Author: Haotian
Sharing a short essay on the recent Consensus conference in Hong Kong:
1) Just like previous conference runs, many people were running around the side events around the main venue, coupled with unfamiliarity with the HK map, running around the conference and dinner parties, the whole person's legs were exhausted, the physical fatigue is indescribable. But that's nothing, the mental fatigue is even more tiring, up and down, when will it end?
2) Even in such a big environment, there are still a lot of people at the big and small events, the mood doesn't seem bearish at all, perhaps most people came for the "emotional value", in fact, the popularity king is basically the Solana ecosystem, the events are all packed and can even surprise the police. In comparison, Ethereum, BTC layer2 and other related events are much more gloomy. All I can say is, it's a mess, one after another, they used to be glorious too;
3) Although it is the Consensus conference, after interacting with more people, I feel that this is the least "consensual" Consensus conference? The "consensus" of the entire industry is being seriously torn apart. The technical narrative PVE consensus is in despair under the MEME narrative PVP consensus, and the diamond-handed Holder's diamond-handed consensus is too shy to speak up under the young P-trader's consensus, the old-timers' technical build consensus is out of place in front of some marketing Tokenomics outstanding projects. Seemingly a division of consensus, but in fact it is the collapse of the industry's "unified" values, after Consensus, Polarization may become the norm;
4) Many crypto old-timers have responded that "the market environment has changed", but the market will never be wrong, it's just that the old-timers' "empiricism" is no longer useful. The old-timers used the logic of the bull and bear cycle conversion of the past two cycles to trade coins, but found that the four-year cycle conversion was invalid, the market defines the bull market around the hot topic narrative, coming like the wind, leaving without a trace, when you are still adamant that the bull market has just begun, the bull market has already ended;
5) No need to complain that it has become more difficult to make money in the market, it's just that the audience group making money has changed, the mode and logic of making money has changed. Now there are countless assets in the market, market attention (Mindshare) controls the liquidity wealth, the young 00s P-traders who dare to rush in, make money and run, have the energy and courage, they have become the lucky ones in this round of PVP narrative, in comparison, the old-timers' diamond-handed PVE thinking has no chance of winning. But, every PVP wealth feast eventually has a large outflow of liquidity, it's not clear how long this squid game can last;
6) I can feel the loneliness of a group of people who uphold the idealistic Builder of the technical narrative, this kind of disappointment is different from the past. In the words of an old OG, the technical Roadmap has been implemented step by step, and the TGE has also been done according to the requirements, the community has also been maintained, and the narrative has also been continuously updated to match the hot spots, but the coin price just can't be propped up. For those who do things with idealism, if they can't get the corresponding rewards from the market for a long time, does it mean the exhaustion of innovative power? If the crypto world loses the idealistic hacker spirit, what spirit will the Crypto industry use to counteract the casino stigma from the outside world. What, do we not even need to pretend anymore?
7) The people in the AI Agent car have basically all been trapped, but most people still firmly believe in the future of the AI + Crypto narrative. I've always emphasized that, leaving aside the application value of the current AI Agent landing, the activation value of AI Agent for the old narratives like layer2, ZK, modularization, chain abstraction, etc. is the key. It can give the old narratives a new build direction, and give the non-landing infra the possibility of application pre-positioning. In short, the sacrifice caused by the current AI Agent bubble burst is negligible compared to its future industry-wide reconstruction value.
8) The logic of the secondary market has completely changed, BTC stands alone in the sky with the support of off-exchange ETF capital, while the on-exchange ETH and SOL, BSC are fighting fiercely at the ecological level, but no matter how they fight, the market unanimously believes that there is no overall bull run, no meme season. The choice of what kind of locomotive determines what kind of results you can reap, and if you choose the wrong one, the result will be embarrassing, for example, if you are unfortunate enough to side with layer2.
9) The on-chain world has become the hope for most people in the crypto world, but compared to the difficulty of making money in the CEX secondary market, the pure PVP environment on the chain is also a huge challenge for most audiences. After the chaotic and disorderly era, the on-chain world must be rebuilt through the full chain of asset issuance, community cohesion, CEX connection, and technical application landing. Obviously, a on-chain story without asset issuance threshold restrictions and continuous technical innovation empowerment can never truly change the Crypto world.
