According to PANews, the current trend in the crypto industry of understanding and becoming Ponzi schemes is being challenged by a new perspective. This perspective urges the industry to focus on solving real-world problems rather than perpetuating Ponzi-like structures.
Despite the popularity of Ponzi schemes, they are fundamentally unsustainable. These schemes require continuous external input of resources to maintain their structure and function. From a physical dissipative system perspective, Ponzi schemes rely on new investors' funds as low-entropy energy, creating an ordered structure of investor hierarchy. However, as funds deplete and trust erodes, the cost of attracting new investors rises, leading to inevitable collapse due to the law of entropy.
The crypto industry's growth has been driven by early Bitcoin advocates and top venture capital firms like A16Z and Pantera, who have created new narratives and attracted investments. However, this business model may be reaching its limits, as evidenced by the over 20% penetration rate of cryptocurrencies in the US market.
The path to breaking this cycle lies in continuous innovation, efficiency improvements, and value creation. These elements can keep the system in a state of 'far from equilibrium,' potentially leading to new, sustainable structures and functions. The industry needs a breakthrough moment, similar to the impact of ChatGPT, to drive this change. Emerging sectors like PayFi, Consumer Chain, AI Agents with Crypto Wallets, and chain abstraction are examples of new solutions born from this pressure.
In evaluating these projects, it is essential to move beyond traditional technological determinism and infrastructure worship, focusing instead on product and growth.