Written by: Haotian
While traveling in Lijiang and Dali, I chatted with several frontline builders, and they all mentioned a shared feeling: the current primary market for Crypto seems to be trapped in a 'dead end' of multiple crises.
1) Is the narrative completely meaningless, with gambling culture taking full control?
In fact, what is truly terrifying is not that technological narratives cannot deliver, but that everyone has directly abandoned narrative packaging and fully embraced the MEME culture of gambling.
The slow delivery of technological narratives is at least a matter of long-termism, with early-stage VC rounds covering innovation costs, as well as the process of project teams building, testing, and launching on mainnet, etc. The transparency displayed during this process can help ordinary users recognize the project's strength and form value judgments.
But what about now? Everything has turned into a game of pure community operations and behind-the-scenes financial struggles, with trading opportunities exaggerated to the point of being counted by the day or even by the minute. When the market no longer engages in long-term building around technological narratives, the risks of pure MEME trading are magnified, making this market even more perilous for the vast majority.
2) Are developers accelerating their departure, leading to a stagnation in technological innovation?
Data does not lie. According to relevant data, the number of active Crypto developers on GitHub has dropped nearly 30% from last year's peak, while the hiring packages for engineers in AI and traditional tech companies have skyrocketed during the same period.
The logic is simple: When OpenAI, Google, and Meta are competing for talent in the AI arms race to build silicon-based civilization, how many developers can Crypto's narrative of 'disrupting the internet' retain?
The key is that Crypto has gone through two or three rounds of Build cycles, and now developers are caught in a phase of internal friction where innovative enthusiasm is rapidly declining, with real technological breakthroughs from 0 to 1 being scarce. Concepts like Restaking, Intent, and AI Agent have gone through rounds of hype, but what about practical applications? Where is the PMF? For some reason, everyone is reinventing the wheel but is powerless and helpless to care about how far the wheel can go.
Once caught in market noise and wasted time, most people could still hold onto a belief that things would get better eventually, but what about now? Where are the holders?
3) Is the incremental attraction from outside lacking, leading to Crypto's marginalization?
Crypto's attraction for outside capital and talent is evidently insufficient. Just look at the current situation: the real secondary altcoin season is in the U.S. AI market, the real primary innovation market is in the web2AI field, and Crypto's appeal to traditional VCs and top talent is increasingly diminishing, to the point where it might get labeled as 'speculative and opportunistic', losing its dignity.
The reason is that, apart from the 'issuing tokens' banner, Crypto has no other solid cards to play. Although ETFs have brought in institutional funds, that is more of a recognition at the financial instrument level. The inflow of Wall Street funds is merely for asset allocation, which is tenuously linked to the altcoin market.
What scenarios are irreplaceable without Crypto? In the past, Crypto's value lay in providing a relatively free experimental space for financial innovation. However, as traditional financial institutions begin to embrace this market through stablecoins, ETFs, and other means, what irreplaceable value can Crypto bring to users beyond the technical characteristic of 'decentralization'?
Note: This topic is raised for discussion only; despite the confusion, I am still willing to believe that a true way out may lie not far away. Staying optimistic is the best support; otherwise, what else can we do!
