I'm not saying that the price will go to zero. I'm not saying that the chain will stop producing blocks, or that stablecoins will quietly disappear. What I'm saying is something very uncomfortable for someone like me, who has spent most of the past ten years 'living' in this industry.

I've staked my career, social network, and even much of my self-identity on 'crypto.' I've experienced the ICO bubble, DeFi summer, NFT frenzy, points narrative, meme coins... I've basically been through it all. In Telegram groups, CT (Crypto Twitter), at conferences, and on many founder calls, the default starting premise is almost always the same: crypto is the center of the universe, and our job is to expand this universe.

And what I now believe is almost the opposite.

'Crypto' as a self-consistent, closed little world is heading toward death.
This technology will soon dissolve into everything, and those who treat the old bubble as the endgame will be left behind.

So why do I still have a positive outlook?

Because this 'death' is the entrance to a future larger than the industry we have been defending.

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[The Bubble We Created]

In the modern history of crypto, the loudest corner has basically been built by crypto natives for crypto natives.

Not for anyone involved in any transaction. Nor for anyone wanting a better, different financial system. The target audience must be much narrower: those who already place their financial lives on the chain.

We optimize almost everything around this user:
• Assuming you are willing to transfer five or six-figure sums through a browser plugin interface.
• Educational methods are essentially equivalent to 'looking at threads more.'
• The feature set revolves around farms, points, emissions, and meta-games that only those already involved understand.

Most importantly, our GTM (Growth/Market Entry) approach is essentially effective mainly for ourselves:

1. Issue a token, pair it with a points plan.

2. Start liquidity mining.

3. Set up a referral code.

4. Create a Discord, recruit an intern to manage an account, and call it 'the community.'

This is the meta-model of crypto-for-crypto: a closed-loop incentive system targeting that small group of wallets that have long been able to mine, rotate, and crash. What many founders mean by 'customer acquisition' actually refers to 'reclaiming wallets that everyone is competing for.'

At its core, it implies an assumption that has supported many careers: as time goes on, the world will increasingly resemble us.

But it hasn't happened. The number of users is rising, but the culture remains niche and self-referential. Most activities still revolve around the same behaviors: trading on-chain assets, leveraging, chasing short-term incentives, etc.

What we have always called the 'crypto industry' looks more like a highly liquid MMO game world.

Very interesting. Honestly, also very good.
But it fundamentally has a ceiling.

——————————————

[What I mean by 'death']

So when I say 'crypto is dead,' I do not mean the chain will shut down, and everyone will go home. I do not mean tokens will disappear, nor that technology has failed.

What I mean is:

• Crypto as a self-contained industry will dissolve. The boundaries between 'crypto' and 'fintech,' 'AI infrastructure,' 'payments,' 'markets,' and 'casinos' will blur. 'Crypto startups' will no longer be a real category; they will just be startups that happen to use blockchain.

• The vast majority of applications aimed only at crypto natives will die or never grow large. If your TAM is just 'those who have been immersed in the chain all day,' then you are building in a dead end. That path will always exist, and some people can make money, but it is not the way this technology changes the world.

• This label will become a burden. Calling things 'crypto' or 'Web3' no longer adds value for users, regulators, or capital. Ordinary founders will directly integrate these 'tracks' but will not accept this set of identities.

• Crypto does not win by 'turning the whole world into crypto natives.' It wins by: no one needs to become a crypto native and can still benefit.

What I mean by 'death' is the death of crypto as a self-conscious, independent little world—the one that expects the external world to enter our universe, learn our language, and follow our rituals.

——————————————

[From 'Crypto Natives' to 'Real Natives']

The true popularization of technology is often quite boring. It first attracts eccentric individuals and true believers; if the technology is genuine, it will quietly infiltrate everything. People no longer talk about 'technology,' but about 'what can be done.'

I believe we are moving toward this stage: success is not measured by 'more crypto natives' but by 'more ordinary people.'

We have already seen some sprouts:
• Users of Polymarket are looking at election odds, even unaware that they are querying blockchain;
• Merchants in Lagos or Buenos Aires settle invoices using USDT because they can arrive in seconds;
• Savers in high-inflation countries hold USDC, not because they 'are bullish on crypto,' but because the local currency is collapsing.

These people integrate crypto into their lives without needing to know what a rollup is. Technology makes their lives cheaper, faster, and better.

But this is not just 'gamblers' vs 'ordinary people.' We have long overlooked a huge middle class: they understand technology, value privacy and control, or like direct market engagement, but have no interest in mining, points, or yield farming. They want self-custody but do not want to join the crypto native culture; they want better tracks, not a new persona.

Fairly speaking, we are now closer than ever to serving them: account opening and UX have greatly improved, mobile-first experience, social login, Apple Pay and cards, abstract wallets… Using on-chain tracks no longer requires a 'crypto master's degree.'

And because of this, the bottleneck is no longer UX but 'intention.'

Since we can now hand these things to anyone, what exactly do we choose to build? Who do we choose to serve?

Too often, the answer remains:
'We are solving problems for crypto natives.'
'We are making it easier for those already on-chain to go on-chain.'
'We are creating better casinos for a group of people who sit by the gambling table all day.'

This part will be left behind by the times.

Crypto will follow the same path as other foundational technologies: no one says 'I am an internet user,' nor does anyone boast 'I am using the cloud.' You use products; you do things.

The future of 'encrypted users' will also sound strange.

——————————————

[What is Worth Surviving]

This is not about burning down the culture. Some things in the crypto native culture should be preserved and even spread:

• Permissionless access: anyone can access and build.
• Global liquidity and 24/7 markets: markets that never close.
• Composability: open state and open API.
• User ownership (selectively): when it truly makes the product better.

There is also a type of 'good eccentric' worth keeping:
• Openly building, iterating and releasing.
• Open-source instinct.
• Daring to do financial experiments that normal boards would never approve.

At the same time, we must be honest: casinos have financed many constructions. The speculative traffic and skyrocketing fees that everyone loves to mock funded the infrastructure that ultimately supports those boring but important payment scenarios. The goal is not to eliminate casinos but not to treat casinos as the entire city.

Crypto culture has given us a real gift. The point is not to bury them but to 'smuggle' them into everything.

——————————————

[Why the Old Growth Script is Coming to an End]

If you agree with these, you must reconsider the current script.

Liquidity mining, points, airdrops, mostly just move the same funds between different UIs. The cycle is: go live, farm, keep farming, exit, and then complain 'users are too mercenary.' Day one data is explosive, but month three retention is terrible.

From an investor's perspective, you will gradually identify that familiar shape of hype: the team is very good at generating attention and incentives, but when you ask these questions, they can hardly articulate:
• Besides CT, who is this really for?
• When the rewards stop, why would anyone continue to use it?
• What does this mean for those who do not think in terms of BP and token symbols?

The problem is not that we lack the ability to reach ordinary people. The tools are finally sufficient. The problem is that we are rarely willing to create things that ordinary people would find 'meaningful.'

This mentality will also hit a wall in growth: once you try to walk out of the bubble, you will hit compliance.

KYC and regulation will not arrive in a neat top-down moment; they will be 'pulled in' from the margins—when founders realize: without compliance, there can be no growth.

• Once you touch real payment networks, KYC will emerge somewhere.
• If you want institutional counterparties, you need guardrails.
• When you touch credit, identity, real-world assets, the idea of 'everyone staying anonymous' will quickly become untenable.

Part of the on-chain economy will continue to be anonymous and unregulated—this is a feature. But it is unrealistic to naively think 'most economic activities will reside there.'

The idea that 'you will inevitably become like us' is essentially an evasion of the hard, real work: solving problems, channel distribution, business models. Nowadays, you can feel that fatigue: hype no longer equates to lasting adoption or returns. This is not just macro; it is the ceiling of building only for oneself.

——————————————

[Crypto as the Backend of the World]

If the old script is retiring, what comes next?

I think of it as three layers.

1) Infrastructure layer: quiet, boring, huge
Blockchain will become the default track in certain areas: the settlement of specific types of payments and markets; superior cross-border flow of stablecoins; shared states such as identity, collateral, ownership records, etc.
Most users will never know or care that this is 'on-chain.' They only feel: faster settlements, more reliable access, natural globalization, and programmable currency capabilities that banks have never provided.

2) Product layer: not 'crypto products,' just products.
Applications in fintech, commerce, and other fields will go on-chain when 'it is truly helpful,' hiding complexity to the extreme, and competing on dimensions where all products must compete: price, speed, experience, trust.
They will not market with 'on-chain' but will sell: cheaper, faster, more global, more composable, and sometimes fairer.

3) Speculation layer: continues to exist but is put back in context.
Casinos will not disappear. They just will no longer be the entire story. Meme coins, bizarre derivatives, and purely speculative venues will always exist. Some will be very marginal, while others will blend into mainstream trading and entertainment. But they do not need to disappear.
The key change is: it becomes a vertical field within a larger landscape rather than the foundation of the entire 'industry.'

The endgame is: crypto dissolves into the tech stack rather than standing alone.

——————————————

[Who Wins and Who Loses]

If crypto becomes 'a layer for everything,' incentives will change.

[For Builders]
• Losers: teams that build things only for CT and that small circle of on-chain addresses; founders whose core skills are in farms, points, and emission curves.
• Winners: teams that start from real user problems, treating crypto as a detail of implementation; founders willing to become 'boring' (trust, compliance, distribution) at critical points.

[For Investors]
• Losers: funds that treat 'crypto for crypto people' as the main storyline and bet on reflexivity as a business model.
• Winners: investors betting on real demand, retention, and a sustainable distribution path in a broad market (payments, credit, identity, markets, data).

[For the Existing Industry]
• Losers: those who build identity on 'I was early; the world must adapt to me'; rejecting integration and insisting that 'pure crypto is correct.'
• Winners: teams that can make tracks and products that real users like or even rely on; teams willing to integrate existing financial and consumption streams and collaborate when new demands arise. True, lasting, and large victories come from embedding in the real economy.

——————————————

[The Pain of Letting Go]

If you have been in this field for a long time, it is hard to accept.

When you have been in the bunker for years and hear 'the bunker is closing, the battlefield is moving,' it feels like a betrayal. The time, energy, and faith you invested in defending it, in that less accepted era, were genuine.

Many people's identities are built on 'I was early, I am different, I am playing a game that outsiders do not understand.' The thought that the world might adopt tools but not identities feels like a loss.

But this is the normal trajectory of successful technology.

The internet as a subculture 'died' because it became boring and ubiquitous. 'Cloud' is no longer exciting because every serious company has quietly adopted it. No one mourns these deaths. They are the price of victory.

The maturity of crypto means: the crypto we are familiar with must die. This is not failure; it is the time to pay for what we once said we wanted.

Crypto is dead. Long live crypto.

——————————————

[If We Get It Right]

We will no longer discuss 'crypto adoption' as an independent proposition.

What we will discuss is:
• Products and businesses that rely on these tracks.
• Markets that are more global, open, and programmable than old systems.
• People whose lives have changed because they have obtained tools that local banking systems will never provide.

You can stubbornly hold onto the closed, self-indulgent, intertextual industry we have built, hoping the world will eventually agree to come in. Or you can accept that this phase is coming to an end and start building for everyone, and investing for everyone.

The mission has never been to make everyone a crypto native. The mission is to use the tools we have created to make the world better—even if the world eventually forgets what they were called.

If you are a builder or investor, ask yourself a straightforward question:

Am I optimizing for crypto natives or for the world?

Your answer will determine which side of this obituary you stand on.
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