Author: Dougie, Crypto KOL; Translated by: Jinse Finance
Cryptocurrency is dead.
I'm not referring to prices going to zero, nor am I saying that blockchains will stop producing blocks or stablecoins will quietly disappear. What I'm trying to say is that, for someone like me who has been deeply involved in this industry for most of the past decade, there's something that's particularly unsettling.
My career, network, and even a large part of my personal identity are built around "cryptocurrency." I've witnessed almost everything: the ICO boom, the DeFi summer, the NFT craze, the Metaverse, the Memecoin wave... In Telegram groups, cryptocurrency social platforms, industry conferences, and countless founder meetings, the consensus has always been the same: cryptocurrency is the center of the universe, and our mission is to make this universe continue to expand.
But now my thoughts are almost the exact opposite.
That self-contained world of "cryptocurrency" is dying out.
This technology is about to be integrated into everything, and those who mistake the bubble of the past for the ultimate form will eventually be abandoned by the times.
So why am I still bullish?
Because this "demise" is the only way to a future that is far greater than the industry we have been defending.
The foam we created
Throughout the modern history of cryptocurrency, the most vibrant areas have always been created by "crypto natives" for "crypto natives."
It's not for all traders, nor for those who crave better, more diverse financial services, but for a much narrower group: those whose financial lives are already on the blockchain.
We optimized everything around this type of user:
- The interface design assumes you are proficient in transferring hundreds of thousands of dollars in assets through browser plugins.
- So-called "education" is essentially just "browsing more discussion threads".
The entire feature set revolves around "liquidity mining," "points rewards," "token issuance," and "meta-games," and only those within the industry truly understand its intricacies.
Most importantly, we developed a marketing strategy that worked almost exclusively within the industry:
1. Issue tokens with a points system.
2. Launch liquidity mining
3. Introduce an invitation code system.
4. Build a Discord community, hire an intern to manage the account, and call it a "community".
This is the underlying logic of "encryption for encryption's sake": the closed-loop incentive mechanism always targets the same set of addresses that are already well-versed in mining, rotation, and dumping. When founders talk about "user acquisition," what they really mean is often "competing for the same set of wallet addresses that other projects are also vying for."
Behind this lies an implicit assumption that has supported countless people's careers: given time, the whole world will become like us.
But this never materialized. User numbers may have grown, but crypto culture remains niche and self-referential. Most activities still revolve around the same behaviors: trading on-chain assets, leveraging, and chasing short-term incentives.
What we call the “cryptocurrency industry” is less a general technology ecosystem and more like a highly liquid massively multiplayer online game (MMO).
This world is interesting, frankly, even fascinating. But its potential for growth is fundamentally limited.
The true meaning of "encryption is dead"
So when I say “cryptocurrency is dead,” I don’t mean that the blockchain has shut down, everyone has left, or that the tokens have disappeared or the technology has failed.
What I really want to express is:
Cryptocurrency as an independent industry is crumbling . The clear lines between "cryptocurrency" and "fintech," "AI infrastructure," "payments," "trading markets," and "gambling" are becoming increasingly blurred. "Crypto startups" are no longer a distinct category, but simply startups that happen to use blockchain technology.
Most applications that cater solely to crypto natives either die out or remain perpetually niche. If your target market is simply "those who spend all their time on the blockchain," you're essentially starting a business in a dead end. This niche market may exist forever, and some people may profit from it, but the technology's potential to change the world lies far beyond that.
The label "cryptocurrency" has become a burden. Calling something "cryptocurrency" or a "Web3 product" no longer helps attract users, gain regulatory approval, or raise funds. Ordinary entrepreneurs will directly adopt the underlying technology but are unwilling to be associated with its specific identity.
The victory of cryptocurrency lies not in turning the whole world into crypto natives, but in enabling those who are not crypto natives to enjoy the convenience it brings.
By "extinction," I mean the end of that self-absorbed, self-admiring crypto world—the world that expects everyone to actively enter it, learn its language, and follow its rules.
From "crypto-native" to "real-world-native"
The popularization of technology is usually uneventful. In the early days, only the "eccentrics" and true believers will embrace it. If the technology is truly valuable, it will eventually permeate everything. People will stop talking about "the technology itself" and focus on "what can be done with the technology."
This is the future we are heading towards: the key to success lies not in "more crypto natives," but in "more ordinary people."
We have already seen some signs:
Users checking election odds on Polymarket have no idea they are accessing the blockchain.
Merchants in Lagos or Buenos Aires use USDT to settle invoices simply because it arrives in seconds;
Depositors in high-inflation countries hold USDC not because they are “bullish on cryptocurrencies,” but because their own currencies have collapsed.
These users don't need to understand what "rollup (Layer 2 scaling solution)" is to integrate encryption technology into their lives. This technology makes their lives more economical, efficient, and better.
Of course, this isn't simply a clash between "insiders" and the "general public." There's also a huge, almost overlooked middle group: they understand technology, value privacy and control, or enjoy direct market participation, but have no interest in "yield mining" or "points arbitrage." They want features like self-hosting but are unwilling to embrace the native crypto culture. What they need is superior underlying technology, not a completely new "persona."
To be fair, we are now closer than ever to serving this community. The user onboarding process and experience have been greatly improved, with features such as mobile-first design, social media account login, Apple Pay integration, and abstract wallets . Today, you don't need a "cryptocurrency master's degree" to use on-chain services.
This is why the current bottleneck is no longer user experience (UX), but "intent".
Now that we can make these tools easily accessible to anyone, what should we build? And whom should we serve?
Unfortunately, the answer is often still:
- "We are solving crypto-native problems for crypto natives."
- "We are making it easier for people who are already on the blockchain to get on the blockchain."
- "We are building a better 'casino' for a group of users who spend all day at the 'gambling tables'."
This part will eventually be eliminated by the times.
We should expect cryptocurrencies to follow the same development path as other underlying technologies. Nobody says, "I'm an internet user," or boasts, "I'm using cloud computing." You simply use the product to get things done.
In the future, the term "encrypted user" will also become just as strange.
What can survive?
This does not mean completely abandoning crypto culture. Some aspects deserve to exist and be promoted:
- Permission-free access: Anyone can access and develop.
- Global Liquidity and 24/7 Markets: A Trading Ecosystem That Never Closes
- Composability: Open state and open application programming interfaces (APIs)
- User ownership (selectively) : In scenarios that truly enhance product value.
In addition, there is a kind of "benign weirdness" worth preserving:
- Open and transparent product development process
- The Instinct of Open Source
- Willing to try financial experiments that a normal board of directors would never approve
At the same time, we should also be frank: casinos have provided a large amount of funding for the industry's development. The speculative capital flows and peak transaction fees that are often ridiculed actually provide financial support for seemingly mundane infrastructure such as payment systems. Our goal is not to eliminate casinos, but to stop mistaking casinos for the entire "city."
Crypto culture has endowed us with truly valuable treasures. Our mission is not to bury these treasures, but to integrate them into everything.
Why the old methods no longer work
If you agree with the above viewpoints, you must look at the current industry practices from a completely new perspective.
Liquidity mining, points rewards, and airdrops mostly just allow the same funds to circulate between slightly different user interfaces. The entire cycle is: project launch → mining → increasing mining intensity → exiting → complaining about "profit-seeking users." The first-day data may seem impressive, but the retention rate three months later is often abysmal.
From an investor's perspective, you'll gradually see the true nature of this hype: some teams excel at generating buzz and designing incentive mechanisms, but when you ask them these questions, they're almost speechless:
- Aside from users of encrypted social media platforms, who is this product designed for?
Why would users continue using the service once the rewards stop?
- What is the significance of this product for those who don't understand basis points and token symbols?
The problem isn't that we can't reach ordinary people—the tools are sophisticated enough. The real problem is that we almost never bother to create anything meaningful for ordinary people.
This mindset has also encountered bottlenecks in terms of growth. Once they try to get out of the bubble, they often run into the "compliance wall".
Know Your Customer (KYC) and regulatory requirements were not top-down mandates, but rather gradually introduced from the industry periphery after founders realized that "growth is impossible without these."
- KYC (Know Your Customer) is inevitably involved whenever a real payment network is connected.
- To work with institutional counterparties, a regulatory framework must be established;
- Once credit, identity verification, or real-world assets are involved, the "complete anonymity" model quickly becomes ineffective.
Certain parts of the on-chain economy will remain completely anonymous and unregulated, which is its defining characteristic. However, it would be naive to assume that most economic activity will remain at this level.
That "you'll all end up like us" mentality has made us shirk the hard work of problem-solving, channel expansion, and business model development. Now, this fatigue is evident when hype fails to translate into sustained user retention or returns. This isn't just a problem of the macro environment; it's a growth ceiling imposed by "building products only for our own people."
Encryption becomes the underlying architecture of the world
If the old gameplay gradually becomes obsolete, what will the future look like?
I divide it into three levels:
1. Infrastructure layer: Low-key, unassuming, and massive in scale.
Blockchain will become the default underlying architecture in specific fields: settlement systems for specific types of payments and markets, cross-border capital flows where stablecoins have an advantage, and shared state systems in areas such as identity authentication, collateral, and ownership records.
Most users will never know or care that this is "on-chain" technology. They will only experience faster settlement speeds, more reliable access, default global coverage, and programmable money services that banks have never offered.
2. Product Layer: Not an "encrypted product," just a "product."
Applications in fintech, e-commerce, and other fields will adopt on-chain technology when truly needed, while striving to hide complexity and competing with all other products on the same level: price, speed, user experience, and trust.
They don't use "on-chain products" as a selling point, but rather emphasize being cheaper, faster, more global, more composable, and sometimes even fairer.
3. Speculative layer: Persists, but returns to its original position.
Casinos won't disappear; they'll simply be no longer the whole story. Memecoins, exotic derivatives, and purely speculative platforms will still exist, some remaining niche while others will integrate into mainstream trading and entertainment. None of these need to perish.
The key change is that speculation will become a vertical sector within a larger ecosystem, rather than the cornerstone of the entire "industry".
Ultimately, cryptocurrencies will be integrated into the technology stack, rather than existing independently.
Who is the winner and who is the loser?
If cryptocurrency becomes a fundamental layer of everything, the incentive mechanisms will also change.
For entrepreneurs
- The losers: The team that serves only users of encrypted social platforms and a small number of on-chain addresses; the founders who are good at designing liquidity mining, points programs and token issuance mechanisms.
- Winners: Teams that start from real user needs and treat encryption technology as a detail in implementation; founders who are willing to remain "plain" in key areas (trust, compliance, channels).
For investors
- Losers: Funds that adhere to the philosophy of "serving crypto people" and regard "reflexivity" (price increases driven by speculation) as their business model.
- Winners: Investors who are optimistic about real demand, user retention, and sustainable channels across a broad range of markets (payments, credit, identity verification, marketplaces, data).
For existing industry participants
- Losers: People who identify themselves as "I entered the industry early, so the world must adapt to me"; ecosystems that refuse to integrate and insist that "pure encryption" is the only correct path.
- Winners: Teams that create underlying technologies and products that real users love and rely on, integrate with existing financial and consumption processes, and generate new on-chain demand through partnerships. Integrating into the real economy is the key to achieving lasting and significant success.
The pain of letting go
If you've been working in this industry for a long time, you might find the above viewpoint hard to accept.
When you've held your ground in the "fortress" for years, only to hear "the fortress is about to close, the battlefield has shifted," it's hard not to feel pain. It feels like a betrayal of the time, effort, and beliefs you invested when your industry wasn't widely recognized.
Many people's identity is built on "entering the industry early," "being different," or "playing games that the rest of the world doesn't understand." When they realize that the world might adopt these tools but not their identity attributes, it feels like something has been lost.
But this is precisely the normal trajectory of successful technology development.
When the internet became commonplace and ubiquitous, its subculture "died"; when every legitimate company quietly adopted cloud computing, the "cloud" ceased to be an exciting cutting-edge field. No one mourns these "demises" now, because they are the price of victory.
The maturation of cryptocurrencies means that the cryptocurrencies we know must die out. This is not a failure, but the inevitable price we pay for our past pursuits.
Cryptocurrency is dead, cryptocurrency is immortal.
If we can navigate this transformation well, we will no longer view “cryptocurrency adoption” as a separate goal.
Instead, we will talk about:
- Products and businesses that rely on these underlying technologies
- New markets that are more globalized, more open, and more programmable than existing markets.
- People whose lives have been transformed by access to tools that the local banking system could never provide.
You can cling to the closed, self-referential industry we've built, hoping the world will eventually come to you. Or you can accept that era is coming to an end and start building products and investing in other people's businesses.
Our mission has never been to make everyone a crypto native, but to make the world a better place with the tools we create—even if the world eventually forgets the names of those tools.
If you are an entrepreneur or investor, you might as well ask yourself honestly:
Am I solving problems for crypto natives, or for the whole world?
Your answer will determine which side you ultimately stand on in this "obituary".
