In a widely circulated article, Aevo co-founder and CTO Ken Chan reflects on his eight years in the crypto industry with deep disillusionment, describing it as a "waste" of his life. Initially drawn by libertarian ideals and the vision of decentralized financial systems like Bitcoin enabling private, borderless wealth, Chan now believes the space has devolved into the "largest casino in human history"—a massive, speculative gambling arena masked as innovation.

He argues that despite idealistic rhetoric, the industry's incentives have prioritized speculation over substantive progress. New Layer 1 chains, DEXs, and meme platforms often serve as zero-sum gambling mechanisms rather than tools for genuine financial improvement. Chan admits to profiting from the system but expresses disgust at his role in fostering an ecosystem where high-market-cap tokens with no real users thrive, contradicting sustainable economic principles.

He warns that the normalization of financial nihilism and get-rich-quick mentalities poses long-term risks to social mobility and value creation. While he still believes in crypto’s original vision, Chan concludes that the industry has lost its way, and he now prioritizes being "right" over chasing profits.

<html><head></head><body>Editor's Note: This weekend, an article by Ken Chan(@kenchangh), Co-founder and CTO of Aevo, went viral on the internet. The title of the article is "I Wasted 8 Years of My Life in Crypto".Ken Chan's attitude in the article is extremely negative. He believes the industry has lost its idealism and turned into the largest super casino in human history with the most participants, and he feels disgusted for having contributed to this casino. Although we do not agree with Ken Chan's views, and many practitioners have refuted them after the article went viral, objectively speaking, his statements do reveal deep-seated issues in the current industry, such as loss of faith and collapse of values.The following is the original content of Ken Chan's article, compiled by Odaily Planet Daily.<div><img style="max-width:100%;overflow:hidden;" src="https://d1x7dwosqaosdj.cloudfront.net/images/2025-12/e5a38956cbc148b3931b0b452c35f18a.png" alt=""></div><h1>The Initial Motivation</h1>When I was a teenager, I was already a very politically motivated person. Among all the books that made me more radical, the ones that influenced me the most were actually the works of Ayn Rand (such as "The Fountainhead" and "Atlas Shrugged"). In 2016, I was an aspiring libertarian and even donated to Gary Johnson. Besides my strong Randian beliefs, I also loved computer programming, so cryptocurrency was a natural fit for me. The spirit of cypherpunk attracted me. The idea of Bitcoin as a private wealth bank fascinated me—being able to carry a billion dollars in my mind across borders has always been an incredibly powerful concept to me.However, over time, I felt I lost my initial purpose in the crypto industry. After diving into this field full-time, the enticing early promises about the transformative power of cryptocurrency gradually faded. I became disillusioned with the target users and who we were truly serving. I completely misunderstood who the real users of cryptocurrency were and mistook propaganda for reality. Cryptocurrency claimed to decentralize the financial system, and I bought into it completely, but in reality, it is just a super system for speculation and gambling, a mirror of the real economy.Reality hit me like a truck. I wasn't building a new financial system at all; I was building a casino, a casino that doesn't call itself a casino, but it is the largest, 24/7, most participatory casino ever created by our generation. Part of me hoped I could at least be proud of spending my entire twenties building this casino, but another part of me felt I completely wasted my twenties. I wasted my life on this—but at least, I made a lot of money from it.<h1>Watch What They Do, Not What They Say</h1>Cryptocurrency is a confusing thing. On one hand, you hear proponents say they want to completely replace the existing financial system with on-chain systems. I can still imagine that world—your bank account holds only USDC or Bitcoin, and you can send a billion dollars to anyone in the world in seconds. This vision is still powerful, and I still agree with it.But the incentives have completely distorted the direction of reality. In practice, all market participants are happy to throw money into funding the next so-called "Layer 1" (Aptos, Sui, Sei, ICP, etc.). The only winner of the 2020 Layer 1 war was Solana, which fueled a strong speculative drive to compete for the fourth spot (after Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, ??), supporting a market cap of hundreds of billions of dollars.But did this really move us closer to the ideal new financial system? Despite VCs writing 5,000-word essays trying to convince you, the answer is no. This didn't create a new system; in fact, it burned through the funds of everyone (both retail and VCs), making everyone in the new system poorer.I'm not just targeting Layer 1s. I could cite countless similar examples: spot DEXs, perpetual futures DEXs, prediction markets, meme platforms, etc. The fierce competition in these tracks does not substantially lead to a better financial system. Contrary to what VCs say, we don't need to build casinos on Mars.<h1>The Gamblification of Economic Models</h1>If I said I had no financial motivation when I first joined the crypto industry, I would be lying. As a reader, you might think it's a bit hypocritical for me to decide to leave the industry after making enough money. Yes, maybe I am hypocritical, but maybe I'm just disgusted with myself for contributing to this quagmire of financialization and gamblification.Normalizing zero-sum behavior of "quickly making money off each other" is not a way to create long-term wealth. It seems like it is, but it's not. Eight years in crypto have completely destroyed my ability to recognize sustainable business models. Here, you don't need a successful business or product to make money. This industry has a long list of tokens with high market caps and zero users—this completely defies the logic of how the real world operates. If you want to bring value to customers, not just gambling + entertainment (which is what casinos do), these zero-sum business models simply don't work.<h1>Conclusion</h1>I used to think "financial nihilism" was a cute and harmless concept. I thought it was okay to keep pushing zero-sum games onto the next generation. I have no doubt that Bitcoin will eventually reach $1 million one day, but that has nothing to do with the financial games the industry is creating.This industry mindset is extremely toxic, and I believe it will lead to a long-term collapse of social mobility for the younger generation. You can already see it happening, and we must have the courage to resist these meaningless games.CMS Holdings once famously said: "Are you here to make money? Or are you here to prove you're right?"This time, I choose to prove I'm right.</body></html>

Aevo Co-founder's Long Post Criticizes the Industry: I Wasted 8 Years of My Life in Crypto

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The author critiques the growing influence of prediction markets, arguing they distort truth and social reality rather than reflect it. While proponents claim these markets, fueled by real-money bets, offer a more accurate alternative to traditional polls and expert opinions, the author contends they operate like a Keynesian “beauty contest,” where participants bet on what others will think rather than on objective truth. This dynamic, combined with a lack of natural hedgers, creates a system dominated by insiders and doomed to collapse once “dumb money” is exhausted.

The piece highlights how large bets can manipulate outcomes by influencing media coverage and public perception, turning probability signals into self-fulfilling prophecies. This undermines social stability, as the markets incentivize disruption rather than security. The author posits that society is reaching a peak in “gambling culture” and predicts a eventual rejection of hyper-financialization in favor of real-world experiences and deeper human connections. Ultimately, to “short” prediction markets is to go long on human agency and life itself—choosing to step away from the virtual casino and back into the sunlight.

<html><head></head><body>I am not a gambler, nor do I understand the thrill of watching candlestick charts with a racing heart. But when CNN and CNBC announced that they were integrating digital odds from prediction markets into their news broadcasts, I felt as if we were being played by a new kind of "truth."Crypto bros are evangelizing: traditional polls will be replaced, experts are the high priests of the old era, and only the odds built with real money can reflect the wisdom of the crowd and the truth of reality. However, the trading logic fostered by prediction markets aligns with the "beauty contest" described by Keynes—you no longer care about who is the most beautiful, you only care about "who others think is the most beautiful." The very concept of beauty is "deconstructed," much like Duchamp's urinal placed in an art museum. Prediction markets will continue to accelerate, lose control, until more and more清醒的人 start to "short" this frenzy, to "short" the narrative of prediction markets itself.<div><img style="max-width:100%;overflow:hidden;" src="https://d1x7dwosqaosdj.cloudfront.net/images/2025-12/a216648c3b684c8e9d1484db3736f1f4.png" alt=""></div>Exchanges and casinos are two distinctly separate worlds. Farmers worry about falling grain prices, downstream food processing plants worry about rising prices, so they come to the derivatives market to find someone willing to take on the risk. Because their needs differ, trading can flow.Yet, in the context of prediction markets, such natural hedgers do not exist. This results in a market where, aside from market makers, there are only smart money with insider information and gamblers destined to be harvested: if a counterparty with an information advantage is willing to trade at that price, the trade is likely a loss for you. Once the "dumb money" is exhausted, liquidity quickly dries up. Since insider trading is allowed to exist on a large scale, prediction markets, without a constant influx of gamblers, are an unsustainable new Ponzi scheme.In natural systems, the reading on a thermometer does not change the temperature; no matter how we bet, Halley's Comet will still return on schedule. But in social systems, probability itself has the power to "distort the stance of reality"; the greed of the observer can alter the observed reality.Ethereum can ensure the "economic security" of its blockchain network through slashing mechanisms in staking, but prediction markets completely fail to ensure "social security." On the contrary, they even reward destruction.If a billionaire heavily bets on an extreme event, they are effectively funding that outcome and using the market's probability signal to create panic or consensus. Massive capital can form a tremendous potential energy, coercing media coverage in reverse to influence public confidence, forcibly collapsing an outcome full of uncertainty into the form the bettor desires.<div><img style="max-width:100%;overflow:hidden;" src="https://d1x7dwosqaosdj.cloudfront.net/images/2025-12/a2b8a6cbc14947408c1eb38c01ac1d02.png" alt=""></div>Kaito, which aimed to be an information distribution center, ended up becoming a broadcast station outputting only noise. Prediction markets tout themselves as telescopes to glimpse the future, yet they cannot stop themselves from becoming billboards that manufacture the future.Many believe that, with relaxed regulations and an influx of capital, prediction markets are inevitably the next big trend. But things always go too far.People are gradually realizing that we are at the peak of the "gambling culture" cycle.Total financialization only brings nihilism. People will eventually grow tired of this high-frequency dopamine stimulation and return to the experience of life. We begin to turn off the screens, go hiking, touch real soil, read physical books, and build deep relationships beyond the screen.<div><img style="max-width:100%;overflow:hidden;" src="https://d1x7dwosqaosdj.cloudfront.net/images/2025-12/436b60c2df10433fbc8db7f42eda9902.png" alt=""></div>"Shorting" the prediction market is not just going long on "human agency," it is also going long on "life."Since we cannot return to the past, perhaps the only way out is to stop wasting energy at the virtual betting table and turn to step into the sunlight.</body></html>

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