Interview: Eric, Techub News
Compiled by: J1N, Techub News
The bubble in the financial market is not accidental, but the result of the convergence of technological innovation, capital drive, human greed, and regulatory lag. The development paths of the crypto, AI, and internet industries are surprisingly similar: new technologies bring imagination, capital fuels the growth, information asymmetry creates arbitrage opportunities, and regulatory lag allows the market frenzy to continue.
Technology itself is not a bubble, but the market's premature pricing of technology often creates irrational prosperity. The bubble may last for five, ten years or even longer, and geopolitics and capital games make the market even more unpredictable. But history tells us that everything will eventually return to rationality.
In such a cycle, individual clarity and choice are particularly important. "While everyone is drunk, I am sober" does not always lead to the best results, as the irrationality of the market can often persist beyond the patience of the majority. Understanding market rules and recognizing the bubble cycle are the keys to maintaining rationality and avoiding being swept away in the frenzy.
Last December, the Financial Times' Alphaville column, known for its incisive commentary, published a rather satirical "apology" article in the context of Bitcoin breaking through $100,000, for its long-standing accusations of fraud and manipulation in the DeFi market. This also piqued the author's curiosity - how do the traditional financial market and the leading financial media view DeFi? After all these years, have their impressions of DeFi changed?
Techub News: What kind of channel is the Financial Times' Alphaville? We noticed that the content is written very directly and with strong criticism. Why was this channel established? Why is the writing style so bold?
Wang Feng: This is one of FT's many columns. As I recall, the authors are not full-time FT journalists or editors. FT's columns come in two types: one written by FT's full-time employees, and the other by external professionals. Alphaville belongs to the latter, with authors usually being finance professionals who have a regular contribution relationship with FT. It is a team-operated column, not the responsibility of a single author.
The writing style of Alphaville is different from other FT columns. Other FT columns are more formal, following the format of news analysis or commentary, maintaining a certain objectivity whether in the first or third person. Alphaville is more like a blog, with extensive citations of industry analysis reports and company annual reports, and direct expression of opinions. The language style is more casual and free, approaching colloquialism, and sometimes the views expressed are direct, abrupt, and even with a certain humor or sarcasm.
When we translate such articles, we also find the style to be quite special, and sometimes we don't select their content. Nevertheless, its topics closely follow market dynamics, written by industry professionals, and can quickly provide insider analysis, so it is relatively popular among the investor community. The focus of the column is on the market and investment, with "Alpha" representing absolute return, and the column's name also shows that its core purpose is to provide guidance for investment.
Techub News: You mentioned that Alphaville's views do not represent the official stance of the Financial Times. Taking the article on Bitcoin breaking $100,000 as an example, they published a rather satirical "apology" article. Since the article was published on the FT website, does it mean it has gone through review? Or can Alphaville's content be freely published?
Wang Feng: The final decision on whether to publish an article is made by FT's editors. Although the author may not be an FT employee, there is some communication between the writer and the editor, the topic may be discussed with the editor first, or the writer may submit it directly after completion, and the editor will ultimately decide whether to publish it.
As for whether it represents FT's overall stance, this is a complex issue. In Western media, columns, commentaries, and analysis articles are generally not considered to represent the views of the entire newspaper. Newspapers, websites, blogs, and other multimedia content are intended to provide diverse information to readers, not to convey a single stance.
Only in rare cases, such as during the US presidential election, will a newspaper openly support a particular candidate. In such cases, the newspaper will speak in an official capacity. But in most cases, especially for British newspapers, the editorial team does not consider too much whether a column article represents the overall stance of the newspaper.
FT does not use a single voice to express its stance, but provides a wealth of information, commentary, analysis, and data to serve readers as a whole. In the media, the editorials (Leaders) can be considered to represent the official stance of the newspaper, and their writing is usually the responsibility of the Editorial Board, requiring approval from the Editor-in-Chief, especially on important issues, often after team discussion and review.
However, FT and many other media outlets have various columns and commentaries, which may be written by internal reporters or contributed by external parties. One cannot expect the analysis and views of every column to represent the overall stance of the media. In most cases, the media also does not want to maintain a single voice on all issues. The primary responsibility of the media is to provide objective reporting, facts, and data, and the expression of views is a secondary function.
Especially in the Western media environment, unless it comes to major political issues such as the US presidential election, where a newspaper may publicly support a particular candidate, they usually do not express a unified stance. Most of the time, it is meaningless to discuss whether an article represents the newspaper's stance, as the media's task is to provide information, not to dominate public opinion.
In addition, journalists and editors are generally not industry experts, their responsibility is to find the real insider experts and share the information with readers.
Techub News: The Alphaville article with a satirical tone at the end mentioned that their criticism not only applies to Bitcoin, but also to traditional finance. This suggests that they are not simply opposed to crypto, but hold a critical stance towards the financial industry as a whole. As a financial media, why would they take such a stance?
Wang Feng: Alphaville's style has always been like this. If they see unfair phenomena, information asymmetry, or other unjust behaviors in the market, they will criticize them directly. Whether it's DeFi or traditional finance, if they find monopolistic, non-transparent, or exploiting information asymmetry for improper gains, they will expose it.
Many senior FT journalists and editors hold a more skeptical and critical attitude towards market phenomena. After long-term observation of the traditional financial market, they believe that there are many cases of profiting through non-transparent information, which is the core profit model of the financial industry. Therefore, they remain vigilant about the chaos in the industry and tend to reveal potential unreasonable phenomena.
From the value system perspective, they will assess whether the profits of financial institutions match their input, and judge their rationality. Therefore, they have already "disliked" many things in the traditional financial industry, and in their view, DeFi has even more problems, such as lack of transparency, unfairness, and even suspected fraud. As a result, Alphaville's criticism of the DeFi market appears to be more intense.
However, readers familiar with this column can usually understand its style. They criticize any unfair market behavior, not simply targeting a specific industry or product, but hoping to improve the transparency of information in the market to a certain extent.
Techub News: From your and FT Chinese's perspective, how do you view DeFi?
Wang Feng: In recent years, we have done a lot of related content and also followed FT's English version's reporting on DeFi. FT currently has a dedicated virtual asset and DeFi channel on its website, updating multiple articles daily, mainly translated from the English version, and also having some original reports and third-party columns.
Here is the English translation of the text, with the specified terms translated as requested:The attitude of the English version of FT is: Crypto is a market that must be paid attention to, as it objectively exists and has a large amount of trading activity. As long as there is a market and investors, there is a reason to report on it. Although columns like Alphaville have deep doubts and criticisms about the opacity, information asymmetry, and even suspicions of fraud in the crypto market, as a media outlet, FT still needs to report on this market to meet the needs of readers and provide fair information.
The reporting direction of the FT Chinese website is basically consistent with the English version of FT. The Chinese-speaking circle plays an important role in the crypto and Web3 fields, and has once occupied "half the territory" of the industry, so we have more reason to follow up on related reports. In recent years, we have taken a "cautious but necessary to follow up" attitude towards this field, hoping to provide diverse perspectives, but will not express the personal views of the editors too much.
Our reporting approach is mainly objective news, rather than driven by personal opinions. For example, when interviewing industry analysts, entrepreneurs, and industry leaders, we will try to present different perspectives as much as possible, rather than guiding readers to form a particular point of view. Because this market is extremely high-risk, full of interests and temptations, we are very cautious and avoid expressing subjective views casually, so as not to be proven inaccurate or one-sided in the future.
Although most of our content is still mainly English translations, due to the highly active Web3 entrepreneurial ecosystem in the Chinese-speaking circle, we also have independent information sources, and sometimes even grasp the industry dynamics faster than the English FT. For example, our interview reports can present the crypto trends in Asian markets such as Hong Kong and Singapore, and also pay attention to emerging markets such as Southeast Asia and the Middle East.
Techub News: How do you view the current state of the crypto market?
Wang Feng: From a technical perspective, blockchain and its related technologies have great potential, especially when these technologies are combined together, they can drive new technological developments. Indeed, many professionals are doing R&D, and this part is worth paying attention to.
But on the other hand, the temptations of the market are too many, the profit-making methods are too rough and wild, even beyond the traditional financial industry. From the leaders of the free world to the bold innovators, many people can create huge wealth in an extremely short period of time. This phenomenon has led to an extremely volatile market, especially for ordinary investors, most of whom are not focused on underlying technological innovation, but rather on how to "make quick money" or "harvest the leeks".
The Trump coin incident has further strengthened the market atmosphere of "issuing coins is justified, and harvesting leeks is not guilty". His behavior has provided unprecedented endorsement for this market logic, making the market further lose its norms. As a traditional media journalist, I am vigilant about this phenomenon.
But from a news perspective, this industry has unexpected things happening every day, always full of hot spots and topics, keeping reporters "busy". For the entire industry, this situation brings both risks and means that a certain proportion of funds will be deposited into the underlying technology R&D, team building, and talent cultivation. This is a complex situation, with both advantages and disadvantages.
Techub News: How do you view Trump's issuance of a MEME coin?
Wang Feng: Trump's coin issuance is more of a challenge to the traditional political order than a shock to the order of the crypto world.
In the crypto world, similar things have long been commonplace, and many influential people will issue coins to capitalize on fan economics and market speculation to make huge profits. The crypto world is essentially a "wild world" that follows the law of the survival of the fittest, and as long as there are people willing to buy, they can legally profit. From this perspective, Trump's behavior is not out of the ordinary.
But as a former president with huge political power and a potential future leader, his coin issuance on the eve of the election is a major shock to the traditional political system. Because this involves conflicts of interest, government governance transparency, and other issues, it poses a challenge to the government management system.
In theory, if he establishes transparent and standardized standards in the token issuance process, such as providing detailed disclosure information, he may play a positive guiding role for the industry. But in reality, his coin issuance was very casual, simply announced on Twitter and social media, and a rough website was built to complete the issuance. This casualness will only strengthen the disorder of the market, rather than guide the industry towards standardization.
Techub News: Is the "national Bitcoin reserve" feasible?
Wang Feng: Trump can propose any policy, but whether other countries are willing to follow up is another matter. Bitcoin as a national reserve asset can theoretically exist in asset diversification allocation, but it is difficult to become a core reserve asset, and I think there are three reasons for this:
The market is easily manipulated: The liquidity and volatility of the Bitcoin market are far greater than traditional assets, which does not meet the stability requirements of national reserve assets.
Lack of regulation: The decentralized nature of Bitcoin makes it difficult for governments to effectively control or regulate the market.
Traditional financial system does not recognize it: Although some institutions are trying to invest in Bitcoin, as a national-level reserve, it still needs higher credit endorsement.
The United States under Trump's leadership can do any crazy thing, but if other countries want to follow up, they must carefully consider the potential risks. The choice of national reserve assets is related to financial stability, and major powers will not easily accept Bitcoin as the main reserve asset. Trump's proposal is more like an election propaganda, rather than a truly feasible policy. (Note: This interview was conducted before the Lunar New Year, when Trump had not yet signed the Bitcoin national reserve executive order.)
Techub News: As the editor-in-chief of the Chinese website of the Financial Times, how do you understand the two words "finance"? The excessive speculation in the Crypto market seems to be far from our understanding of "finance".
Wang Feng: This is a very big question, and I'm not sure where to start. In terms of the market, the essence of the market is the asymmetry of information, and the information gap has always existed, and those who grasp the first-mover advantage can always profit from it. The early stages of traditional finance have also experienced chaos, disorder, and a wild-style development, which was also full of speculation, manipulation, and the logic of survival of the fittest.
Many things have happened in the crypto market today, such as harvesting, speculative trading, and market manipulation, which are also not unfamiliar in the traditional financial industry. Fundamentally, this is all about human nature. The way the market operates has not changed in essence, it's just that the technical carrier has changed from stocks, bonds, and derivatives to cryptocurrencies and DeFi, but the core logic is still that early entrants take advantage of information asymmetry to profit.
The essence of a Ponzi scheme is the same. As long as the bubble can continue to expand, everyone can profit in the short term, and this game can continue indefinitely. The history of the financial market has repeatedly broken people's perception of the duration and scale of Ponzi schemes, and phenomena that seemed incredible in the past often reappear in new markets on a larger scale and longer cycle.
One of the basic rules of finance is that all wealth must ultimately be paid for by someone. Wherever there are profits, there are also losses. This holds true in the long run, but in the short term, especially in the stage of rapid expansion of emerging markets where regulation has not yet caught up, market frenzy and bubbles can often last much longer.
Currently, we are in an era where the speed of technological development far exceeds the pace of regulation and public awareness. The time required for market self-adjustment and correction is longer than before, so we constantly see new bubbles breaking historical records, such as the current crypto bubble and AI bubble.
The duration of bubbles is unpredictable. The Internet bubble burst in the early 2000s, but the current AI or crypto bubble may last five, ten, or even more years. In addition, geopolitical factors may also affect the persistence of the bubble, such as the Trump administration's deep integration of the US's national fortunes with the AI industry, which may further drive the expansion of the bubble.
Technology itself is not a bubble, but when factors such as capital, speculation, and human greed are forcibly superimposed on technological development, it may lead to the market maintaining irrational prosperity for a long time. In such an environment, people may even begin to doubt whether the bubble will exist forever. However, from the perspective of human history, all bubbles will eventually burst, and the market will eventually return to rationality, back to a state based on real demand and sustainable growth.
The current wealth accumulation and industrial prosperity in the market have gone beyond people's traditional understanding of market bubbles. However, this is mainly because our observation of the market time dimension is too short.
In the history of financial bubbles, some may take decades or even hundreds of years to burst and return to rationality. From this perspective, our current discussion of when the market will collapse may be premature. From the perspective of hundreds of years, the basic rules of the market will not change, but in the short term, market frenzy may still continue for many years.
Therefore, any market judgment we make today may appear too short-sighted when placed in a longer time frame. The operation of the financial market is not controlled by individual will, it follows its own development rules. The most important thing is for individuals to keep a clear head and be responsible for their own decisions.
During periods of market frenzy, the situation of "everyone is drunk, and I am sober" is very common. However, the sober ones may not necessarily get the best outcome. In the short-term market, the most crazy, irresponsible, and even the most selfish people may profit the most, while those who try to maintain rationality and make long-term correct decisions may not be able to reap the rewards until the final bubble bursts.
Just like the 2008 financial crisis described in the movie "The Big Short", some people who saw the market risks early on and made long-term hedging bets, although they made the right market judgment, many of them failed to profit because they could not hold on until the end. Sometimes, people who make the right judgment too early may be eliminated by the market mechanism.
The key is that everyone needs to be responsible for their own choices. Market trends are uncontrollable, and what individuals can do is to stay clear-headed, understand their investment logic and risk tolerance, and not be swept away by market frenzy.
