The real Crypto Assets have long been dead.

Written by: hitesh.eth Translated by: Shenchao TechFlow

Since the birth of cryptocurrency, it has been based on altruism. Early users of any cryptocurrency-based products were not in it for the money. In fact, they were happy to provide resources for early crypto networks like BitTorrent, thus helping a large community.

In that era, when OTT (streaming platforms) were not yet popular, it was very difficult to watch a high-quality good movie online; this was almost a common problem worldwide. We had to wait for months until the TV stations aired them to see those movies that we couldn't go to the cinema to watch every weekend.

Film culture has been continually developing and expanding, and I believe it is the only culture that consistently attracts more and more people. Those drawn to film culture tend to remain in it for a long time, and cryptocurrency has played a role in this process. It has allowed more people around the world to engage with it through the internet, making film culture more inclusive and diverse.

Many people share movie files through their computer systems, using seeds and peers for sharing, while we download from their systems in a peer-to-peer (p2p) manner. It all feels like magic. It's free and driven entirely by a shared love for movies.

The common sentiment of resisting centralized systems and processes, and returning power to the people, is at the core of the spirit of those who intentionally or unintentionally participated in early cryptocurrency products.

Subsequently, Bitcoin emerged, becoming a watershed moment in the cryptocurrency space. In the early days of Bitcoin, those who joined the network were not concerned about its price. They focused on building the network, educating more people, and promoting early adoption. They even gave away Bitcoin for free through forums, offline meetups, events, and mailing lists.

Between 2009 and 2010, thousands of bitcoins were given away for free, and at that time, bitcoins had no market value. However, with the emergence of exchanges, bitcoins began to be traded and gradually assigned value by the market. This changed everything. The spirit of altruism began to take a backseat, while fear and greed quietly seeped in, gradually contaminating the consciousness of the network.

Events like Mt. Gox, Bitconnect, and OneCoin have become typical cases where these malicious actors have extracted millions of bitcoins from ordinary people who hold dreams and hopes. We always feel like we are early participants in the game. In fact, we are not, brother.

In fact, we arrived too late, even later than those who were driving taxis in remote corners with big smiles on their faces but lost 10 bitcoins due to the Bitconnect scam. These people are the real early participants. They believed in Bitcoin but never truly understood the significant meaning of Bitcoin.

Perhaps everything changed after money became linked to cryptocurrencies. Those who decided to build the crypto market after 2012 took “profiting from information asymmetry” as the new agenda. They achieved great success in the market, especially in 2017, when hundreds of tokens were traded on a few exchanges, which also gave rise to the ICO (Initial Coin Offering) boom. In the following 12 months, over 500 tokens entered the market through ICOs. Projects raised billions of dollars through ICOs. However, most tokens never received proper listing opportunities, and almost all ICO tokens ultimately disappeared within three years.

But when these projects were booming, people believed they would change the world. Everyone believed in these ideas, but they were unaware that the infrastructure was fundamentally unprepared. Some truly concerned individuals kept reminding others, but no one was willing to listen. All they saw were stories of others making money and sharing success online, and that was enough to make them believe that cryptocurrency would change their lives. They believed it, and thus lost out. And the bad actors succeeded once again. Some even successfully disguised themselves as “good people” and are now operating in even higher positions.

The New Face of Cryptocurrency

Crypto tokens have become promise data strings with limited supply, and the project team controls the distribution of these tokens. The project team slowly releases the token supply to the market in a carefully calculated manner, with some distribution used to create artificial demand, and then designs incentive mechanisms to attract early participants, binding their identity and reputation to the tokens.

These incentives are not only economic but also psychological triggers, aimed at provoking beliefs, tribalism, and “fear of missing out” (FOMO). The real product is not the tokens, but the illusion. The narratives built around these data strings are not only false but also meticulously emotionally manipulated. The target is always the millions of people caught in the survival loop of the “reactive mind,” those who seek meaning and crave belief.

Once this kind of thinking is touched upon, you don't even need evidence; you just need a story, a seemingly “last chance” symbol. Human thinking, conditioned by decades of scarcity, shame, or missed opportunities, will cling tightly to these narratives. The people behind these data strings are well aware of this. They are not selling products; they are selling hope—hope dressed in the garb of numbers, trends, and community jargon. They skillfully exploit information asymmetry because hope is the easiest drug to sell and the hardest to quit.

What we are witnessing is not new; it has only become faster. The concentration of wealth has always relied on this asymmetry. A few know the rules of the game, while the majority hold tightly to their dreams. But in the world of tokens, the speed of belief spreading far exceeds the speed of reflection. Victims do not even have time to stop and think, because the next promise has already appeared—shiny, trendy, full of potential, and just credible enough, like a hope for redemption.

The Truth of Extraction

We have reached a stage where we feel deceived but cannot accept this fact. For new participants who have just entered the market, there is still hope; but for veterans who have experienced two to three market cycles, they cannot even digest the current market structure. This is something they cannot truly accept. They cannot keep up with the changes in narrative, cannot track the rapid movements of catalysts, and cannot act quickly because they are still stuck in what they once thought was a simpler view of the market.

But if you think deeply, the market has never been divided into “simple” or “complex”; it all depends on scale. In the past, an “extractor” faced a hundred thousand users, while now, an “extractor” only needs to face a hundred users.

The probability of being exploited becomes extremely high. Even in the world of exploiters, there is competition, so they cannot focus their attention on one thing for too long to avoid exposure. They constantly throw new narratives into the market to excite participants.

People wander between winning and losing, some stay, some leave, but the extraction never stops; in fact, it continues to expand. Even if you are caught in the cycle of extraction, there will always be a window for you to exit with profit, and this depends on your discipline, risk management, and the lessons learned from the past. Some smart individuals consistently profit by exiting at the right time, while others become “exit liquidity.” This cycle will continue because extractors know that they have only just scratched the surface of human greed.

As the mainstream adoption rate increases, more people will be trapped in it. When this happens, the government will intervene “to save” us in the name of regulation, ultimately siphoning off the funds through taxation.

Reflection

When you realize all of this and start to think deeply about it, comparing it with the original intention of altruism, you may not be able to help but shed tears at what we have done with cryptocurrency.

Once, this was something so pure, liberating, and full of hope, showing us the possibility of alternative systems.

It was supposed to return power to us.

And now, it seems that we have power, but this power is a lost power.

We follow the concept of altruism, yet we hand over spiritual peace and money to the market, while a certain scammer hides in the corner laughing at our foolishness.

Dreams have turned into illusions, and illusions have evolved into exploitation, and perhaps this is the true story of cryptocurrency.