I believe everyone has already seen many records from Consensus HK over the past two weeks, so I won’t repeat them. In summary, most sentiments revolve around disappointment in the industry, a lack of visible breakthroughs, and the belief that we are already in a bear market. At the same time, that week was also a grand feast for P traders and KOLs. The biggest impact of the Hong Kong trip on me was the notion of legitimacy—those P traders and KOLs who work even harder than funds and entrepreneurs rightfully earned their rewards. They are surrealist investors who always manage to put the perfect finishing touch on every trade. Many P traders follow a principle of “90% or BTC, 10% active SOL positions,” always maintaining PVP readiness and sprinting. No matter how much profit they make each time, they stick to this allocation. Due to the meme wave and attention economy, this became the hottest topic in HK.

Kaito’s victory has ushered in a golden era for KOLs, where attention is now priced and can be quickly monetized. In stark contrast, the entire Ethereum ecosystem appears lifeless, its hollow and idealistic narratives finding no followers—a brutal reality check. So-called value investors are deeply trapped, long-term holders are turning bearish on Ethereum and shifting toward Solana. Many fail to see the hunger level of Ethereum entrepreneurs (compared to Solana, where a developer seeking connections in the L2/Ethereum space typically waits two weeks, while Solana Foundation usually completes integration, creates group chats, and starts discussions within two days). It seems like the dominant forces in crypto have deliberately shaped this environment—where in this mini bull cycle, long-term holders are discouraged, while short-term traders receive better rewards. However, in my view, this is a wake-up call for industry leaders like Ethereum, highlighting its inaction or lack of crisis awareness. The market is sounding the alarm.

The Rise of Short-Termism: The Collapse of Industry Values

At the same time, as everyone sheds their disguises and looks to make a final big profit before the bull market ends, many have abandoned ideals and beliefs, turning into emotionless arbitrage machines. No one cares about the industry’s future anymore—everyone just wants to make one last round of money in this cycle. Exchanges, in order to support their own token prices and chains, are willing to forgo listing standards to list projects they have invested in. Top-tier projects treat TGE as their last cash-out opportunity. Market makers have become the undefeated champions of this cycle, leveraging BD and branding to secure free allocations, and in a declining VC token market, an average mid-sized MM can secure nearly $40 million in net revenue. Everything seems to be shifting from long-term vision to short-term bubbles and speculation, and these behaviors are having a profound impact on entrepreneurs who are still committed to building.

This moment feels eerily similar to 2018 and 2022—cold, very cold. Industry participants leave because they see no hope or recognition in the space. Everyone is trying every possible way to survive through the bear market. For those still building and working, this is an incredibly painful period, requiring unwavering conviction and values. Trump reshaped the core values of the United States, and in the crypto industry, Trump Token has triggered a wave of nihilistic investing. When both builders and speculators see this as a fast and short-term game, everyone focuses on how much cash they can take out before the “money game” button is pressed.

Summing up the Hong Kong trip, it was a major collapse of industry norms and a formal written judgment on Ethereum. As the most successful entrepreneur in the industry, has he truly steered the industry’s course well? Is he leading the industry toward nihilism?

The Challenges and Transformation of the Ethereum Ecosystem

TL;DR: Founders in Denver’s infrastructure scene are very bearish, while founders in applications and AI are highly bullish.

The trip to Denver revealed many shocking realities. Many founders and developers who have been steadily building for years were suddenly told that the empire was collapsing. They refused to believe it, as the Ethereum ecosystem has long fostered a culture of being taken care of. Fundraising had always been smooth for them, and they had seen lesser projects thrive in speculative token markets. Perhaps they never imagined a day would come when they could no longer secure funding or that their own tokens would crash to zero like any other vaporware. When their runway shrinks to just 6–9 months, they finally realize the urgency of creating products with real revenue and user bases, forcing them to seriously rethink Ethereum’s fundamental problems. Of course, it’s never truly too late, but for these founders, drastic layoffs and a complete rejection of their past beliefs are now necessary. This is an immense challenge, as they must gamble on an uncertain direction while risking everything they have.

According to incomplete statistics, projects deeply embedded in Ethereum and the EVM ecosystem have raised hundreds of billions of dollars, with a combined primary and secondary market valuation exceeding a trillion dollars. Now, they face a critical question: should they stay on Ethereum or leave? Even someone as influential as Lido’s founder, Konstantin, received hundreds of DMs from Ethereum DeFi founders (including Uniswap) the moment he tweeted about establishing a second Ethereum Foundation. This highlights the deep challenges to Ethereum’s consensus.

Another wave of Ethereum ecosystem entrepreneurs has also emerged. These individuals were once the backbone of the industry’s technical advancements, producing widely adopted solutions—whether in TEE, zkTLS, or rollups, they dominated the space. However, many of them are now exhausted. No matter how advanced their protocols are, they see no real entrepreneurial excitement in developing solutions for problems that lack end users and demand. What truly excites them now are the groundbreaking research papers emerging in AI. To be frank, these founders are not a small group, and they are among the few in the industry capable of deep technical work and delivering viable solutions. If a significant number of them choose to leave, I believe Ethereum’s infrastructure development will regress by at least three to five years.

The Fascinating Energy of AI and Web3 Integration

At first, many believed there were no hotspots or meaningful developments in Denver’s infra scene. However, after engaging in daily discussions with 3–4 new AI * Web3 projects, we witnessed the Ethereum community’s enthusiastic embrace of AI and emerging technologies, along with innovative explorations in areas such as DeTraining, Inference, and DePIN. Ethereum is actively adapting to new technological trends and exploring novel application scenarios.

Both capital and entrepreneurs have become the industry’s early visionaries. Paradigm led a $1 billion valuation investment in the Web3 LLM company Nous Research. Groq generated over $1 billion in revenue from Inference over the past year. Openmind, in collaboration with Unitree Robotics, developed RobotAI. DePAI’s open-source product made its debut in Denver. Hyperbolic has become one of the most developer-integrated inference networks in Web3. Additionally, open-source intelligence platforms such as Open Gradient and Pluralis are making strides.

At Ethereum conferences like Denver, smart developers and founders are already helping Web3 fully embrace AI. Everyone is brainstorming how to integrate AI agents and more applications into Web3 environments. The industry has never had an endpoint or a pause. Research and curiosity will always drive builders to push forward.

Openmind, in collaboration with Unitree Robotics, developed RobotAI, and DePAI’s open-source product was showcased in Denver.

Macro-positive Relief and Crypto’s Progression

However, after interacting with most US institutions, the scene is entirely different from Asia. There is strong optimism about the crypto policy environment and the upcoming bull market. The US banking policy to accept crypto asset custody has passed, and soon banks will gradually allow BTC/ETH to be used as collateral, with the possibility of extending this to mining equipment. A clear trend is emerging: a crypto-friendly interest rate environment is on the horizon. The lending rate, previously around 10%, can be adjusted to 3–4%, with even negative interest rates in Japan. This will bring liquidity back into the industry.

Additionally, we are seeing a series of crypto-positive policies in the US. Uniswap and Coinbase are considering designing tokenized securities models, allowing traditional industry investors to better assess and purchase tokens. The regulatory relief in this cycle will far exceed our expectations, making me very optimistic about the macro environment for the next two years.

Many people claim that this bull market is already over, but I disagree. Each bull market is not only supported by the macro market but also driven by crypto’s internal innovation and the emergence of new applications. In this cycle, we haven’t yet seen true innovation, and if that continues, it will be a false bull market. Over the next two years, we can expect more traditional companies, and even entire nations, to join L2 networks, issuing their decentralized networks. This will reignite the growth and value capture of Ethereum’s L1, driven by the prosperity of L2 businesses.

Restructuring Ethereum Governance: Moving Towards Mainstream and Commercialization

On the third day of Denver, I attended ETHGlobal’s Pragma event, where I met several core EF developers who revealed upcoming organizational changes within Ethereum. One of the more interesting figures was @dannyryan, who has earned a strong reputation within the Ethereum core developer community. The newly established @Etherealize will take on the mission of leading Ethereum into a new era, driving its mainstream adoption and commercialization. Additionally, the foundation’s two Co-EDs, Hsiao-Wei @hwwonx and Tomasz @tkstanczak, are both deeply involved in Ethereum’s development. Hsiao-Wei has been working alongside Vitalik since 2016, traveling with him across the globe (as seen in the attached photo from the 2019 Ethereum Hackathon in Beijing, where Hsiao-Wei sat next to Vitalik). Tomasz, the founder of Nethermind, is very familiar with the entire Ethereum ecosystem and, as a third-party dev shop, understands the sustainable commercial logic needed to help Ethereum find a balance between infrastructure and commercialization.

The person sitting next to Vitalik in the 2019 Ethereum Hackathon evaluation day photo is Co-ED Hsiao-Wei @hwwonx.

In fact, Vitalik faces the same problem as all entrepreneurs: as the team grows, it becomes harder to manage. Friends who understand personality traits might try to analyze Vitalik’s journey, from his Milady meme Twitter avatar to his disappointment with crypto OGs, and then switching to the half-human, half-bird Druid character from World of Warcraft. This represents his internal reconciliation with the community’s voices, which led him to formally announce Ethereum’s new team structure the next day. Ethereum might be the first truly decentralized organization and economy in history. We should show more tolerance toward this man, who has just turned thirty. While he hasn’t had particularly outstanding performance in organizational management and Ethereum’s application commercialization, who else could lead this organization and create more brilliance and results? Perhaps Ethereum could learn from Elon Musk and establish a DOGE committee, responsible for firing irresponsible developers and figureheads. The key issue that Vitalik faces is determining how to measure contribution value and KPIs. Additionally, providing core internal developers with clearer value propositions and development needs, offering the management team a more specific roadmap, and setting time-limited management requirements could help Ethereum return to community-driven and democratically elected governance. As the cornerstone of Web3, Ethereum is also actively exploring Layer2 solutions and technological upgrades to meet the growing application demands.

There is No Savior, Vitalik Needs to Encourage More Application Entrepreneurs

For Ethereum, is technical development really that important right now? Perhaps it was important in 2017, 2020, and 2022, but now applications should be more important than technology. The next important milestone for Ethereum, which will also give the biggest confidence to ecosystem builders, will be whether Ethereum, as the world’s computer, can produce epoch-making super applications.

Many people regard Vitalik as the savior of Ethereum, and Ethereum as the savior of the industry, but there has never been any true savior. Everyone should be a savior. In my previous post, I called on all organizations that have gained substantial capital accumulation and stable business income in this industry to contribute to the future of the industry. They can donate to Ethereum’s open-source organizations or create better opportunities for young people in the industry. In addition to supporting with grants, many entrepreneurs still need financing support. In this wave of the altcoin bloodbath, the already shaky Asian funds have been hit hard, and many funds have begun to shut down or transition to secondary operations. The entrepreneurial environment in Asia is tough. If we lose VC investments from Asian institutions, the industry will become even more fragile.

I still call for Ethereum’s ecosystem organizations to never lack the support of early-stage venture capital. I suggest that all exchanges allocate 1-2% of their revenue each year to support Ethereum’s open-source ecosystem development and innovation.

Will Ethereum disappear in the next bull-bear cycle? I don’t think so. It is the most successful decentralized organization in the Web3 industry. We should not let it fail. Its failure would mean that the hundreds of billions to trillions in talent and project assets built on Ethereum’s commercial empire would have to start over, and the entire industry would fall into a 5-10 year regression, meaning many OGs would exit.

Please hold onto your Ethereum. If you think in terms of 10 years, when you look back at what happened from 2020 to 2030, you might find that the doubts and noise of 2025 will seem insignificant. How to judge value and innovation from a 10-year perspective is definitely a priority worth considering.

Optimists are often correct. In times of difficulty and turbulence, it is even more important to maintain confidence and optimism.

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