In the DeFi space, registration numbers are always the most direct and easily highlighted metric. @TermMaxFi recently announced over 543k registered users, a rapid increase that's undeniable. However, seasoned traders know that the market never lacks fleeting traffic surges; what's truly scarce are genuine, long-term users and mechanisms that alleviate traders' anxieties about survival. Therefore, in my view, this 543k milestone isn't the end of growth, but rather a system-wide stress test. Registration is never difficult; user retention is. What's truly worth observing is how many of these 500,000+ addresses will ultimately retain active users. The typical DeFi path is familiar to everyone: rush in, get whipsawed by volatility, then return to survival mode—margin calls, monitoring liquidation lines, forced liquidation. Many aren't wrong about the direction, but rather the mechanism prevents them from surviving long enough. When traders are constantly in a "don't die" state, discipline and strategy execution become impossible. Therefore, I'm more concerned with retention structure than registration numbers. I've noticed that TermMaxFi's official team has recently been repeatedly mentioning the word "debating." A protocol that's willing to be discussed and scrutinized often indicates that its rules are clear enough to be broken down, rather than relying on emotions and slogans to maintain consensus. This actually corresponds to their main theme: Chaos vs. Order. TermMax doesn't promise you'll definitely make money, but it attempts to pre-calculate the worst-case scenario into the order book. Maximum losses are definable, and extreme volatility won't lead to immediate liquidation, allowing the strategy to complete as planned. The more chaotic the market, the easier it is for the mechanism to become your adversary; the clearer the risk boundaries, the more qualified traders are to talk about discipline. Therefore, the real competition among these products is never about who has the higher leverage, but about who can gradually pull users from "survival mode" back to "discipline mode." Based on this, I will consider 543k as a starting point, not an end result. Three things are more worth paying attention to next: First, can daily active users and reuse rates keep up with registration growth? Without continuous use, even a large number of registrations is just traffic. Second, can the points of contention be absorbed through product iterations? Healthy debating should drive mechanism evolution, not accumulate more problems. Third, in extreme market conditions, are order outcomes truly predictable? Only when the worst-case scenario is manageable will trust gradually build. If these three points hold true, 543k will no longer be just a retention issue, but will gradually become a system of order. To me, the real watershed moment for a protocol is never how many people it attracts, but how many people are willing to stay long-term and continue to use it according to the rules. Short-term success depends on emotion; long-term success depends on structure.

Data growth is so fast