Author: Gu Yu, ChianCatcher
Suddenly, Token has appeared in the public eye with unprecedented frequency. As the billing unit for various AI products, Token has become widely known due to the explosive popularity of products like OpenClaw, ChatGPT, Deepseek, and others.
On March 24, the National Data Bureau officially determined the Chinese translation of Token as "词元" (Cíyuán), and this news quickly spread across social media platforms like WeChat Moments and Douyin.
For practitioners in the blockchain industry, this is undoubtedly a lamentable event. There was a time when we went to great lengths to explain to outsiders what Token is, talking about decentralization, economic models, and consensus mechanisms. Now, large models have used an almost brutal business logic to complete the popularization of this term among the entire population in just one year.
Getting Token accepted by the masses was once the long-cherished wish of all blockchain practitioners. Now, the vision has come true, but it leaves only awkwardness. This is not only because "this Token is not that Token," but also because the "production relationship revolution" once promised by blockchain is陷入一场前所未有的信仰危机 (plunging into an unprecedented crisis of faith).
I. The Evolution of Token's Semantics: From Verification, Asset to "Computing Power Currency"
In the long history of computer science, Token is not a new word.
In the Web2 era or earlier in the code world, Token was a "pass" for login verification. It is an encrypted string you obtain after logging into a server, proving "you are you." It quietly resides in the browser's Cookie or Headers, lacking social attributes but possessing functional attributes.
In the Web3 world, Token has been endowed with an unprecedented grand narrative. It is translated as "代币" (cryptocurrency token) or "通证" (pass). In the context of blockchain, Token is an asset, a vote, ownership, and the adhesive of a community. We attempted to reconstruct the world through Token, believing it could break the monopoly of tech giants.
In the AI era, Token has become the currency of computing power, a unit of measurement for API calls. It is just another way of saying electricity bill: the more you use, the more you pay; the smarter the model and the longer the output, the more terrifying the Token consumption.
II. The Struggle and Confusion of the Crypto Industry
Blockchain practitioners once had a grand ideal: "Tokenization of Everything," hoping to convert real-world assets, credit, and labor into Tokens for free circulation.
Ironically, AI has indeed achieved a certain form of "tokenization of everything," where text, sound, and video are all broken down into Tokens. For the general public, they don't need to understand cryptographic principles, manage private keys, or worry about losing seed phrases. They just need to input a Prompt, and the model will consume Tokens and spit out Tokens.
Getting Token widely accepted by the masses was once the goal pursued by all blockchain industry practitioners. Now, the vision has come true, but it leaves only awkwardness. This is not only because this Token is not that Token, but also because a large number of practitioners no longer believe in this goal and vision themselves.
In recent years, as a token, Token, due to its permissionless and low-threshold nature, once gained traction in various forms like NFTs and memes, but ultimately, with the collapse of prices, it was labeled by the outside world as "speculation" and "fraud."
At the same time, the endogenous innovation momentum of the blockchain industry is insufficient. Conceptual projects like DePin, DeSci, AI agents, and RWA are progressing slowly with limited落地场景 (landing scenarios). More and more crypto entrepreneurs are stopping their projects in confusion, either waiting for new opportunities or choosing to embrace the AI field, and capital is doing the same.
"Over time, I felt I lost my direction in the cryptocurrency space. After going all-in, the initial transformative appeal of cryptocurrency gradually faded. I became disappointed with the target audience I was truly fighting for. I completely misunderstood the difference between the actual users of cryptocurrency and those it was promoted to. Cryptocurrency claimed it helps decentralize the financial system, which I fully believed, but in reality, it's just a super system for speculation and gambling, merely a replica of the existing economy." In an article that went viral in the crypto industry a few months ago, a former crypto entrepreneur Ken Chan wrote.
This entrepreneur's thoughts are not uncommon in the crypto industry. The struggle of faith and the loss of ideals have continuously impacted crypto entrepreneurs' psychology during this bear market cycle. Although this is not the first time—similar voices emerge every time the market turns bearish—this time, the强势崛起 (strong rise) of AI has made this crisis of faith particularly glaring.
III. The Second Half of Token
This is perhaps the残酷逻辑 (cruel logic) of technological iteration: what truly changes the world is often not the grandest narrative but the most practical tool. Blockchain赋予 (endowed) Token with ideals; AI赋予 Token with rigid demand; blockchain wanted to change the world; AI first changed life.
When AI's Token becomes the new "digital oil," blockchain can only watch its former dream land in a completely unfamiliar way. This misplaced popularization is a victory for AI and the deepest helplessness for blockchain.
But there is good news. In the Web2 world, assets like U.S. Treasury bonds and stocks have also been rapidly tokenized in the past year, becoming one of the token assets with the highest transaction volume growth due to low transaction thresholds and high convenience. When speculative bubbles burst one after another, when financial giants like BlackRock and Fidelity enter the场 (场 - field/market), Token may be returning to the essence of "value carrier."
