You should still believe in Crypto

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Author: BlockBeats

If you’ve been in the crypto industry for the past few years, you must have felt that growing sense of “burnout.”

Last weekend, the long article by Aevo co-founder Ken Chan undoubtedly struck a chord with many. He used an extreme headline—“I Wasted 8 Years of My Life in the Crypto Industry.”

This is not just an individual state, but a collective fatigue among industry people. Ken articulated a truth that many dare not admit: in the crypto industry, it’s really easy to lose track of time.

Nothing is without cause

You might stay up late for airdrops, monitor prices for launches, chase narratives with pump-and-dump tactics, research a new protocol all night, or participate in community governance with countless unpaid labor. From romantic liberalism, to on-chain autonomous experiments, to today’s meme, perpetual, and gambling tracks racing out of control—these all make one doubt whether we are truly participating in a technological revolution or working in an infinitely greedy casino.

Industry practitioners’ doubts are not because they lack conviction, but because of the brutal structure of the crypto industry itself: narrative life cycles shorter than product life cycles; hype greater than fundamentals; speculation speed far faster than development; hero worship coexisting with collective skepticism; many projects’ endgame is not failure but disappearance.

It must be honestly said that Ken’s feelings are experienced by many. And these doubts are not unfounded.

“The question of what we are really坚持ing”—the weight of this question may be far greater than “Will Bitcoin’s price go up?”

So when we say “We believe in crypto,” what exactly are we believing in? Are we believing in the project teams? No. Are we believing in a certain celebrity KOL? Of course not. Are we believing in a narrative? That’s even less likely.

Many people suddenly realize: what they have truly believed all along might only be one thing: that we still坚持 and believe that crypto’s significance to this world endures.

Therefore, after Ken’s article went viral, Nic Carter, co-founder of Castle Island Ventures, quickly wrote another response—“I Don’t Regret Spending Eight Years in the Crypto Industry.”

What is the significance of crypto to this world? Nic Carter offers five points: making the monetary system more sound, encoding business logic with smart contracts, making digital property real, improving capital market efficiency, and expanding global financial inclusion.

Never forget why we started

Whenever the industry falls into chaos, perhaps we can revisit the Bitcoin white paper.

The first sentence of the white paper: “A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash.”

In 2008, the financial crisis, banks collapsing, Lehman Brothers crashing. Financiers and politicians made the world pay for their risks and mistakes.

Bitcoin was not created to make wealth but to answer a question: “Can we establish a monetary system that does not rely on any centralized institution?”

This is the first time in history that humanity has had a currency that requires no trust in anyone. It is the only financial system in the world that truly does not belong to any country, company, or individual. You can criticize ETH, criticize Solana, criticize all L2s, criticize all DEXs, but few will criticize Bitcoin because its original intention has never changed.

Any Web2 company can shut down your account tomorrow; but no one can stop you from sending a Bitcoin tomorrow. There will always be people who dislike it, distrust it, or even attack it, but no one can change it.

Water does not争夺, but benefits all things.

Global inflation normalization, high sovereign debt, asset shortages after long-term decline of risk-free rates, financial oppression, lack of privacy… The existence of these issues makes the vision of crypto not outdated but more urgent. As Nic Carter said: “I have never seen a technology that can推动 the upgrade of capital market infrastructure more than crypto.”

Why this is not a failed industry

Ken says he wasted eight years. But did we really waste our youth?

In countries like Argentina, Turkey, Venezuela with hyperinflation, BTC and stablecoins have become a practical “shadow financial system”; hundreds of millions of people who cannot access banking systems have, for the first time, global digital assets; humanity has, for the first time, global assets that can be自主掌握; international payments no longer require banks; billions of people can access the same financial system for the first time; financial infrastructure begins to脱离国家边界; an asset that does not rely on violence or power begins to be globally recognized…

For a high-inflation country, a stable, non-depreciating currency is like an ark; thus, stablecoins account for 61.8% of Argentina’s crypto trading volume. For freelancers, digital nomads, and the wealthy with overseas businesses, USDT is their digital dollar.

Compared to hiding dollars under the mattress or risking black market currency exchange, clicking a mouse to convert pesos into USDT is more elegant and secure.

Whether it’s a street vendor’s cash transaction or an elite’s USDT transfer, fundamentally it’s a distrust of national credit and a protection of private property. In a country with high taxes, low welfare, and currency devaluation, every “gray transaction” is a反抗 against systemic plunder.

Over the past century, Buenos Aires’ Palacio de las Rosas has changed owners repeatedly; the peso has been devalued again and again. But ordinary people, through underground trading and gray wisdom, have managed to find a way out of the dead end.

Almost all of the top 20 global funds have established Web3 divisions; TradFi institutions continue to pour in (BlackRock, Fidelity, CME); national digital currency systems reference Bitcoin; all US digital asset ETFs are breaking new fund inflow records; in just 15 years, Bitcoin has risen to be among the top ten global financial assets…

Even with bubbles, speculation, chaos, and scams, some facts have already happened. These changes have genuinely and somewhat altered the world. And we are in an industry that will continue to reshape the global financial structure.

Have we really left nothing behind?

Many still ask: “If in 15 years, these chains are gone, projects are gone, protocols are replaced by more advanced infrastructure, aren’t we just wasting our youth now?”

Let’s look at another industry: In 2000, the internet bubble burst, NASDAQ plunged 78%; in 1995, Amazon was called a “book-selling website”; in 1998, Google was considered “less useful than Yahoo”; in 2006, social networks were seen as “rebellion among teenagers.”

The early internet was full of: thousands of startups that failed; innovations that disappeared entirely; massive investments lost; tens of thousands of people thinking they wasted their youth.

Early BBS, portals, dial-up internet, paid email—all are almost gone today; 90% of the first-generation mobile internet products did not survive. But they were not “wasted”; they laid the groundwork for the mobile era.

The infrastructure they created—browsers, TCP/IP, early servers, compilers—built the foundation for Facebook, Google, Apple, mobile internet, cloud computing, AI. The history of social networks is a cycle of continuous destruction and rebirth, just like today’s TikTok is built on countless dead social networks.

Each generation replaces the previous, but no generation is futile.

No industry has always been clean, linear, clear, correct, or with definitive answers. All foundational tech industries go through chaos, bubbles, trial and error, misunderstandings before they change the world.

The crypto industry is no different.

The technological revolution in crypto has never been completed by a single generation. Everything we do—even if in the future ETH is replaced by other chains, L2s are rewritten by new architectures, or today’s DEXs disappear—will never be wasted.

Because what we provide is the基础土壤, trial and error, parameters, social experiments, path dependence, experiences and samples absorbed by the future. Not the终局 itself.

Moreover, you are not alone in坚持.

Millions of developers, researchers, fund managers, node operators, builders, and traders around the world are still slowly pushing this era forward. We are with you.

—A message to those still on this path.