When we say "encryption is no longer viable," what are we really trying to say?

Author: danny

I typed my first line of smart contract code during the ICO craze of 2017. As a veteran Builder who has lived to 2026 and experienced the "September 4th" crackdown, the DeFi Summer, the NFT frenzy, the FTX crash, and countless "crypto is dead" pronouncements, I have seen countless projects "crypto" in a million ways.

I've discovered that in this long history of Crypto , the definition of "winning" has never been how many billions your FDV reached on TGE that day, or whether you achieved a grand slam. Rather, it's whether you're still fighting against the entire world for your own sense of sovereignty.

Any team with even a little technical background or resources can issue a coin at least once. Even if the code is forked, even if the white paper is written in GPT, as long as it's launched during a bull market, or relies on someone's connections, or even if your name is Trump, anyone can become a short-lived "unicorn."

So, for the project team, what exactly does "winning" mean? Does it mean you issued a token, and years later, your protocol is still running? Your contract is still generating real interactions? Or does it mean you've fought against something?

Ultimately, your "coin issuance" mindset—that desire to make quick money (as @0xPickleCati stated)—is the real culprit preventing you from building a great protocol.

It's not that tokens enable "decentralization," but rather that tokens are needed for confrontation.

P.S.: The cover of this article features Jeff Chang's "Faith." I was listening to this song on repeat while writing this long article. If you're interested, you can find it and listen to it (I recommend the off-key version from "I Am a Singer").

1. What are we saying when we say "encryption is no longer working"?

During every bear market, if you go to a dinner party or go home for the Chinese New Year, you'll always hear this kind of talk:

• "Is your circle dead?"
• "I see US stocks are hitting new highs, why are yours still falling?"
• "Is this something only used in the park?"
• "Precious metals have gone crazy? And you guys are still standing still?"

If you, as a Builder, feel ashamed when you hear these words, or try to explain "we're doing Layer 3 to improve TPS," then you can leave. You don't understand why you're here at all.

Are we comparing who can outgrow gold, crude oil, Nvidia, and Google? If the goal is to maximize asset appreciation, shouldn't you change your surname to Trump? Buy a Nasdaq ETF? The Seven Sisters? They're not only more stable, but also legally protected!

Are we competing on who can write databases faster? Don't be ridiculous. For efficiency, centralized products crush everything. Alipay's TPS is ten thousand times that of Ethereum; AWS's cost is one hundred millionth of on-chain storage. To put it bluntly, the future of decentralization, as it has been developing for 10 years, still relies on AWS. If your initial goal in developing Web3 was to create a "more efficient" internet, or to bring traditional liquidity onto the blockchain, then you've already lost from day one.

Every time Crypto reignites, or rather, Satoshi Nakamoto wrote the genesis block, it was never for "faster, cheaper." It was for rebellion.

It's to resist the world's growing inequality. It's to resist the power to arbitrarily freeze your bank accounts. It's to resist the tech giants who sell the data you create without giving you a single penny. It's to resist the central banks that recklessly print money and dilute the fruits of your labor.

The so-called "inefficiency" (gas fees, private key management, node confirmation) is a tax we must pay for "fairness" and "sovereignty".

As a project owner, you must be acutely aware that your product must possess a characteristic that centralized giants absolutely cannot provide—censorship resistance and independent sovereignty.

• If the answer is "no," it means your users are just speculating, and you are merely an inefficient alternative.
• If the answer is "yes", it means you have built a truly decentralized path .
• Because Tencent cannot promise never to ban accounts, but you can.
• Because banks cannot guarantee 24-hour cross-border transfers that arrive instantly and are not intercepted, but you can.
• Because game companies can change drop rates at any time, but your smart contract cannot.

So, Builders, stop worrying about TPS. Think about how to return power to users and incorporate open source into anti-monopoly code. This is the only battlefield where you can win against the Web2 giants, and this is the true meaning of blockchain.

For the sake of freedom, both can be sacrificed. If not for the fight for freedom, why would you go to any battlefield?

Second, the real death isn't a drop in cryptocurrency prices, nor is it merely the collapse of those false prosperity indicators; it's when you stop fighting back.

Having grasped this underlying logic, let's re-examine "death".

In the depths of a bear market, when your token price has plummeted by 95%, and when all that's left in your Discord are activists and pornographic bots, you might feel like this is hell, this is death.

No, true death often occurs in seemingly prosperous moments, at the moment you surrender your soul to please something.

2.1 When the "Dragon Slayer" Becomes a "Poor-Quality Web2"

We criticize metrics like TVL, transaction volume, and daily active users as "hype indicators of false prosperity." Now, let's dig deeper: why are project teams obsessed with these metrics? Because pursuing these metrics is the safest, easiest, and least "confrontational" path.

This kind of death often begins quietly, disguised as "pragmatism," "compliance," or "optimizing user experience."

• "In order to get listed on an exchange, we took the tokens that were originally meant for users and used them as protection fees for the exchange?"
• "To make it easier for users to access the site, let's use a centralized server to store the data for now, and we'll talk about decentralized storage later."
• "In order to suppress our competitors and to cater to the needs of the exchanges, we must start incentivizing inflated traffic and buying negative articles."

One step back leads to another.

When you sacrifice "decentralization" for "efficiency," you don't get a better Web3 product, but a inferior Web2 product . You inherit all the disadvantages of blockchain (slow, expensive, complex, difficult to use), but lose its only advantage (permissionless, immutable, censorship resistant).

At this point, your project becomes what's known as "Web 2.5"—a monstrosity that's neither efficient nor free. That's true death. You're no longer the rebel trying to overthrow the old order; you've become a clumsy imitator of the behemoth you once tried to resist.

You realize that you're not so cyberpunk anymore, or you're not at all.

2.2 “Can’t be evil” vs “Don’t be evil”

Why is it said that "stopping the fight" means death?

Crypto's core value proposition is built on "distrust." Because distrusting everyone means you need to assume the external environment is hostile: you need to assume someone will question you, someone will censor you, someone will freeze you, someone will shut you down.

As a Builder, your mission is to build a system that will still function even if these assumptions hold true .

• If your DEX requires KYC (Know Your Customer) verification for trading due to regulatory pressure, what is the fundamental difference between you and Nasdaq?
• If you build an L2 system where the sorter is always in your own hands, and you can cut in line or refuse transactions at any time, then what is the essential difference between you and Alipay?
• If the item drop rates in your GameFi system are based on a database that you can change in your backend at any time, then what is the fundamental difference between you and Tencent Games?

Google's motto is "Don't be evil," but that depends on their conscience and compassion; Bitcoin's logic is "Can't be evil," which is determined at the code level.

When you abandon that adversarial design of "even if the whole world wants to shut me down, they can't," and instead seek a mild compromise with the old world, your protocol loses its reason for existence. Why should users endure high gas fees and the risk of losing their private keys to use you? Just to see your so-called "decentralized" manifesto on x?

Come on, bro, wake up—you were once that boy who fought against the evil dragon with a wooden sword in hand!

III. The Alchemist S's Manual: How to Transform a "Mercenary" into a "Military" and Make Him Your M?

I know what you're thinking. "Old Lamp, I understand everything you're saying: resistance, sovereignty, non-compromise... but if we don't have point-based missions and high APY, nobody will come! How do we get a cold start?"

This brings us to the core pain point of Web3 startups: your startup capital usually comes from "enemies" (speculators), but your final line of defense must be guarded by "comrades" (believers).

Many projects die because the founders are mentally unstable: either they arrogantly reject all speculators, causing the project to starve, or they fawn over speculators and are eventually drained dry.

You need to transform yourself into an S, clarifying at each stage of this spiral upwards which M you are dealing with, and how to transform mercenary capital into missionary consensus.

3.1 Understanding People: The Two Types of People You Encounter

A. The Mercenaries – They are the rational profit-seekers of the Pump and Dump Church.

• Characteristics: Large amount of funds, sensitive to slippage, no loyalty, and uses scripts for operation.
• Behavior: They go wherever the APY is high. If you give them subsidies, they come; if you stop giving subsidies, they withdraw their investment faster than the speed of light.
• Your misconception: You think they're using your product. No, they're mining your cryptocurrency. You think those impressive daily active user numbers are growth, but actually, you're selling your tokens at a loss.
• Tactical value: They are excellent stress testers and cold-start fuel . Use them to test the security of your contracts, and use their money to create an early wealth effect (Attention). This M's love is a bit passionate and has a time limit, so never fall in love with them, and don't expect them to love you back.

B. The Missionaries – These are the people with an IQ of 5/150 who (truly?) identify with your narrative, cultural, or technological vision.

• Characteristics: They may not have a large amount of funding, have a high tolerance for criticism, will spontaneously answer questions in the community, and will defend you on Twitter.
• Behavior: They use your product because it's "easy to use," "cool," or "represents justice," not just because "it's profitable."
• Tactical value: They are your moat. When the price of the coin drops by 90%, those still discussing product improvement directions in Discord are the people who have been spoiled by the market.

3.2 Alchemy: ENLC Four-Step Transformation Method

How do you transform mercenaries who only know how to dig and sell into devoted missionaries? You need to construct a spiral model of ENLC (Emotion-Narrative-Flow-Consensus) in your mind. (The author is obsessed with some obscure cone theory; see: https://x.com/agintender/status/2013595231027900486?s=46 )

Step 1: Emotion – Igniting the Fuse

• Objective: To attract attention.
• Approach: Don't start by talking about industry size or technical details. Talk about "anger" or "greed."
• Tell the mercenaries, "This is your last chance to get rich quick." (Greed)
• Tell the missionary, "The bank is stealing your money, and we have a plan to retaliate." (Angry)

A project without emotion is like bread without yeast—it won't rise. Slaying a dragon is an example of that emotion.

Step Two: Narrative – Encapsulating Value

• Objective: To give the funds entering the market a reason.
• Approach: Narrative is not a lie, but a "falsifiable grand vision".
• If you're working on L2, don't talk about "cheaper transaction fees," talk about "Ethereum's private haven." (Doesn't that sound a bit like A16Z?!)
• The purpose of the narrative is to make the mercenaries feel that "this is not just a small plate, but a very large one," and to make the missionaries feel that "we are making history."

Narrative is a sieve. It filters out the pure gamblers and leaves those who are willing to listen to the story.

Step 3: Liquidity – Timing of Purchase (The Most Dangerous Step)

• Objective: To cultivate user habits.
• Method: This is your sole purpose for issuing tokens, conducting airdrops, and providing high APY.
• You pay mercenaries to buy their time .
• During this time that you've bought with money, you must relentlessly refine the product and create a path dependency in users.

If you haven't taught users how to use your product without paying before subsidies stop (before liquidity dries up), then that's it.

Step 4: Consensus – Solidification

• Objective: To establish inertia.
• Solution: When subsidies stop and the price of the coin drops, who remains?
• The behavioral habits that remain are consensus; the infrastructure that remains is consensus.

Consensus is a product of alchemy. It is the "behavior" that persists even after "profit" has disappeared.

3.3 A soul-searching question: Has your alchemy succeeded?

In the quiet of the night, during moments of wisdom, ask yourself these three questions:

• "Stripping Test": If I stop all token incentives (points, airdrops, mining) tomorrow, will anyone still open my DApp?
• Topic Quiz: In my community, are there more people discussing "coin price/exchange listing/airdrop" or "product/governance"?
• "Distribution Test": When I distribute airdrops, am I rewarding "capital" or "contribution"?

A harsh reality is that no mercenary group in history has ever been happy to see its lord dominate the world.

Mercenaries can help you conquer cities and seize territory (play the game), but only missionaries (IQ 5 or 150) can accompany you to expand your territory.

IV. What exactly did those project owners who navigated multiple cycles do right?

Finally, let's talk about mindset. In a bear market, watching other low-quality projects increase 100 times in a day and other projects achieve massive profits, while your hard-earned code goes unread, the loneliness and self-doubt can be fatal.

Based on personal observation, those founders who survived all share the following characteristics:

1. Reject "pseudo-diligence" and return to "first principles".

Many project teams are frantically "making waves" during the bear market: today they're jumping on the bandwagon with a blockchain game, tomorrow they're rebranding themselves as an AI project, and the day after that they're launching a SocialFi project. This is called "pseudo-diligence." You may seem very busy, but you're actually avoiding the core issues. A true builder will ask themselves: What irreplaceable problem does my protocol actually solve?

Don't expect to forge a different path by following the footsteps of predecessors. In a sailing race, the second-place runner simply mimicking the first-place runner's movements won't allow you to surpass them. Is it even worthwhile to attempt this when you're still small? (Or perhaps use AI simulation.)

2. Establish "transparent contracts," not "price promises"; save every bullet: it's hard to go from extravagance to frugality.

Never promise a price. As a project team, your promises should be: "We will always be transparent, we will always deliver code, and we will always maintain the security of the protocol." When the price drops, if you can honestly tell the community: "Hey, the market is bad, our vault can last for 3 years, and we will continue developing this feature," you'll find that trust is a more expensive asset than liquidity. Consensus always cycles.

Don't spend money extravagantly. Those who conquer the world don't need yachts, luxury cars, or glamorous models. Save on unnecessary expenses, take the bus that requires waiting, and walk the longest distance. Your inner worth doesn't need Patek Philippes or Ferraris to enhance it.

3. Endure loneliness, avoid unnecessary disruptions, and enjoy the "benefits of construction."

Bull markets are the noisiest times. Investors will urge you to launch your own coin, exchanges will urge you to list your own, and users will urge you to pump the price. It's hard to calm down and write a good underlying architecture. Bear markets are a gift from God to builders. Only when nobody cares about you can you experiment at low cost, recruit employees who are truly passionate about technology (not speculators who are there for stock options), and avoid making unnecessary mistakes, focusing instead on creating value.

4. Self-discipline is a manifestation of physical and mental health.

You'll find that project founders who navigate through economic cycles generally maintain excellent physical condition. It's not because they're exceptionally talented, or because they eat and sleep well; rather, it's because they hold themselves to high standards. These standards refer to deliberate practice combined with consistent effort over time.

People who are tough on themselves are usually good at their jobs.

V. Conclusion: To those "fools" who remain at the card table

This process is extremely painful. You will be seen as an outsider, ridiculed for not keeping up with the "hot topics," and treated like a pushover by the agency. You will experience team turmoil filled with betrayal, unpredictable hacking attacks, and the ever-present shadow of regulatory oversight.

But if you survive, you will gain more than just wealth; you will gain the power to define a new way of collaborating. The code you build will become the law of the future digital society; the mechanisms you design will become bridges of trust between strangers.

The crypto world has never lacked smart people—those who are extremely rational, extremely self-interested, and ready to cash out and leave at any moment. What it lacks are "fools." Those are the kind of fools who know the road ahead is long and difficult, who know that doing "real work" is far less lucrative than "market manipulation," yet are still willing to stay at the card table for that sliver of a possibility of changing the world.

That's why I'm here. That's why you're here. The smart people in this world are all working on AI, SaaS, and quantitative trading because that's where efficiency is highest and profits are fastest. Only we "fools" are stubbornly struggling with these inefficient distributed ledgers. But it's precisely this disdain for "efficiency" and obsession with "fairness" that is the spark that allows the crypto industry to be reborn from countless death sentences.

If you are this kind of Builder, welcome to this marathon with no end. Even in the abyss, don't extinguish the torch in your hand. Even surrounded by layers and the core, maintain your untamed spirit in your own way.

We'll meet at the summit when the next real "consensus upgrade" takes place.

—This article is dedicated to all the Builders who still dare to be unrestrained in the darkness, and also to myself.