The market is sluggish and the narrative is hopeless. Where is the spiritual support of Crypto?

Since BTC fell below $80,000 a week ago, the entire Crypto market has fallen into a slump. This slump is not only due to the market itself, but also because the entire industry seems to have fallen into an endless "void". Since the Agent and Desci were shut down at the beginning of the year, the market seems to have no new narratives, and there has been nothing exciting in almost three months - except for the "falling" cottage.

Another news was seen over the weekend. The former director of the Avalanche Foundation tweeted on the X platform that the three directors of the foundation have 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 and a Top 20, and it also looks like a "headless fly".

So, in the current market downturn, and no new narratives or tracks worth pursuing to rekindle the fire of hope, what is the spiritual pillar of the Crypto industry that has been developing for more than ten years?

Perhaps some people would 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 "indestructible cockroach spirit". The author has thought about it for a long time and will give feedback to you.

Elon Musk's way of thinking is to return to the essence of things to look at problems, that is, the first principles. We might as well learn a thing or two and 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. Later, people extracted "Block" and "Chain" from the BTC white paper, forming the "blockchain" that later became popular.

So far, people have begun to explore along the technological development of blockchain. Vitalik introduced smart contracts into the blockchain to create Ethereum, and BM brought the earliest public chain logic into the blockchain to create EOS. Later, more professionals joined this field, and we began to have NFT, DeFi, and then GameFi and DePIN, etc.

All of this seems to come from BTC, but it also stems from the development of blockchain technology itself. Blockchain has three cores 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 hope that copyright transactions are 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 excellent scientists do not want to be left out by institutions, we have DeSci; even because people are disgusted with the monopoly of VC, MEME has become popular.

These new terms that pop up every few months seem to have no logic, but in fact, behind them are the earliest characteristics of blockchain, just presented in a way, perhaps this is the origin of Crypto. After all, Satoshi Nakamoto was tired of the centralized and excessive issuance of the traditional currency system, so he had BTC, which was the earliest characteristic.

Therefore, in the face of the current sluggish market and the hopeless moment of narrative, the real spiritual pillar of Crypto should return to the blockchain technology itself, think about the significance of the birth of this technology, and what industries or fields this technology can bring changes to.

The reason why BTC is strong enough and enduring is that in terms of currency attributes, it perfectly implements the technical core of blockchain. Many projects that cannot be sustained have mostly deviated from this core and cannot find a foothold, so once the price collapses, there is no direction, and even no confidence in the community, because they don’t know why they need blockchain. After all, if we only talk about efficiency, isn’t the Internet faster?

Back to personal investment, now is the time to find 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 it is also the original intention of us old guys who have experienced ups and downs and still stick to this industry.

Finally, it may be more appropriate to summarize the whole article with a sentence recently said by 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 stands in the center of the square, neither humble nor arrogant, and stands firm.