Chainfeeds Summary:
The Web3 industry is mired in a deep winter, with Ethereum faltering and AI talent draining away. Practitioners are undergoing a great self-rescue. How will Vitalik and the OGs shoulder this responsibility?
Article source:
https://x.com/jocyiosg/status/2057496239554592920
Article Author:
IOSG Ventures
Opinion:
IOSG Ventures: "Low-probability bad events" are happening in large numbers. I've been reading probability theory lately. We old-timers are used to understanding the market through cycles—the last cycle had an alt season, and this cycle will have one too. But this year, all the previously underestimated low-probability events are happening simultaneously: 50-60% of China's top Web3 developers have moved to AI. Those who leave will basically not come back. Thousands of projects have raised tens of billions of dollars, but few have truly broken out of their niche. Wall Street, Trump, and sovereign wealth funds have taken away Bitcoin, and the space for native builders is getting narrower and narrower. Fundraising in the US is booming, while the Asian ecosystem is facing a survival crisis, with entrepreneurs bleeding money to list and leave, and investors withdrawing. It's not that the cycle hasn't arrived; it's that the script for this generation of cycles is completely different from the past. Ethereum's reform has reached a critical point. The best windows of opportunity in the past—the bull market of 2021, the turning point of 2022—were originally the best time to drive application innovation and create super applications. The industry's biggest attention, the most money, and the best talent were all concentrated in those windows. However, the initial focus was on technological narratives like ZK and L2. The technological direction itself wasn't wrong; the mistake was channeling all resources into a niche area at a time when mass-market products should have been emerging. Now, in a bear market, launching a super app is ten times harder than it was two years ago. A strong feeling I've had recently is that most people surrounding Vitalik are hesitant to directly tell him how difficult the industry is and what Ethereum's real predicament is. The number of groups seeking personal gain is increasing, and small circles and niche cultures are becoming more pronounced. New directions and opportunities often extend outward along the existing ties of those circles. Ordinary communities and practitioners rarely have the opportunity to communicate normally with Vitalik or provide feedback. Community dissatisfaction and complaints are filtered out layer by layer. This isn't anyone's fault. It's because an organization rapidly expanded to 200+ people, and its feedback mechanism failed to keep pace. But the cost of this gradual, insidious growth will ultimately fall on everyone still building within this ecosystem. This is the most real and shared predicament for this generation of practitioners, transcending geographical boundaries.
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