The market is already in a bear phase: The death spiral of altcoins, MEMEs, and CEXs

Burying myself in the x402 sector for a few days, I look up—and the market has already changed. No point holding it in, let’s talk straight:

1) Don’t kid yourself—the bear market is already here. After TRUMP, liquidity basically hit rock bottom. Those minor rebounds afterwards? All propped up by sheer sentiment.

2) Altcoins are in debt the moment they launch. The die-hard believers from before are gone, the truly dedicated contributors have scattered. Airdrop farmers are everywhere, VCs are rushing to cash out and exit, exchanges are happily taking their cuts, and project teams, after years of grinding, just want to cash in—everyone’s looking to run, so who’s left to hold the bag?

3) MEME coins were once seen as a lifeline. Sure, they broke the monopoly of high FDV VC coins and gave retail investors a chance. But here’s the problem: zero technical barrier + mass-produced, fake fair launches—how long can that last? Without the foundational tech innovation from 0 to 1 that VC coins brought, MEMEs are just a PVP cannibalism game, and eventually they’ll drain the whole industry dry.

4) What are centralized exchanges supposed to do? Absorb on-chain innovation spillover and amplify liquidity. But when new things like Pumpfun, GMGN, Hyperliquid took off and started minting millionaires, exchanges panicked and turned to “internalization” to save themselves. If the shovel sellers start digging for gold themselves, what’s the point for the real gold miners?

5) Project builders are entering purgatory mode. Why are so many projects rushing to launch? Why is no one willing to take their time refining products? Why does the market’s structural collapse always get blamed on project teams and VCs? It’s complicated, no clear answer. But one thing’s for sure in crypto: builders and VCs going bankrupt and fleeing is a matter of course. What’s scarier than going to zero? The entire industry being drained, talent fleeing, and everything in shambles.

Alright, any more and this turns into a rant.

But this is exactly why I’ve always advocated for “on-chain innovation”—our Crypto isn’t the youthful, brash scene it once was. It’s sick, old, maybe even dying.

Only a truly ground-up, tech-driven on-chain narrative can save this stalemate.