Since the second half of last year, a lot of my friends(OGs in crypto) left crypto, as they started to doubt their original belief in crypto/blockchain/Web3 like do projects really create value to the world, what’s profit market fit, only speculations like meme/perp/prediction projects survive in this cycle, do web3 projects like infra/social really have values?

Right now, it’s almost the toughest mode for startups, vcs, traders and users. Narrative play is not working, and hot topics shift every week. Organic liquidity is drained to lower and lower on cex and dex. Even without listing fees, few ppl want to buy new/old tokens. Market manipulators create pump and dump with leveraged perp to operate small cap or old coins every day.

We can always say defi or trading is the only pmf for crypto/blockchain. But OGs and builders like @VitalikButerin @pmarca always paint a bigger vision of world computer/web3 to not replace but at least build a better internet or crypto eat the world.

With llms like @OpenAI @claudeai, not just crypto but all industries are facing a 100-1000 to 1 problem: one experienced person can do 100-1000 ppl’s job with llm’s help. New tools and products are releasing too fast and will be faster for the next 1-2 years. Not just in crypto but in web2, tech and engineering start to become admin work(assigning tasks to llms to complete).

No matter for vcs and startups, keep pivoting and shipping is the only way out, until can dominate the particular sector. Staying relevant is the easy to say but hard and have to achieve to survive in this new meta.

My Ph.D. advisor always says persistence pays off. Hope we can win this uphill battle. To friends, to ogs, to builders, to dreamers, to crypto.

Based on my chats for the past few months with @VitalikButerin @tkstanczak @hosseeb @sreeramkannan @tarunchitra @ASvanevik @StaniKulechov @Lomashuk @lukejdpearson @13yearoldvc @YeruiZhang @jocyiosg @artofkot @no89thkey @xingpt @BroLeonAus