Real cryptocurrencies are long dead.

Written by: hitesh.eth & translated by: Deep Tide TechFlow

Since its inception, cryptocurrency has been based on altruism. Early adopters of any cryptocurrency-based product weren't in it for the money. In fact, they were happy to contribute resources to early crypto networks like BitTorrent, thus helping a large community.

Back in those days, when OTT (over-the-top streaming platforms) weren't widespread, watching a good, high-quality movie online was incredibly difficult—a problem almost universally. We had to wait months for television broadcasts to see movies we couldn't see in theaters every weekend.

Film culture has continued to grow and thrive; it's the only culture I believe consistently attracts more and more people. Those drawn to film culture tend to stay for a long time, and cryptocurrency has played a crucial role in this. It has brought more people globally into the world through the internet, making film culture more inclusive and diverse.

Many people shared movie files via their own computer systems, utilizing seeds and peers, while we downloaded them from their systems in a peer-to-peer (p2p) manner. It was all like magic. It was free, entirely driven by a shared love of movies.

This shared sentiment of resisting centralized systems and processes and returning power to the people was the core spirit of those who participated in early crypto products, whether intentionally or unintentionally.

Then Bitcoin emerged, becoming a watershed moment in the crypto world. In Bitcoin's early days, those who joined the network didn't care about its price.

Their focus was on building networks, educating more people, and driving early adoption. They even gave away Bitcoin for free through forums, offline meetups, events, and mailing lists. Between 2009 and 2010, tens of thousands of Bitcoins were given away for free, when Bitcoin actually had no market value. But with the emergence of exchanges, Bitcoin began to be traded and gradually acquired market value. This changed everything. The spirit of altruism began to recede, and fear and greed quietly seeped in, gradually polluting the network's consciousness. Incidents like Mt. Gox, Bitconnect, and OneCoin became typical examples, where malicious actors extracted millions of Bitcoins from ordinary people with dreams and hopes. We always think of ourselves as early players in the game. Not really, buddy. In fact, we're far too late, even later than those who were driving a taxi in a remote corner, all smiles, only to lose 10 bitcoins in the Bitconnect scam. These are the real early players. They believed in Bitcoin, but never truly understood its significance. Perhaps everything changed after money became linked to cryptocurrency. Those who decided to build the crypto market after 2012 adopted "profiting from information asymmetry" as their new agenda. They achieved tremendous success, especially in 2017 when hundreds of tokens were traded on a few exchanges, fueling the rise of ICOs (Initial Coin Offerings). In the following 12 months, over 500 tokens entered the market through ICOs. Projects raised billions of dollars through ICOs. However, most tokens never received a proper listing opportunity, and almost all ICO tokens eventually disappeared within three years.

But when these projects were hot, people felt they would change the world. People believed in these ideas without realizing the infrastructure wasn't ready at all. Some genuinely concerned individuals kept reminding others, but no one listened. All they saw were stories of others making money and sharing their success online, and that was enough to convince them that cryptocurrency would change their lives. They believed, and they lost. And the bad guys succeeded again. Some even successfully masqueraded as "good guys" and are still operating in higher positions today.

The New Face of Crypto

Crypto tokens have become limited-supply, committed strings of data, with project teams controlling their distribution.

Crypto tokens have become finitely supplied, committed strings of data, with project teams controlling their distribution.

The project team meticulously and slowly released the token supply into the market, partially distributing it to create artificial demand, and then designing incentive mechanisms to attract early participants, tying their identity and reputation to the tokens. These incentives were not merely economic, but psychological triggers designed to evoke belief, tribalism, and FOMO (fear of missing out). The real product was not the tokens, but the illusion. The narrative built around these data strings was not only false but also carefully emotionally manipulated. The target was always the "reactive mind" trapped in a survival cycle, the millions who sought meaning and craved faith. Once this mindset was touched, you didn't even need evidence, just a story, a seemingly "last chance" symbol. The human mind, conditioned by decades of scarcity, shame, or missed opportunities, clung tightly to these narratives. And the people behind these data strings knew it all too well. They weren't selling a product, but hope—hope cloaked in numbers, trends, and community jargon. They exploit information asymmetry with precision, because hope is the easiest drug to sell and the hardest to quit. What we're seeing isn't new, just faster. The concentration of wealth has always relied on this asymmetry. A few know the rules of the game, while the majority cling to dreams. But in the world of tokens, belief spreads far faster than reflection. Victims don't even have time to stop and think because the next promise has already appeared—shining, hot, full of potential, and just credible enough, like a hope for salvation. The Truth of Exploitation We've reached a point where we feel cheated but can't accept it. For newcomers to the market, hope remains; but for veterans who have weathered two or three market cycles, they can't even digest the current market structure. This is something they can't truly accept. They can't keep up with the changing narrative, can't track the rapid operation of catalysts, and can't act quickly because they're still stuck in what they once thought were simpler market concepts. But upon closer examination, the market is never truly "simple" or "complex"; it's all about scale. In the past, an "extractor" faced hundreds of thousands of users; now, an "extractor" only needs to face a hundred. The probability of you being exploited has become extremely high. Even in the world of extractors, competition exists, so they cannot focus on one thing for too long to avoid exposure. They constantly throw new narratives into the market, arousing the excitement of participants. People waver between winning and losing; some stay, some leave, but extraction never stops; instead, it continues to expand. Even if you are in the cycle of extraction, there will always be a window for you to exit with profits, depending on your self-discipline, risk management, and experience learned from the past. Some smart people profit continuously by exiting at the right time, while others become "exit liquidity." This cycle will continue indefinitely because the exploiters know they've only scratched the surface of human greed. As mainstream adoption increases, more people will be trapped. And when that happens, governments will intervene in the name of regulation to "save" us, ultimately transferring the extracted funds into their own hands through taxes. Reflection: When you realize all this and begin to think deeply, comparing it to the original altruistic intentions, you might find yourself weeping at what we've done to cryptocurrency. Once, it was something so pure, liberating, and hopeful, showing us the possibility of alternative systems. It was supposed to return power to us. Now, we seem to possess power, but it's power we've lost. We follow the ideals of altruism, yet we hand over our peace of mind and wealth to the market, while some swindler lurks in the shadows, mocking our foolishness. Dreams become illusions, illusions escalate into exploitation, and perhaps this is the true story of cryptocurrency.