinary investors, if you want to follow the footsteps of smart money, you can start from the following aspects:

1. Pay attention to the project's security: Check if there are third-party audit reports and whether the contract is open source.
2. Analyze on-chain data: including TVL, active wallet count, asset structure, and other verifiable information.
3. Assessing the flexibility of assets: For example, whether one can still participate in lending or other financial activities after staking.
4. Examine the team's and community's activity level: Pay attention to the frequency of product updates and the state of community interactions.

Overall, while the market may still be waiting for the next bull market to arrive, smart investors have already begun to prepare for the future. They are not chasing short-term fads but are focusing on projects and infrastructures that have real value and sustainable development. This prudent investment strategy may be the wisest choice in the current market environment.