Since BTC fell below $80,000 a week ago, the entire Crypto market has fallen into a downturn. This downturn is not only due to the decline of the market itself, but also because the entire industry seems to have fallen into an endless "void". Since the closure of Agent and Desci at the beginning of the year, the market seems to have no new narrative. In fact, there has been nothing hot that can excite people in the past three months - except for the "continuous decline" of the copycat.
I also saw another piece of news over the weekend. The former director of the Avalanche Foundation tweeted on the X platform, confirming that the three directors of the foundation had collectively resigned. Since then, the board of directors has been on the sidelines, trying to find a way forward. It is hard to imagine that this is still a project with a market value of over 8 billion US dollars and a Top 20 project, and it seems to be a "headless fly".
So, with the current market situation so sluggish and no new narratives emerging or tracks worth pursuing to rekindle hope, what is the spiritual pillar of the Crypto industry that has been developing for more than ten years?
Some people may say it is the belief in BTC, or the money-making effect of a four-year cycle (although it has become somewhat ineffective at present), or the "invincible cockroach spirit". The author has thought about it for a long time and will share the results with you.
Elon Musk’s way of thinking is to return to the essence of things, that is, the first principles. We might as well learn a thing or two and first explore where the starting point of Crypto is?
On November 1, 2008, Satoshi Nakamoto released the BTC white paper, stating his new vision for electronic currency, and on January 3 of the following year, he mined the first block of BTC, thus opening up the grand narrative of Crypto. People then extracted "Block" and "Chain" from the BTC white paper, forming the "blockchain" that later became popular.
At this point, people began to explore along the technological development of blockchain. Vitalik introduced smart contracts into blockchain and created Ethereum. BM brought the earliest public chain logic into blockchain and created EOS. Then more professionals joined this field, and we began to have NFT, DeFi, GameFi, DePIN, and so on.
All of this seems to come from BTC, but it also stems from the development of blockchain technology itself. Blockchain has three core elements that must be learned when entering the industry: decentralization, immutability, and transparency . These three characteristics run through the development of blockchain in the next few decades.
Because we crave decentralized exchanges, we have Uniswap and more DEXs; because we want copyright transactions to be real and transparent, we have NFT; because we crave financial equality, we have DeFi; and because we are tired of giant companies monopolizing the industry, we have DePIN.
Recently, because we are afraid that AI will become the "scythe hand" of centralized institutions in the future, we have DeAI (including DeFAI/DePAI); and because outstanding scientists do not want to be neglected by institutions, we have DeSci; and even because people are tired of the monopoly of VC, MEME has become popular.
These new terms that pop up every few months seem to be illogical, but in fact, they are the earliest characteristics of blockchain, just presented in a certain way. Perhaps this is the origin of Crypto. After all, Satoshi Nakamoto was tired of the centralized and excessive issuance of traditional currency systems, so he created BTC, which is the earliest characteristic.
Therefore, in the face of the current sluggish market and hopeless narrative, the real spiritual pillar of Crypto should go back to blockchain technology itself, think about the significance of the birth of this technology, and which industries or fields this technology can bring changes to.
The reason why BTC is strong enough and enduring is that it perfectly implements the technical core of blockchain in terms of currency attributes. Many projects that cannot sustain themselves have deviated from this core and cannot find a foothold. Therefore, once the price collapses, they will lose their direction and even fail to give the community confidence, because they don’t know why blockchain is needed. After all, isn’t the Internet faster in terms of efficiency?
Back to personal investment, now is the time to look for teams that are still practicing the value brought by blockchain technology itself. Of course, don’t just look at what they say, but also look at what they do. They are the future of Crypto’s current predicament, and they are also the original intention of us old guys who have persisted in this industry after experiencing ups and downs.
Finally, it may be appropriate to summarize the whole article with a recent sentence from CZ, the old OG in the industry and the founder of Binance, "It is easy to predict the trend of Crypto in the next 10 years, but it is difficult to predict the trend tomorrow."
Similarly, it is difficult to judge the specific development narrative of Crypto in the future, but looking back at the essence and starting point of Crypto is actually very simple. After all, it is standing in the center of the square, neither humble nor arrogant, and standing firm.
