Reflection and Exploration of the Crypto Market Narrative

In the previous text, we predicted and analyzed the demand-side growth that may be brought about by the clearing wave, discussing what the true encryption narrative should be in the overall paradigm shift.

The crypto world originates from a utopian-like idea, a collective creation that is continuously passed on through belief. Belief can bring boundless passion, and we need to discover infinite belief amidst the fractures.

What kind of narrative does the crypto market need?

After the wave of liquidation, the crypto market seems like a wooden barrel leaking everywhere.

We have discovered the charm of donation governance, but the treasury has become a private vault for the team, and the incubation plan has turned into a production line for capital.

We are starting to expand our incremental users, but users are facing countless Ponzi schemes and zero-value projects.

We focus on the security audit of contracts, but countless incidents of asset theft, project runaways, and liquidity drying up are still occurring.

We want to improve product retention, but new users are faced with countless nested dolls and lock-ups, which is "true retention".

We shouted the slogan of the metaverse, the market exploded, and everyone claimed to be working on the metaverse.

The project team is not working, but composing poetry.

There has been too much bloodshed here, and Crypto Natives prefer to call this place the "dark forest".

A new order seems to declare: "If you want to take this road, leave a toll for passage." The crypto market will be fully financialized, showcasing the power of free markets to the world. This power allows things to quickly self-heal and evolve, exhibiting anti-fragility. At the same time, a large number of projects and entrepreneurs rapidly perish in the cycle of free competition and rapid iteration.

Being in this "crypto community", I feel excited but also a bit confused.

"Grand Narrative" Reflection

Jean-François Lyotard introduced the term "meta-narrative" in "The Postmodern Condition." A "meta-narrative" can explain everything and points to the future of all social issues. In short, it critiques the legitimacy and rationality of science in narratives. This makes me rethink the narrative of the crypto market.

Language not only reflects context but also ideological structures and power.

In the market-driven global economy, the value of postmodern knowledge lies in its efficiency and profitability. "Postmodern knowledge" can be understood colloquially as many hype stories throughout modern history, and the "metaverse" may be one of them.

This critique exists everywhere in the market, and every judgment we make is an analytical choice regarding the "meta-narrative." We question what true demand is and what is pseudo-demand. We are clear about what is a story and what can be realized? These details are all reflected in the token prices of the crypto market.

Today, we do not prescribe a remedy, but choose to expose those things that cannot be seen through mainstream discourse, giving these silent phenomena a measure. Only after that can we calm down and reflect when the market experiences FOMO. What we need to do is:

"Find yourself."

narrative above narrative

Lyotard believed that as capital operations increasingly became the main form of human social development, "knowledge" gradually degenerated into a kind of capital.

In this state, the authenticity of "knowledge" itself is greatly discounted. When knowledge is no longer trustworthy, the "narratives" in people's social interactions also lose their credibility.

This criticism is not aimed at replacing the outdated order, but rather at finding a crack to lead individuals back to reality (ensuring that Web3 builders remain clear-headed), and to ensure that the new order is not chaotic (ensuring that the narratives in the crypto market stem from genuine endogenous demand).

If we know nothing about the society in which "knowledge" exists, we cannot understand what "knowledge" is, let alone know what problems its development and dissemination are facing today.

Just like what Satoshi Nakamoto published in 2008 in "Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System." In just 9 pages of text, Nakamoto explained what "knowledge" (Bitcoin) is and its place in the society it exists in.

As of today, 14 years have passed, and encryption has stepped onto the world mainstream stage. The entire world is focusing on this "monster". With more and more capital pouring in, we should stay clear-headed and calm, and think about what our "knowledge" really is?

It can be seen from Vitalik Buterin's blog that his mindset has been changing. Do the majority of decentralized believers still remember what our "knowledge" is and what position "knowledge" holds in society now?

"Knowledge" has already become a commodity, resource, and war, but Lyotard splits it into scientific knowledge and narrative knowledge. For example, mathematics must count, but why count? In fact, it is not necessary to know; mathematics only cares about counting. We are educated that mathematics can lead to truth, mathematics can turn into Code, Code is Law.

The crypto market is filled with countless "narrative knowledge" and "scientific knowledge," which combine to form a "grand narrative." This "grand narrative" naturally becomes a "consensus," as the distinction between the two is like the saying that many voices can melt gold.

We often discuss in the primary market which projects can survive the bull and bear cycles, which is equivalent to questioning which narratives are built upon narratives? Are they truly "scientific knowledge"?

Explore the boundaries of "grand narratives" with "change and information" and "criticism and skepticism."

Gavin Wood stated in an interview that Web3 is somewhat like the home computer revolution of the early 1980s. While significant progress has been made in computing power, there is still a considerable gap in higher-level elements. These gaps are mainly reflected in software, software libraries, development toolkits, services, and integrations.

He emphasized that the implementation of Web3 requires a lot of foundational education, and the world must revolve around a new way of doing things. This is not something that can be accomplished in the short term; it requires time and patience.

Discover the fracture in the crypto market, learn to educate the market.

Recently, a very important criterion in our investment methodology is whether the project and team have the ability to educate the market.

Consciously educating the market through one's own products is essentially an insight into the "grand narrative" and represents a filtered action. We focus on discovering whether those backgrounds truly exist in the market, rather than simply listing comparison charts and checking boxes.

I have always been skeptical about the high volatility of the crypto market, trying to find the problem in "Is the over-collateralization of DeFi really the best solution?" I found that we need credit assessment models, as well as a deconstruction and reconstruction of identity, we need regulation, we need trust, we need too much.

Taleb wrote in "The Black Swan of Cairo": "Change is information." It is precisely this plethora of changes that has created anti-fragility in this market, an endless stream of information. However, I do not believe this is telling us that volatility is rational. Information provides us with a boundary that allows individuals to have a space that accommodates marginalized ways of thinking.

In this new order, we need to be wary of "grand narratives" similar to Lyotard in order to better utilize the "anti-fragility" and "change as information" characteristics of the crypto market to truly construct a new order. Only then can we slow down.

Fear cannot change the world; the core of Web3 is not only a technical issue but also an educational issue.

What we can do is attempt to give a "name" to those silent phenomena from the warnings, to break the collective illusion, rather than falling into some ultimate indication brought by a certain discourse structure.

Vitalik's blog has had a profound impact on me. I feel fortunate that the crypto world has someone like him who is always exploring the boundaries of the "grand narrative."

Try to discover fractures as much as possible, rather than tokenizing everything, so that Web3 and the crypto market can truly be accepted by the public.

We need to question all the current "grand narratives", perhaps there is no such thing as modern and postmodern at all.

Because in the crypto market we can discuss finance, history, politics, art, and even the grand fate of humanity, etc. All of this constitutes what we call "consensus".

However, not all consensus represents truth; people assume that a statement of truth must necessarily lead to consensus.