$MINA : technical progress is real. Token economics still need proof. Mina’s investment thesis is straightforward: can useful zero-knowledge applications create lasting demand for MINA? There is progress to examine. September’s Mesa announcement confirmed the upgrade was live on mainnet. Slot time fell from 180 to 90 seconds, zkApps gained more capacity, and automated hard forks should simplify future upgrades. The Q2 ecosystem update also reported Zeko’s mainnet launch and production-ready Native Prover tooling. But shipping infrastructure is only part of the story. Block producers earn newly issued MINA and transaction fees. Delegators receive a share of rewards. Staking payouts should therefore not be confused with business profits. Mina’s 2025 economics report highlighted reliance on emissions and weak protocol-level value capture. Its inflation estimates were challenged by community members, so quoting them as today’s rate would be misleading. I could not verify a current network revenue figure or evidence that proposed economic reforms have all been implemented. At the retrieved CMC snapshot, #MINA traded near $0.081, with roughly $105M market cap and a drawdown exceeding 99% from ATH. That is a price observation, not proof of undervaluation. What matters next: • Recurring zkApp users • User fees relative to issuance • Measurable demand from ecosystem applications • Implemented tokenomics changes My view: $MINA remains a speculative bet on ZK adoption. The next milestone must be economic traction. #Mina #ZK #WhyNotResearch