From deterministic optimism to deterministic pessimism, the real opportunities lie after disillusionment.

Although most projects tend to imitate and be conservative, real opportunities still lurk on the fringes of "deterministic pessimism."

Written by: Matti

Compiled by: zhouzhou, BlockBeats

Editor’s Note: This article outlines the evolution path of the cryptocurrency industry from early idealism to realism, indicating that we are currently at a critical turning point after disillusionment. Although most projects tend to imitate and be conservative, real opportunities still lie in the fringe areas of "certain pessimism."

The following is the original content (for ease of reading and understanding, the original content has been reorganized):

I bring you another eclectic article inspired by Peter Thiel. As someone who proudly calls themselves a "Thielogian," I often think about the future through the lens of his classic work, "Zero to One." Thiel's analytical framework is flexible and adaptable, capable of dissecting various ideas, trends, and movements. However, sometimes it resembles Wittgenstein's ruler—it is highly dependent on the observer's position and does not always provide a clear and consistent perspective.

As a cryptocurrency investor, I often analyze narratives to better understand potential opportunities. At this turning point in the industry—where we are at a critical moment of narrowing the arbitrage space in emerging technology markets—I am also thinking about how to discover and stimulate higher quality ideas and products.

Through Tier's perspective, I see the timeline of the crypto world as an evolution: from the early "deterministic optimism" of Bitcoin, to the "indeterministic optimism" under the grand vision of Web3—where finance is ultimately seen as a killer application; then to the "indeterministic pessimism" of the meme coin casino era; and now, as regulation becomes clearer, we seem to be strategically accepting a form of "deterministic pessimism."

This is a journey that starts from the ideals of cypherpunk, traverses the startup frenzy, slides into the mire of despair, and ultimately moves towards standardization.

Is this trajectory prevalent across trends? A revolutionary idea, after being partially verified, is often deified into a panacea; When it fails to live up to those high expectations, it is cursed, and eventually it gradually blends into the status quo. The revolution is never really complete, but we're still in the loop of the Gartner hype cycle, repeating some sort of (for some) satisfying cycle.

In the cryptocurrency space, this grand hype cycle is often overshadowed by price fluctuations. Each round of the crypto cycle—Bitcoin, ICOs promising to create the "world computer", DeFi, meme coins, and now the integration of regulation and traditional finance—seems like a fractal of a larger pattern. Currently, we are in the "disillusionment trough". According to the framework of technological waves proposed by Carlota Perez, this is indeed a critical turning point.

Web3 promised to put the profit model of Web2 "on-chain", decentralizing and tokenizing it. However, Web2 and Web3 are not a place, nor are they a clearly identifiable "thing". As I said a few years ago, it is more like a "user preference"; and today, this preference still belongs to a niche. If you always need to rely on the language of the old world to explain new things, then you are not really creating something new.

The cryptocurrency industry is no longer a frontier market, but opportunities still exist at the margins of this established field. In this maturation stage, where do the biggest victories come from? Intuitively, they come from those players in the growth phase or with latecomer advantages.

It is also worth mentioning that those centralized exchanges that once raised the banner of "certain optimism" and promoted the popularization of cryptocurrencies have now turned into pessimists, focusing more on defending their existing market share rather than promoting on-chain adoption.

In the past, exchanges and layer one blockchains (L1) provided the most lucrative returns for investors. Ironically, the places where competition was fiercest, optimism faded, and pragmatism took over, produced the biggest winners.

Does this mean that we have no more "secrets" to dig up? I don't think so. Today's "secrets" are just yesterday's lessons. Have we truly built many innovative and valuable companies or networks?

The easily accessible fruits have already been picked clean—most projects today are either imitating predecessors or are slightly re-packaging, pretending to have originality. Many "solutions" are chasing problems that do not fundamentally exist, while others are simply trying to transplant traditional finance onto the chain.

Cryptocurrency was originally a force inherently colored by revisionism, yet it failed to achieve a true revolution. Today, it is plagued by a core (perhaps a false proposition) question: "Do you want to do the right thing, or do you want to make money?" In other words, are you willing to "sell yourself" at the price that the old system is willing to offer? Those revolutionaries who have cried out in exhaustion at the meme coin casino are increasingly accepting this deal.

Building those fuzzy products that developers think users "should want" (no, people don't really want to own their data), along with the obvious success of centralized service providers, has pushed the industry into its current stalemate. Nowadays, in the crypto world, it is nearly impossible to find true "certain optimists". But it is precisely in this "almost impossible" that hides the opportunity for you to invest on the frontier.