In addition to Bitcoin and Solana meme coins, this field has not significantly introduced new participants over the years, leading to a nihilistic cloud hanging over the entire industry, especially in Ethereum and related areas.

Written by: DeFi Dave

Translated by: Block unicorn

Cryptocurrency is facing a narrative crisis. Admittedly, there have been technological advancements, with infrastructure, throughput, and scalability improving by several orders of magnitude. However, from a cultural perspective, we seem to be "stagnating," largely because we have forgotten how to tell compelling stories. In addition to Bitcoin and Solana meme coins, this field has not significantly introduced new participants over the years, leading to a nihilistic cloud hanging over the entire industry, especially in Ethereum and related areas.

So, what is the solution? Simply telling stories is not enough; merely marketing stories is absolutely insufficient. You must build myths. Myth building is not just about repeating narratives but paving the way for others to create a shared mythos.

As I write this article, I find it challenging to encapsulate all that I want to define about myth building, as it is a concept that is being interpreted anew. The definitions provided in this text are preliminary, and in future articles, I will expand, clarify, and provide more examples to support my views, while also looking forward to others sharing their thoughts and interpretations.

You Need to Build Myths, Anonymity

Myth building is the act of cultivating a vibrant narrative that observes current relevant issues, conveys universally resonant and enduring memes, and utilizes this information to form a story that people identify with and co-create.

Myth builders are those who identify emerging ideas, understand their historical context, absorb collective emotions, and weave them into a coherent and engaging narrative, inviting others to participate. They are the prophets of myth. Excellent myth builders do not forcefully dictate direction; they listen, serve as guardians of the myth, and remain responsive to the natural evolution of the myth. Myth building cannot be faked or bought; it must be authentically experienced and integrated.

Myth building begins with an idea or a set of ideas, a seed of meaning, planted by the founding myth builders in fertile cultural soil, carefully nurtured as it takes root and sprouts in the hearts of early believers. If a myth crosses a certain threshold and is strong enough, it will attract new groups of people to contribute through their own rituals, memes, snippets, and actions. Like the rings formed on a tree trunk, these contributions mark the growth of the myth through each generation's legacy, with each generation bringing new meaning and momentum.

The three levels of myth effectiveness are attention, emotion, and co-creation. The first level, attention, is when people focus a certain amount of energy on the myth but have not yet fully invested. The second level, emotion, is when people begin to feel a sense of investment in the myth and form an identity around it. The third and final level is co-creation, where people's investment in the myth is so deep that they begin to contribute in their own ways. This could be a simple inside joke or a copy-paste text, or it could be a milestone event or a new narrative that attracts new community members.

At its core, myth building is a collective narrative creation activity shaped by shared experiences. In its highest form, it transforms repetitive actions and memes into a common culture, allowing people to feel a sense of belonging and take action, creating a lineage that is passed down to future generations.

Myth Building of Bitcoin and Ethereum

We can cite countless examples to demonstrate the practical application of myth building, but to illustrate my point, I will only use Bitcoin and Ethereum. Satoshi Nakamoto himself can be seen as an "Abrahamic myth builder" for both, whose ideas are not only the foundation of Bitcoin but also of many other protocols, just as Abraham is the father of the three major world religions. Bitcoin and Ethereum have both existed for over a decade, giving us enough hindsight to understand their origins and developments.

Bitcoin

Bitcoin began with its founding myth builder Satoshi Nakamoto, who conceived it after the 2008 financial crisis. This was the first time in decades that people seriously questioned the modern political and financial world order and envisioned alternatives. In the original white paper, Bitcoin is described as a "peer-to-peer electronic cash system," rooted in the idea of sovereign currency determined by code rather than human institutions. Characteristics such as decentralization, censorship resistance, and scarcity are directly embedded in the protocol.

Bitcoin was not the first attempt at digital currency; DigiCash, Bit Gold, and Hashcash had come before. But what Satoshi did was combine the effective parts of these efforts (proof of work, digital signatures, scarcity) into a complete system while introducing new elements like the longest chain rule and halving mechanism.

Satoshi planted the seed of Bitcoin, inscribing the message in the genesis block: "The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks." From the earliest days, the community took it upon themselves to promote Bitcoin. Their contributions, such as establishing the principle of anonymity, creating the "HODL" meme, Bitcoin Pizza Day rituals, or the trauma-bonding events like "Not your keys, not your coins" stemming from the Mt. Gox incident, all became part of the myth.

Viewing Bitcoin's history through the lens of myth building could itself fill an article, but some key myth builders and the eras they defined include: Satoshi Nakamoto and the cypherpunks, who laid the founding principles; "Pirate Roberts" and the Silk Road era, which proved Bitcoin's first real-world use case; Roger Ver ("Bitcoin Jesus"), who funded the first generation of startups; and Michael Saylor and the Wall Street era, which brought Bitcoin into the institutional realm.

Ethereum

While Bitcoin pioneered the myth building of cryptocurrency, Ethereum is the fruit that has not strayed far from the mother tree. Ethereum's founding myth builder, Vitalik Buterin (referred to as "V"), came from the Bitcoin world, initially as a co-founder and writer for Bitcoin Magazine, engaging with the community, later participating in various projects, and then forging his own path.

Ethereum further expands Bitcoin's sovereign idea, making it programmable. Bitcoin is about "exit systems," while Ethereum is about "building systems from scratch." Bitcoin's scripting language is limited, optimized for scarcity; Ethereum is a general-purpose, Turing-complete virtual machine that offers infinite possibilities. This "infinite garden" mindset is the mythic foundation of Ethereum as a world computer, empowering people to build new systems, new worlds, and new paradigms. The early seeds of decentralized finance (DeFi), non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) have long been rooted in Ethereum's DNA. What it needs is generations of myth builders to nurture these foundations.

Ethereum officially launched on July 30, 2015, with its genesis block containing the same message as Bitcoin: "The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks," paying homage to its predecessor and further tightening the bloodline between the two.

What makes Ethereum's myth building unique is that it expands the myth by building upon it. One of the earliest myth builders, aside from V, is Joe Lubin, who founded ConsenSys. This startup studio incubated early tools like MetaMask, Infura, and Truffle, greatly improving the developer experience of building on Ethereum. Additionally, ConsenSys brought hundreds of Ethereum developers to Brooklyn and New York City, sowing the seeds for the city to become one of the global cryptocurrency centers. At its peak, ConsenSys had over 1,200 employees. Although the company later scaled down and its mission changed, its work laid the groundwork for the prosperity of the subsequent era of Ethereum.

The Current State of Myth Building for Bitcoin and Ethereum

The simplicity of Bitcoin allows new myth builders to create new stories. For example, Michael Saylor has taken up the torch, leading Bitcoin into the era of Wall Street. Bitcoin has now become a regulated ETF and gained recognition from traditional finance.

Ethereum is more complex, with myth building occurring in layers. This complexity is reflected in eras such as ICOs, DeFi summer, NFT craze, and DAO revival, all of which reflect what kind of world is being built on Ethereum while maintaining its original lineage.

However, in recent years, the myth of Ethereum has significantly weakened as the energy invested in it has become dispersed. Attention and mindshare have split into alternative layers of L2 and L1, which would have directly attracted users to Ethereum itself a few years ago. L2 has always been part of the roadmap and executed as planned, but in reality, they represent a break from Ethereum's previous lineage. I even believe that today's L2 is spiritually L1, but that argument will be saved for another discussion.

Marketing is Not Myth Building

Worse still, we have seen a repetitive script that prioritizes data over stories: blockchain projects raise massive funds, engage in short-term optimized marketing campaigns, launch and conduct token generation events (TGE), and then watch the ecosystem evaporate. This is unsustainable, and the more this happens, the greater the risk of self-destruction for the cryptocurrency industry. In the pursuit of data, myth building has been replaced by marketing, and compelling myths have been supplanted by cheap slogans.

What we see today is a superficial goal of attracting profit-driven participants. Metrics that once indicated progress have been gamified and become irrelevant. Users are seen as data points to be optimized rather than souls to be inspired. This is a Faustian bargain that leads us toward user attrition and disillusionment.

There is nothing inherently wrong with marketing; it is a time-tested effective practice in other industries. The problem arises when marketers enter the crypto space without any knowledge of the cultural context or foundational stories. Marketing without myth is at best hollow and at worst predatory. For cryptocurrency, especially Ethereum, to emerge from this stagnation, it needs to break free from purely marketing thinking.

Conclusion

Myth building is the spiritual infrastructure that binds the community together and maintains its connections. It gives individuals purpose and a sense of belonging. But in many areas of the industry, this has been forgotten, replaced by cold metrics that optimize short-term attention spikes without achieving long-term retention.

However, not all is lost. We can awaken from collective amnesia and begin myth building anew. There are countless examples to learn from, imitate, and adjust. We can swing the pendulum back toward meaning—but only if we stop deceiving ourselves.

I hope to see a world where thousands of myth builders weave stories together, forming a symphony of an active community that continuously creates technology and shapes culture through collaboration. We can return to a creative storytelling/myth building renaissance within reach, provided we stop setting limits in isolation and instead begin to take meaningful actions together to achieve this goal.

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