The market will soon enter a major cycle of 'lowering expectations':

1) Project builders lower expectations, going from raising tens of millions with valuations in the hundreds of millions to being content with a $100,000 funding round. The mindset is akin to Xiaomi's, where 'survival' becomes the priority;

2) VC investors lower expectations, as the high valuation model driven by FOMO alongside major VCs no longer works. VCs that survive will inevitably return to seeking small yet beautiful innovative technology teams or will engage in Ponzi schemes. Small investments, multiple targets, and quick exits will become mainstream. What? Gathering a group? You need to meet the threshold to do that;

3) Holders lower expectations. Previously adhering to 'technical narratives + long-termism,' they often sought to replicate past success (10-100 times). Retail investors will have to strengthen their 'trader' skills, increasing trading frequency with some basic research skills while abandoning the illusion of 100x or 1000x returns. Achieving 3-5x will become extremely challenging (excluding pure PVP lottery logic). After all, the situation for this generation of holders is harsh, and everyone has learned their lesson deeply;

4) Airdrop hunters lower expectations. When everyone focuses on the attention spotlight to farm rewards, it actually narrows the potential space for airdrop rewards. Given that the studio industrialization pipeline is already extremely mature. Therefore, quietly farming is likely to become the norm, and investing in thousands of accounts will become history, emphasizing the ability to farm without heavy investment and keeping opportunities private without sharing with others;

5) Market narratives lower expectations. In the past, the crypto market always chased the 'narrative resonance' effect—from DeFi, NFT, GameFi, to Restaking, BTCFi, chain abstraction, and AI agents. Each narrative cycle aimed to recreate the glory of the DeFi Summer, but it has been proven that the evolution of narrative expectations has weakened. The market is hard-pressed to sustain a massive bubble based on a single technical narrative. Perhaps a proliferation of micro-narratives will become the norm;

6) Chain infrastructure construction lowers expectations. Crypto has relied on continuously stacking infrastructure narratives to expand expectations, from high-performance layer 1 to rollup layer 2, as well as various differentiated technical chain architectures. It has been proven that the era where pure technology reigns supreme is over. The market will only turn to 'attention is king.' Infrastructure with only technology, lacking community stickiness and sustained capital flow, will lose its market position;

7) CEX wealth effect lowers expectations. For a long time, CEX has become the focus of public opinion and discussion due to controlling the vast majority of liquidity. The so-called 'CEX listing effect' and 'DEX PVP free market' have become two sides of the market's attention chase. However, over-reliance on CEX to generate wealth effects will inevitably weaken the listing effect. Ultimately, the wealth effect should be determined by the project's long-term build cycle and entry costs.