Bear Market Dilemma and On-Chain Innovation: The Crypto Industry Needs a Tech-Driven Restart

The market has long shifted into a bear market, this is beyond doubt. After the Trump era, market liquidity was gradually drained, and the subsequent small rallies were at best just emotion-driven fake bull markets.

Altcoins have been burdened with heavy debt loads since the moment TGE was launched. The long-term holders who once stuck to their convictions have vanished, and dedicated developers have gradually exited. Instead, there are overwhelming airdrop hunters, VCs eager to cash out, exchange arbitrageurs, and project teams that invested for years and now want to recoup their costs—all running outward. Who is willing to be the last bag-holder?

MEME coins were once seen as a cure for traditional coins with high FDV. This wave indeed fulfilled its mission, providing retail investors with a new wealth path. But beneath the guise of zero technical barriers and “fair launch,” mass production on assembly lines cannot support long-term value. Losing the technological innovation stories from 0 to 1 that traditional coins rely on, the hype around MEME coins ultimately becomes internal battles of existing funds, inevitably leading to systemic erosion of the entire ecosystem.

Exchanges have always played a role in absorbing spillover effects from on-chain innovations and providing liquidity amplification. But when innovative platforms like Pumpfun, GMGN, and Hyperliquid emerged, demonstrating real wealth creation power, centralized exchanges felt threatened and launched their “internalization” rescue plans. The result was obvious—when shovel sellers started mining their own profits, the industry’s structural imbalance became inevitable.

For builders, these are the darkest times. Why are so many projects rushing to TGE? Why has the market lost patience for polishing products? Why are all the industry imbalances blamed on project teams and VCs? These questions are too complex; perhaps no one can answer them fully. But an undeniable fact is that builders and VCs in the crypto space are undergoing large-scale bankruptcies and fleeing. Even more terrifying than positions dropping to zero is the talent outflow and the industry being gutted from beneath.

Maybe this article sounds like a rant. But this is precisely why I emphasize on-chain technological innovation. Our crypto world has lost its former vitality—it’s sick, aging, and even deeply troubled.

The only salvation is waiting for the next rise of on-chain narratives driven by genuine technological innovation, which can breathe new life into everything.