[Long Thread] When the tide goes out, we finally see the future: When we talk about price, we are actually talking about the future

Chainfeeds Guide:

Sentiment is ebbing, the industry is being filtered, and the future is being reshuffled.

Source:

Author:

Jiayi Jia Yi

Opinion:

Jiayi Jia Yi: There is a very obvious fact about 2025 that most people are reluctant to admit: we didn't get the anticipated altcoin bull run, but instead experienced a round of systemic de-bubbling ahead of schedule. Many people see this as a bad thing, but if you look at it over a longer time frame, you'll realize—years like this, where the market corrects before it rises, are actually the best periods for the industry to develop truly mature structures. Why? Because all of this is exactly like the early days of the internet, only the speed is amplified by crypto's leverage. If you really want to understand today's crypto, the simplest way is to view it as an accelerated version of the early internet. Many people think that the chaos, bubbles, and speculation in crypto are unique original sins of this industry. But if you extend the timeline, you’ll see this is not an exception at all, but rather a standard feature of almost every technological revolution—the internet in 2000 was just as crazy. I once wrote an article about this logic: under the premise of amplified leverage efficiency, the market operation methods of Web2, the internet, and crypto are essentially convergent. The only difference is that the internet took twenty years to complete its journey, while crypto may have to finish in less than ten. The same logic applies to financial markets. If you think crypto's volatility is dramatic, it's only because you've forgotten the first half of the internet's life. In 1999, as long as a company had ".com" in its name, it could get funding. eToys soared 900% on its IPO day, and investors were as frenzied as during the early altcoin season in crypto. Then the bubble burst. The Nasdaq fell from over 5,000 points to 1,114; media covers called the internet a scam; everyone said the internet was finished. The sentiment back then was almost identical to today's crypto: those who didn't understand called it a scam; those who did were blinded by the bubble; in the end, everyone panicked together; and then everyone collectively doubted the future itself. But ironically—the true internet era began the moment the bubble burst. When the tide recedes, it's not just about knowing who's swimming naked. It also helps us filter out the real contenders most likely to make it to the other side. In 2002, Amazon's stock price was only $0.6. Google hadn't gone public yet. The companies that survived built the real infrastructure, business models, and profit mechanisms during those least visible years. Crypto now most resembles 2002–2004: not the hottest years, but the most crucial ones. The bursting of the bubble cleared out the noise, and only then did trends, directions, infrastructure, and real players begin to enter the construction phase. I particularly like the concept of "negation of the negation" because it so aptly describes the evolution of technology and industry. Negation of the negation: the development of things is never a straight upward line. It's more like spiraling upward: every time you think you've returned to the starting point, you're actually on a higher level. The most typical example is the three iterations of computing architecture. 1950s: IBM mainframes—centralized, computing power concentrated in the hands of a few institutions—governments, banks, large enterprises. This is the first centralization: whoever has the machines has the power. 1980s: PC revolution—decentralization. Steve Jobs said computers are bicycles for the mind. Computing power moved from server rooms to everyone's desktop, and everyone had their own computer, which seemed like a negation of centralized power. Computing began to decentralize, becoming personal and localized. 2010s: Cloud computing—the negation of the negation of centralization, reaching a higher level. AWS, Alibaba Cloud, and various public clouds re-concentrated computing power back into data centers. On the surface, this seems like a return to the mainframe era; yet again, a few giants control massive computing power. It looks like cloud computing has returned to mainframe centralization, but in essence, it's on a completely different level: terminal sovereignty comes from PCs, elastic computing power comes from the cloud, and the advantages of two generations of technology are fused together. Crypto and internet finance are now experiencing exactly the same path: First stage: no one understands, but the direction is vaguely there; Second stage: everyone is feverish, the bubble inflates to the sky (which we've just experienced); Third stage: bubble bursts → the false is weeded out, the real remains → spiral upward (this is 2025).