Author: Joel John

Translation: Yangz, Techub News

Translator's Note: Against the backdrop of fluctuating Trump tariff policies and a turbulent global trade situation, the cryptocurrency market is experiencing a significant cooling down. The author of this article analyzes the structural changes in the current cryptocurrency market from 16 dimensions. In this special period influenced by both macro policies and market mechanisms, the cryptocurrency industry may undergo a profound value reconstruction—this is both a brutal reshuffling process and a necessary path for the industry to mature.

Here are some general views on the current state of the cryptocurrency market, or how I believe cryptocurrency will develop.

1. The core of cryptocurrency is the trajectory of money in its current form. The role of blockchain for currency/assets is akin to that of the internet for information, resulting in speculation remaining the primary application scenario in the industry.

Although the speed and scale of speculative activities may fluctuate, the most significant outcomes (and the largest sources of revenue) in this field will still come from speculation and the secondary application scenarios derived from it, such as lending, derivatives, and brokerage trading.

2. With Circle submitting its initial public offering (IPO) application, the stablecoin sector may be approaching its peak. In my view, interest rate cuts will become another domino affecting this field. Given the dual pressures of channel moats and regulatory challenges, the next significant opportunity for stablecoins may not be as explosive.

Especially for founders not from Silicon Valley, the real marginal opportunity lies in leveraging regional fintech applications of crypto payment rails, rather than "exporting" dollars. Of course, if you can raise over $10 million from the start and establish your headquarters in the U.S., the situation would be different.

3. The DePIN sector should theoretically be hot, but considering the scale required for service level agreements (SLA) and large AI projects, real investment opportunities will concentrate on networks that can generate around $100 million or more in demand-side revenue. Such networks almost (always) collaborate with private equity funds or hedge funds to meet short-term capital liquidity needs. So far, I have not seen any token-based network that can scale to this extent (and maintain reliable operations).

The good news is that networks capable of scaling to such levels do exist. The bad news is that most of the revenue generated by these networks will not touch the token system.

4. Our focus on the relationship between tokens and revenue stems from two fundamental shifts. First, in the "post pump.fun" world, the valuation premium enjoyed by tokens has vanished. When asset ownership is established, maintaining a fully diluted valuation (FDV) of over $100 million becomes exceptionally difficult; second, the volatility of today's stock and forex markets is no less than that of cryptocurrencies, and the trends are clearer, leading to a complete depletion of marginal buying in the cryptocurrency market.

The fundamental reason project teams need to worry about revenue is that, for liquidity funds (the last marginal buyers), there are only about 50 tokens that can generate revenue worth allocating, and among those, fewer than 30 may have substantial growth potential.

5. Venture capital firms have a strong motivation to insist that "tokens as a business model have not died" and to promote that "Web3 is coming soon." If you choose to ignore industry trends, you can continue to play deaf for a while.

In my view, we are entering a stage where the number of founders issuing tokens will decrease, and they will hold profits in small teams. Crypto venture capital firms may struggle to adapt to this shift, as traditionally their liquidity has come from listing tokens on exchanges and retail buy orders. Some may attribute the reduction in crypto venture deployments to the macro environment, but the real reason is that the ability of portfolios to provide returns has been significantly weakened by market changes in the years following FTX.

6. In my opinion, there are no more than 10 cryptocurrency funds capable of writing checks and achieving Uber/Cisco-level accomplishments. Among them, the partners who truly understand how to achieve such accomplishments may be fewer than 30. People often believe that the lack of large consumer-grade applications in the cryptocurrency field is due to poor user experience or ineffective marketing. In my view, part of the core challenge lies in the nature of current capital being constrained by a 3-year return cycle, and an excessive obsession with the liquidity brought by token listings. This has become the "opium" of crypto venture capital. Perhaps, in this environment, there exists an opportunity to build scalable consumer applications with a longer-term vision.

7. The combination of cryptocurrency and artificial intelligence (Crypto x AI) seems popular, but it struggles to keep pace with the development of AI itself. This may be the first area to expose the "Emperor's New Clothes" phenomenon in our industry. Concepts like data provenance and distributed computing resource allocation are theoretically appealing, but their scaling potential remains to be validated. Most networks that have achieved scaling rely on distributed data centers, which still settle revenues in dollars.

AI models do not show a premium advantage simply because they "receive compensation" from data sources. The truly promising area, or one that resonates with the P2E model, is the field of crowdsourced IP addresses, which I believe is worth paying attention to.

8. There is an opportunity in the cryptocurrency field to create native digital banks for the middle to high-income group. Think about it: from payroll management + fund transfers + portfolio building (stocks/Treasury bonds) to loans, all of this is provided for native cryptocurrency users. This user group consists of those with monthly incomes ranging from $5,000 to $200,000 in the cryptocurrency field who want banks to handle all these services. Although the potential market size (TAM) for such banks is between 5,000 to 10,000 people, I believe building such a platform has unique value.

9. Farcaster may revitalize DAOs. Many DAOs have declined because it has proven that people do not want to participate in the governance of lending or derivatives platforms. If the community on Farcaster can grow to a scale of tens of thousands and coordinate resources on-chain (such as community assets), then DAOs will regain attention.

I hope this will be a way for Memecoins to return. If operated properly, such assets may be more sustainable than Dogecoin/Catcoin. The core challenge facing Farcaster is how to balance the needs of content creators with the financialization process of the platform. Without financialization, it may become just another ordinary protocol; if it can successfully achieve financialization, it will become a prototype of the next generation of the internet.

10. Current blockchain games feel lifeless, but from the perspective of return on investment, it is the segment with the highest ROI among consumer applications. Teams still working in this field need a certain "crazy trait," and those truly capable builders are likely to create a sustainable gaming market with millions of users. People often think this sector died in 2022 (after Axie), but if you account for the cooling period of one year after the frenzy and a product development cycle of over two years, 2025/2026 may very well become the breakout year for cryptocurrency games.

11. Long-tail altcoins will find it hard to make a comeback. This is different from 2018 and 2023, when there was a lack of retail buyers; now, retail investors are still active in the market, but they no longer chase the 50th homogeneous token.

In my view, this will change the investment logic in the cryptocurrency industry. The past bet was "Can this token get listed on an exchange?" whereas now it has become "Is this token important?" These are two entirely different questions, and few can find the answers.

12. The talent drain in the cryptocurrency industry will be more rapid than the depletion of liquidity. Specifically, witnessing practitioners shift to the AI sector or seek other opportunities due to stagnation in the cryptocurrency field, this impact on morale will far exceed the decline in coin prices. Unlike in 2018 and 2023, the current macro environment suggests a more prolonged pain, while the AI field continues to achieve exponential progress.

In such a market, specific companies will evolve into beacons of hope. Corporate culture will ultimately become a moat. However, very few founders can perceive this shift.

13. Research and media organizations in the cryptocurrency field are undergoing a consolidation phase. Ordinary creators have become disillusioned with this industry—because historically, the main sponsors have been L2 projects, and collaborating with them has become a torment. In the next 18 months, for creators to survive, they must achieve super financialization. In other words, they must secure sufficient profit margins to afford the luxury of spending time refining high-quality content.

Companies that can combine creation (writing/research), financialization (asset/trading structure design), and moats (distribution channels/processes) will reap substantial rewards. However, teams with this gene are extremely rare.

14. If the number of founders issuing tokens decreases while the number of founders capable of achieving millions of user growth increases, then the next capital pool to be released in the cryptocurrency field will be private equity. Although it is not yet scaled, as long as a company's annual revenue exceeds $10 million, private equity firms are likely to become dominant players within the next 18 months. The total number of companies meeting this criterion is around 50, of which perhaps 20 are privately held. Therefore, for now, this remains a small market.

15. I believe a fund of about $10 million can be established, specifically to invest in projects that combine creative content (music/art/writing) with crypto primitives and scale distribution. However, this requires partners to have aesthetic taste, understand consumer distribution, and resonate with creators. This is one of the things I find particularly interesting.

16. In shaping the world, the cryptocurrency industry has both a morally depraved side and an idealistic side. Compared to 2018, the current industry has achieved a hundredfold product-market fit (PMF), but can only capture a small portion of the former premium. In this market, understanding how to filter out the academic discourse and focus on data signals has become an art, even a survival skill. Please remember: you are both shaping the world you are in and being shaped by it. Subjective initiative itself is a moat.

免责声明：本文章仅代表作者个人观点，不代表本平台的立场和观点。本文章仅供信息分享，不构成对任何人的任何投资建议。用户与作者之间的任何争议，与本平台无关。如网页中刊载的文章或图片涉及侵权，请提供相关的权利证明和身份证明发送邮件到support@aicoin.com，本平台相关工作人员将会进行核查。