Yesterday, a tweet touched a nerve. It revealed a common yet unspoken despair—many of us are no longer happy working here. If you’re not working on stablecoins, or if you’re not someone with a strong passion for financial markets, you’re unlikely to find joy in the crypto space right now.
Worse, you watch artificial intelligence develop at an astonishing rate and with great vitality, while your daily work seems stagnant in comparison. I know this because that’s how I felt at the time. That’s why I wrote that tweet. The fact that this tweet resonated with so many people (I’ve received 60 DMs so far) shows that many of you feel the same way, but haven’t said it out loud. So, let me say out loud what everyone knows but doesn’t say.
The era of selling products to crypto developers is over. In the last cycle, selling products to crypto developers worked. Data metrics were more important than revenue, collaboration logos were more important than revenue, and vibe (community atmosphere) was more important than revenue. You were just a cost on their books, and everyone was happy to spend money. This paradigm has been dead for about 18 months. We really wish we had gotten out sooner.
Today, more and more people agree that cryptocurrency is only suitable for finance. Haseeb from Dragonfly said it, Kyle from Multicoin said it, and Toly from Solana said it. Most of you actually think so too, even if you won’t admit it publicly. I understand why everyone comes to this conclusion. Most tokens are Meme coins. They don’t own any assets, nor do they owe you any debt, because all you really own is on-chain state, which is extremely limited. That’s why crypto-native applications like trading and lending are the only two types of applications that can really make money on-chain.
But many of us aren’t doing DeFi. Many of us are building infrastructure to enable new use cases beyond DeFi. And here’s an uncomfortable truth: according to our analysis, the overall potential market size for this part of the work is only about $200.00 million to $300.00 million per year. This money has to be divided among hundreds of teams. The most successful teams make tens of millions of dollars. After so many years of development and maturity, this is the ceiling.
If you’re building a venture-backed business, this leaves you with a very clear set of choices. If you want to serve crypto developers, the market is small. So, you either put on a suit and sell your infrastructure to traditional financial institutions, or, like many, shut down your business and turn to AI. Many people are leaving for AI because they understand their strengths. They understand the professional capabilities of the team. They also understand that their competitive advantage is not in adapting to the lengthy and complex B2B sales cycles of the traditional financial sector. That’s why so many of you feel lost right now.
Cryptocurrency and the AI dead end. So you turn your attention to the only area that seems vibrant—the intersection of cryptocurrency and AI—and try to find a foothold. But the options aren’t ideal either.
Option 1: Traditional business model + AI, then issue a token. The token itself doesn’t have any real function, just like most other tokens. You’re basically just developing an ordinary product and then forcibly adding a layer of financialization. This is demoralizing because you’ve been playing this game for 5 years.
Option 2: Decentralized AI infrastructure. Privacy, security, verifiability: this is the missionary route, and the old paradigm. But I suspect this isn’t suitable for most of you: few people are willing to go through another long “god-making campaign” without immediate feedback and real revenue.
Option 3: Provide stablecoin infrastructure for AI Agents. From a business perspective, this option is interesting, but the competition is extremely fierce. Circle, Stripe, and all the major stablecoin players are fully invested. It’s frustrating to fight them as a startup in this area where there’s no clear beachhead to occupy.
Optional menu, and the reasons people leave. So, the options actually on the table today are: you can stay in the religious realm of cryptocurrency and work towards a resilient, decentralized future. You can put on a suit, join the big players, and preach the gospel of stablecoins. You can build a “shovel-selling” tool company for the stablecoin ecosystem. You can continue to stay in DeFi: trading, lending, and being the financial plumbing of the internet. Or you can build a niche product that doesn’t have the chance to become a billion-dollar investment project, but can bring real profits and real user satisfaction. Other than that, you don’t have many good options. That’s why you’re likely to leave and go into AI. To be honest, I completely understand. That’s why cryptocurrency is no longer that interesting.
The above is my diagnosis. This is the result of six months of feeling, analyzing, and repeatedly deliberating. If you just want to see an honest interpretation of “why the crypto space feels stagnant,” you’ve finished reading. You can close this page at any time. Go for a walk and feel real life. But I can tell you this: I’ve never been so passionate about my work. The last time I felt this way was probably when I first heard about what cryptocurrency was and what it could bring. And it’s not just my personal feeling—the people around me feel the same way. So, if you want to hear a short version of what I really believe in, please continue reading. Just remember, from here on out, I’m selling my beliefs.
What I think is really interesting. In the past six months, the question I’ve been trying to answer is: how do I find a non-financial solution that has a market large enough, a clear business model rooted in the crypto space, and is product-oriented, so that people inside and outside the circle can use it? This is the starting point I keep coming back to. Cryptocurrency is a superconductor of capital. Capital drives growth. The problem in the past was that we were fueling things that couldn’t grow—like pouring gasoline on ice and hoping it would burn brighter.
AI makes things grow and makes it easier than ever to launch useful products. What used to take a team of fifty people can now be done by one person. The cost of building a real product and a real business is collapsing. These products and businesses are growing rapidly, with revenue, real users, and real feedback loops. They need fuel to accelerate their development. And cryptocurrency is the best fuel mechanism invented for this purpose.
This is the only interesting question I see right now: how do we use the superpowers of cryptocurrency—instant, global, programmable capital formation—and direct it to things that are really growing? We believe the answer is Agent companies. To achieve this, we first need to allow tokens to “own” assets, which we happen to have been building for the past five years. Now, we will turn it into a product to achieve this goal. If this resonates with you, if you’re excited about our direction, want to build with us, or want to explore cooperation, please DM me. If you think a friend would resonate with this, please share it with them. In my opinion, the people who are not satisfied with the status quo are precisely the ones who should be building the future.
[ChainCatcher]
Crypto’s Existential Crisis: The Great Migration to AI and the Search for Purpose
The recent crypto industry soul-searching, sparked by a candid tweet about widespread developer dissatisfaction, reveals more than just temporary malaise—it signals a fundamental structural shift in the blockchain ecosystem. For experienced investors, this moment of crisis presents both significant risks and unprecedented opportunities.
The New Reality: Crypto’s Narrowing Focus
The article correctly diagnoses that the era of building products for crypto developers—where metrics trumped revenue and “vibe” mattered more than profit—is definitively over. This paradigm shift occurred approximately 18 months ago, though many teams have yet to adapt. The market has spoken: cryptocurrency is increasingly being relegated to its most potent use case—financial applications.
This has profound implications for token valuations. Projects without clear financial utility or revenue models face an existential threat. The brutal truth is that most tokens are essentially “Meme coins” with no underlying asset value or claims on real-world cash flows. As a result, we’re likely to see a continued bifurcation: financial primitives (stablecoins, trading protocols, lending platforms) will thrive, while experimental infrastructure projects struggle for relevance and funding.
The Talent Drain: Crypto’s Biggest Risk
Perhaps the most concerning development is the mass exodus of talent to AI. This isn’t merely a trend—it represents a fundamental reallocation of human capital from one technological revolution to another. The comparison is stark: while crypto feels stagnant, AI is developing “at an astonishing rate and with great vitality.”
For investors, this brain drain poses several risks:
1. Slowed innovation in blockchain development
2. Reduced competitive pressure in traditional crypto niches
3. Potential for AI to absorb crypto’s most promising use cases (programmable money, decentralized networks)
However, this migration also creates opportunities. Teams with both crypto and AI expertise may find themselves uniquely positioned at the intersection of these two transformative technologies. The question is whether crypto can offer compelling enough value propositions to retain and attract top talent.
The Market Size Reality Check
The article’s estimate of a $200-300 million annual market for crypto infrastructure beyond DeFi is sobering. This suggests that, despite years of development and billions in venture capital, the market for non-financial blockchain applications remains extremely limited.
For investors, this means:
– Infrastructure projects must either pivot to serving traditional financial institutions (a notoriously difficult and lengthy sales cycle) or find highly specialized niches
– Expect continued consolidation as undercapitalized teams fail to achieve product-market fit
– The “build it and they will come” mentality of previous cycles is dead—revenue and unit economics now matter
The Crypto-AI Intersection: Limited Options
The three proposed pathways for crypto-AI integration each present significant challenges:
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Traditional business + tokenization: This approach feels like adding a financial layer to ordinary products—a strategy that has failed repeatedly in previous cycles. Token utility remains the unsolved problem.
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Decentralized AI infrastructure: This represents the “religious” path of pure decentralization but requires years of development without immediate revenue—a tough sell in today’s capital-constrained environment.
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Stablecoin infrastructure for AI agents: While strategically interesting, this market is already dominated by established players like Circle and Stripe, creating an uphill battle for startups.
The competition dynamics suggest that crypto-native projects will struggle against AI-native companies that simply add crypto capabilities as an afterthought.
The Emerging Thesis: Crypto as Superconductor of Capital
The author’s most compelling insight is the potential for crypto to serve as a “superconductor of capital” for AI Agent companies. This framework reframes crypto’s value proposition—not as a standalone technology, but as an acceleration mechanism for genuinely growing businesses.
The key innovation is enabling tokens to “own” assets, creating a new paradigm where token holders have claims on real value. This could solve the fundamental problem of most cryptocurrencies: they represent no ownership of underlying assets or cash flows.
For investors, this represents a potentially powerful new investment thesis:
– Projects that successfully bridge AI development with crypto-enabled capital formation
– Platforms that facilitate token ownership of real assets or revenue streams
– Infrastructure that supports the growing ecosystem of AI agents
Strategic Implications for Investors
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DeFi and stablecoin projects remain the safest bets in the current market environment, given their clear utility and revenue models.
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The intersection of AI and crypto represents the highest potential upside but requires careful due diligence. Look for projects that solve real problems rather than simply tokenizing existing AI applications.
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Token utility is paramount. Projects that fail to create meaningful claims on real assets or cash flows will continue to struggle.
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Infrastructure teams that can pivot to serve traditional financial institutions may find unexpected opportunities, though this requires a different skill set than many crypto-native teams possess.
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Niche products with clear monetization may outperform ambitious moonshots in the current market climate.
Conclusion: A Necessary Reckoning
The current disillusionment in crypto is not merely a cyclical downturn—it represents a necessary reckoning with the technology’s limitations and a search for sustainable value propositions. For investors, this moment of clarity is ultimately healthy, as it separates viable businesses from speculative experiments.
The migration to AI is both a threat and an opportunity. The most successful crypto projects will likely be those that don’t try to compete directly with AI-native companies, but rather focus on crypto’s unique strengths: instant, global, programmable capital formation.
As the author notes, “the people who are not satisfied with the status quo are precisely the ones who should be building the future.” For investors, backing these builders—particularly those exploring novel ways to combine crypto’s capital superconductor properties with genuine growth in AI—may be the most promising path forward in this new era of crypto maturation.