Source: Zuoye Waiboshan
The Crypto Ponzi Scheme Revelation
People will spend two years learning to speak, and then a lifetime learning to be silent.
In the din of the crypto world, success and fame are synonymous, as there is no distance between traffic and monetization, because it is all about the asset issuance and recovery industry, which can also be called the redistribution of wealth, and becoming famous has become a must-have for every practitioner.
VCs are no longer high-end, but are keen on daily Twitter surfing to link projects;
CEXs have become emotional massage masters, shuffling information back and forth in X/TG/WeChat groups to ensure PR crises are controllable;
Male and female BDs are hovering between traffic and wandering, with their hard-earned high salaries burning into the second-tier pursuit of the dream of getting rich overnight.
If you are lucky enough not to fall into these traps, or if you are lucky enough to escape the crisis PR alive, you will get the maximum traffic, and using the formula, traffic can instantly turn into trading volume, some say Binance's profit is $50 billion, and some say Bitget's year-end bonus is 50 months.
True and false, the leading edge is undeniable, but how long can the lead last?
The Dilemma of the Leader - Excessive Self-Importance
FUDing Solana and doubting Binance's intention to sell are unnecessary, Solana has been following the "single-chain" model from the beginning, which is the fundamental source of its high performance, Jump's trading ability, and SBF's direct promotion are just to complement Solana, not to exploit it unilaterally.
The logic for Binance is similar, Binance's operations are not problematic, the problem is that Binance in 2017 cannot survive in 2025, if CZ is forcibly pledged for 4 months, then no one can surpass him, so now CZ can't keep up with the times is not a problem.
Binance's problem is only itself, or it can be called "crushed by self-importance":
The internal interest group and the idle employees, from Trust Wallet being left behind by OKX Web3 Wallet to the employees frequently conflicting with users, it is actually He Yi and CZ who are soothing the market, this is a black humor that is almost anti-Marxist, normally the employees should support the company, the boss exploits the employees, but now it's more like the mother hen protecting the weasel.
Binance in 2017 was doing global arbitrage, taking in the fleeing users and traffic of Huobi and OK under the ban, this was the right time for Binance to start, and the global migration to offshore exchanges to the extreme, this was the geographical advantage, and then there was the handling of the contradictions between the co-founders, external investors and the company, this was the human factor, very obvious, now the right time is gone, the U.S. Department of Justice has become Binance's heaven, the geographical advantage is gone, Binance, Labs and BNB Chain are all going their separate ways, the synergy of the ecosystem cannot be stated, and the human factor is even worse, the high-educated employees have no desire to make money like the junior college BDs.
When the TST and CZ's Dog soap operas were played out one after another, and it was only after Four.Meme made hundreds of millions on Pump.Fun that they started to take action, and when the AI Agent and Meme disappeared, CZ started to study the combination of AI Agent and BNB Chain.
The hero is in decline, nothing more.
At this point, self-rescue is the only way, BNB will become a true Web3 asset, needing to take on the responsibility of connecting BNB Chain and Binance in the post-regulatory era, empowering BNB can ensure Binance's position in the CEX, Kaito's airdrop to BNB holders is just an appetizer, the key is how to truly make BNB Chain a chain, not just a subsidiary chain of Binance, the wallet can no longer be relied upon, CZ needs to leave himself a ticket to enter the future on-chain ecosystem.
In the memory of many people, the impression of BNB Chain is still stuck in the BSC on-chain meme era of the last cycle, now CZ is starting to re-learn the crypto tricks, the opportunity to prove whether he is the king of picking up the crumbs or a true entrepreneur comes after he completely withdraws from Binance.
The Fate of the Chaser - Long More Wrong
PI's conquest only validates one thing, the circle-breaking effect of $TRUMP is not as good as Dogecoin's shill by Musk in 2021, I was very optimistic about Trump Coin before, not because I was optimistic about the coin price, but because I was optimistic about the circle-breaking effect.
But unfortunately, Trump's PUMP was too strong, leading to a huge DUMP and too short a time, Dogecoin in 2021 rose slowly, and Musk's choice of hinting rather than openly endorsing also allowed Dogecoin to develop an independent market.
After Trump, the Solana token issuance group's choice of presidents also has this problem, the collateral damage effect of political figures is much more complex than that of celebrities, why are presidential coins so short-lived in a single cycle and the entire cycle (from Trump to Milei, a month at most), it may be that the backlash of deconstructing political seriousness is too severe.
So OKX chose to surrender to PI, the ripple effect was shocking, Bybit doesn't care whether they accept it or not, even Binance picked up the old-fashioned way of voting for listing, although it may not necessarily be listed, but it verified the correctness of OKX's risky move - let the industry follow its own rhythm, even command the footsteps of the industry leaders.
Of course, after PI is listed, it will inevitably go down the established path of Ponzi, but the great advantage of the crypto world is that everyone knows this is a Ponzi, which is the biggest difference from traditional finance, traditional finance does not admit that the emperor has no clothes, the crypto world chooses to admit it.
If you don't like it, you can short it, this is He Yi's answer, in Bitget's system, if I don't like you, I have to say it out loud, you say the city gate tower and I say the hip bone axis, but still, the hierarchy in the crypto world is too small, the quantum entanglement between public opinion and private discourse, the inextricable fate leads to the infinite amplification of crises.
"The departed are like this, day and night without rest" the foreigner explained: Confucius stood by the river, pointing to a floating corpse and said "See that? That's what you'll be like in the future."
For the chasers, you have to keep doing the right thing to gain a little user trust, but on the flip side, one mistake can be a disaster, but the chasers can't not do anything, otherwise the stable pattern will naturally benefit the largest share of the leader, and so an industry training camp with employees lasting 4 months has been successfully born, this situation is like Yan Xishan coming and not even lasting half a year.
The leader has many problems, but the advantage of scale overwhelms everything, all the mistakes can be covered up by a BNB token airdrop, a simple price rise, and then all is well.
Crypto giants will become more like the internet, the internet will become more like state-owned enterprises, everything is becoming institutionalized, becoming a part of the existing order.
Epilogue
Pinduoduo caught up with JD.com by compressing employee toilet time, becoming the second largest in China, and Temu is fighting Amazon, the second place in the two markets is the global first place, now the chasers in the crypto world will also learn the strategies of the internet 5/6 years ago, in short, the more ruthless and more melon-eating CEXs will be the main melody of 2025, they will not be quickly replaced by DEXs like Hyperliquid, let alone the suicidal moves of Solana-based DEXs like JUP.
Whether Solana will become the third chain after BTC/ETH is still uncertain, now BNB Chain also wants to join the battle.
