• Alt season maxis waited all year and many ended up -90% • Airdrop grinders farmed daily for crumbs and unfair drops • Memecoin holders waited for “their moment” and watched most go to zero • NFT holders hoped for a revival that never really came
It wasn’t just you. 2025 humbled everyone.
Yet we’re still here.
Maybe that’s the filter. If you survived 2025, you’re still in the game for 2026. $STORJ #Token2049Singapore
Born in Ukraine in 2004 Son of Kharkiv’s deputy mayor Moved to Vienna for university Lived a typical student life Known among peers to hold crypto
Timeline
Nov 25 2025 Last contact with family Communication suddenly stops Missing person report filed
Nov 25–26 Meets a university acquaintance in Vienna Location near a hotel parking area Blood later found on stairwell Security cameras record multiple individuals
Nov 26 Assault takes place Victim is tortured and coerced into revealing wallet access Crypto transfers occur during the attack He is placed in a black Mercedes with Ukrainian plates Vehicle driven to Vienna’s Donaustadt district Car later found burned
Investigation findings
Between $100k and $200k in crypto taken Authorities confirm financial motive
Suspects
Two individuals flee Austria together Cross into Ukraine early morning Nov 26
Nov 29 Both detained near Odesa Special police unit involved Cash seized Digital assets frozen
Current status
Suspects held in pretrial detention Trial pending in Ukraine Investigators state crypto theft was the sole motive
A stark reminder Personal security matters Protect your privacy and your assets at all times $BTC $BNB
Upcoming TGEs like Tria, Sentient, Brevis, and Miden are still pulling attention, so interest hasn’t vanished. As with every cycle, narratives rotate. DeFi NFTs, AI, memes most projects disappear, a few prove real value and stick around.
InfoFi is different because it runs on creators. Attention, distribution, and narrative don’t appear on their own. People create them. The promise was simple: contribute early, get rewarded later. The reality lately has been worse. Many hot projects either didn’t reward creators at all or paid out amounts that weren’t worth the time.
That’s why creators are leaving. No one wants to be farmed for engagement with no clarity on upside.
For InfoFi to survive, it needs to change: clear and transparent reward structures defined timelines honest expectations between effort and payout
What works better is real alignment: rewarding actual product usage higher rewards for holding tokens or NFTs incentives for long-term participation, not just hype cycles
InfoFi isn’t dead. But without fixing incentives, it will keep losing credibility and attention. $JUP $BNB
It looks like Lighter insiders may be influencing Polymarket odds ahead of the $LIT TGE & the on-chain behavior raises real questions.
Several large YES positions on the “Lighter airdrop before Dec 31” market were taken by newly created wallets, funded within days, each deploying six-figure size. Multiple wallets were funded from the same centralized exchange source strongly suggesting a single controller splitting exposure.
At first glance this could be written off as a whale using multiple wallets. But the pattern deepens.
One older wallet that entered the market much earlier was funded via a bridge from another wallet that also has historical links to a large depositor into Lighter itself. That depositor wallet moved significant funds into Lighter before any public announcements, before deposits were opened, and before invite-only access was known.
That timing matters
Funds were positioned before the private beta, before mainnet deposit announcements, and before the broader market had access. That narrows the possibilities to internal use, early partners, or insiders with advance knowledge.
More recently, additional fresh wallets began funding large NO positions, again shortly after receiving funds from exchanges. Since then, odds have shifted noticeably. Either these are extremely confident gamblers or they know something about delays the public doesn’t.
This highlights a structural issue with prediction markets.
You’re not betting against vibes or sentiment. You’re betting against participants who may have direct access to timelines, contracts, and internal decisions.
That asymmetry is dangerous.
Even if the outcome still favors a TGE before year-end, the presence of insider-aligned capital undermines market integrity. If this behavior becomes normalized, prediction markets risk doing long-term damage to crypto credibility far beyond what meme platforms ever did.
Bottom line: Be careful where you place capital. In markets like this, information not probability is the real edge. $ADA
• You connected a wallet once • Here’s $1,000, claim whenever • No KYC, no questions • Privacy mattered, users mattered
Airdrops in 2025:
• You didn’t post enough for 6 months → not eligible • Ran a node for a year → congrats, now buy our ICO at $1B FDV • Missed a form → permanently disqualified • No KYC → no airdrop • “Congrats, you’re eligible” → here’s $1.69, vested for 12 months
Same word. Completely different meaning. $ARB $HYPE $UNI
- Most people overtrade - Most people oversize - Most people skip risk - Most people chase narratives - Most people sell late - Most people repeat mistakes
What worked last month in crypto, probably will not work today $BTC $BNB $ASTER
I mostly agree with the take that the next few years will be harder for the average person.
AI and automation are absolutely cutting into traditional jobs and raising the bar. If software is faster, cheaper, and scalable, the question becomes obvious: why hire you instead?
That part is real.
Where I disagree is the conclusion that the door is closing.
What’s actually happening is the floor is rising, not the ceiling falling.
In crypto, DeFi, and CT, the easy phase is over. The people still winning have a clear edge: technical skill, distribution, research depth, execution, capital, or speed.
That doesn’t mean everything is saturated. It means generic effort stopped working.
There are still wide-open gaps: specialized research, infrastructure tooling, onchain data, risk management, UX, compliance, education, and real product building.
AI doesn’t remove opportunity. It removes undifferentiated work.
If you don’t have an edge today, that’s not failure. It’s feedback.
The game shifted from participation to specialization.
So the real question isn’t whether things are getting harder. They are.
The question is: what edge are you actually building for what comes next? $BTC $BNB $SOL