The era of making easy money in crypto is over.
The era of making easy money in crypto is over.
Historically, most periods of "easy money" lasted about 3 to 7 years.
- The California Gold Rush lasted 7 years.
- The Tulip Bubble lasted 3 years.
- The Dot-com Bubble led to a 78% crash in the Nasdaq about 5 years later.
- The Japanese Bubble lasted 6 years, and it took the Nikkei 34 years to recover.
In other words, most speculative booms in history end within 3 to 7 years.
The era of easy money in crypto began with ICOs in 2017. This was followed by DeFi Summer in 2020, NFTs in 2021, and then airdrops, point farming, and meme coins.
It lasted for roughly 8 years.
And I believe we have already passed that phase.
This is because the Easy Money model has been fully discovered, utilized, and driven to the extreme through arbitrage amidst competition.
The era of philosophical hard forks, such as BTC → BTC Gold and ETH → ETH Classic, has also ended.
Crypto has now solidified not only technically but also culturally.
- ICOs have faced regulation,
- Airdrops are being farmed by industrial-scale civils,
- Memecoin launches have degenerated from community play into extraction tools.
This is why the Gold Rush analogy fits quite well.
The end of FOMO is always similar.
The visible gold veins are depleted, and from then on, industrial mining takes over.
BTC mining was exactly the same. It shifted from individual mining to institutional-centric operations, and mining companies even went so far as to conduct IPOs.
So, this is where crypto currently stands.
It is a phase where people in suits like TradFi enter, and tokenization, RWA, enterprise permissioned chains, and regulation become central. The Trump family and insiders appear to be the ones raking in the last of the "easy money" in crypto.
From a retail perspective, the days of picking up dropped gold nuggets are over.
The remaining profit opportunities now lie in areas that require real infrastructure, real users, and real revenue.
In other words, it means higher expertise, more specific knowledge, and truly grueling effort.
I am not sure how many of us, who used to make money easily, are now ready to grind ourselves to the bone.
I understand why many builders, KOLs, and projects are trying to milk every last drop out of crypto before leaving.
After all, adapting to the new era of "hard money" won't be easy.
So the question is this:
Where should we pivot now to find that easy money?
Asking on behalf of a friend.
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