I am writing and publishing this article after crossing the border between the UAE and Oman. The border crossing took about an hour and was very smooth.
Over the past 48 hours, I have been completely stunned by the technology involved in this war. It was the first time in my life that I witnessed missiles with my own eyes and watched interception systems destroy them. I also came across some surreal, geeky, and even eerie details, such as reports that Israeli hackers infiltrated a prayer app to send messages to Iranians.
I have always worked in the tech industry, but this was my first firsthand experience with defense systems. It gave me a whole new perspective on the relationship between technology and civilization.
Technology may create the illusion that it is "upgrading" civilization, but in reality, it only amplifies the original direction of civilization—just like leveraged trading (don’t despair yet!).
Allow me to explain.
In a healthy upward cycle of civilization, technology acts as a productivity booster and a tool for collaboration. The early internet felt exactly like that.
I still remember the help I received on various forums 17 years ago when applying to U.S. universities from Beijing: strangers shared advice, essays, and strategies (including how to wisely use early decision admissions). Back then, the concept of closed APIs was unheard of.
But in a downward cycle, technology becomes something else. It turns into a weapon for attention (and sometimes even a real weapon!).
My 60-year-old parents are more addicted to doomscrolling than I am (many of my millennial friends are very worried about our parents). The same internet that once brought us open knowledge is now feeding algorithmic addiction.
This framework explains the internal tension felt by most crypto natives today. It feels like cryptocurrency was invented precisely for the world we live in now, yet everyone feels disappointed.
So, what exactly happened?
I don’t want to repeat the clichés that many OGs have written about "forgetting the cyberpunk spirit" or "getting too close to TradFi." Instead, I want to offer two ideas:
Cryptocurrency was never supposed to be just an asset class. As Evgeny wrote in "The Golden Path," cryptocurrency was meant to be a parallel system—a way to rearchitect finance with fewer boundaries, lower collaboration costs, and flexible exit mechanisms.
Then, things shifted. Legitimacy was placed before us, almost too easily. And once people tasted legitimacy, they wanted more.
Technology, as an amplifier, naturally seeks the path of least resistance, which is: to integrate with existing power structures to further gain this legitimacy.
To be clear, there is nothing wrong with bringing institutions into blockchain infrastructure.
But in the process, we quietly abandoned many of the old dreams. I find myself increasingly returning to those early use cases: small-scale experiments with fully collateralized/under-collateralized loans, Tontine-like pension structures, and even better cross-border savings and exchanges.
These use cases are too boring. They don’t generate headlines, let alone token hype. In the race for maximum attention and valuation, these niche but structurally significant ideas have been marginalized.
Stablecoins perfectly embody this paradox. They fulfill the "internet money" thesis but often serve as a more usable "wrapper" for sovereign currencies rather than a structurally independent monetary system.
By the way, Mega is certainly not blameless either. We still have a long way to go.
In my opinion, many of today’s successes should be called "blockchain" rather than "crypto." If the goal is to serve as middleware for traditional finance, that’s fine. But let’s be honest about it. Backend integration ≠ reinvention.
Enough—price was never the reason for everyone’s disappointment. A sad reality is: between what we "can build" and what we "choose to build," we chose the wrong direction.
Back to the original topic: What does this war tell crypto people?
If we zoom out, civilizations do have cycles. As a Chinese person, I grew up learning about the rise and fall of dynasties. But in all those stories of emperors, generals, and rebels, what ultimately shines through is individual agency.
I don’t know how else to say it, but crypto natives won’t win by being liked.
We initially achieved some success because we constantly identified the shortcomings of the old system and openly criticized them. Then, somehow, any opposition to the establishment was silenced along the way.
In a downward cycle, it’s easy to let technology amplify financialization, manipulation, and superficial growth. It’s harder to use it to quietly build boring infrastructure that can scale real sovereignty.
But developers can still choose which incentives to code. Founders can still decide which use cases to prioritize. More importantly, communities can still choose which values to defend.
If societal sentiment drifts toward insecurity and the pursuit of validation, technology will amplify that insecurity. But if enough people consciously anchor themselves to long-term structures, to collaboration tools rather than attention traps, then perhaps leverage can still work in our favor.
Many friends advised me against crossing the border to Oman, saying the border opens and closes chaotically, and told me to stay in Dubai. Dubai is indeed comfortable. But without verifying it myself, I would never know whether those claims were true or false. As it turned out, the border was quiet, with few people, and the process was smooth.
The macro environment of the world is against us, but in the long run, it might be in our favor.
For us crypto people, it’s never too late to reposition ourselves, verify things firsthand, choose the right things, and, in the most clichéd way, carve out a parallel path.
As my favorite YouTuber says: You can have a very sharp knife, but if the person holding it is a coward, nothing will happen. Let’s sharpen the blade. Let’s not be cowards.
QED.
