After the Web3 Festival, I actually have more confidence in Crypto.

Author: hoidya; Source: X, @hoidya_

1. First impression on-site: Pessimism comes from “Narrative Absence”

Recently attended the Web3 Festival and some side events. Overall, one clear emotion is: pessimism.

Many people’s intuitive feeling is that this cycle lacks new narratives, the projects on display are highly repetitive, and discussions repeatedly use similar keywords. Coupled with some abstract or even slightly distorted expressions, it’s easy to draw a conclusion: Is this industry entering a stagnation phase?

But if you only stay at this level, it’s very easy to misjudge.

Because what I see is not “nothing left,” but a typical structural transition phase: the industry is shifting from narrative-driven to infrastructure-driven.

Such a phase itself is not “pretty.”

2. The fundamental judgment of Crypto: not assets, but financial infrastructure layer

My basic judgment of Crypto is quite straightforward: It won’t disappear, and it’s not a single asset class, but gradually transforming into the next-generation financial infrastructure layer.

If you compare it with a more specific system, like the mainland’s financial system, it becomes easier to understand this point.

In mainland China, you can already see blockchain being used more in cross-border settlement, supply chain finance, bill circulation, and other infrastructure layers. It’s not about “asset trading markets,” but about multi-party ledger consistency, credit data structuring, and automation of financial processes.

For example, supply chain finance platforms essentially convert core enterprise credit, accounts receivable, and bill circulation into computable data structures, which are then automatically split and circulated by the system. Similarly, cross-border settlement systems address ledger synchronization issues between different institutions, allowing financial states to be consistently updated across multiple participants.

The core of these systems is not “financial product innovation,” but digital upgrades of financial infrastructure.

But the key difference is: Mainland China is optimizing efficiency within a closed financial system, while Crypto is opening up the same “state synchronization + programmable ledger capability” globally, turning it into a network where assets and funds can be freely combined.

So, fundamentally: Mainland China is doing a “system upgrade of financial infrastructure,”
Crypto is doing a “globally open version of financial infrastructure.”

3. RWA / DeFi / Tokenization: different facets of the same thing

From this perspective, the frequently discussed RWA, DeFi, and tokenization are not separate narratives but different facets of the same direction.

Many people understand RWA as a financing tool, but more fundamentally, it is a process of asset digitization, not a financing activity itself.

It requires not just “on-chain,” but that assets must be able to be data-ized, standardized, and risk-modeled.

If an asset cannot be structurally expressed, it’s difficult to enter the on-chain financial system.

Therefore, RWA is essentially pushing enterprises through a digital reconstruction, with blockchain serving as the carrier.

4. Supply side is changing: who is defining “what can be on-chain”

In this process, you will see a very obvious change happening on the supply side.

More and more participants are entering asset issuance and structuring design, including traditional brokerages, investment banks, exchanges, and some institutions specializing in tokenization.

Their role is not just issuing assets but more critically defining a question: what assets can enter the on-chain financial system.

This is actually a filtering mechanism, not an issuance mechanism.

Meanwhile, they are also doing a more implicit task: educating the market, telling it what assets are “structurable” and what are not.

5. The second phase has begun: DeFi is becoming a financial engineering tool layer

More importantly, the second phase has already begun, but it’s not yet widely perceived.

The first phase was asset on-chain financing, and the second phase is:

Redefining asset structures themselves with DeFi.

You can already see some directions:

• Yield layering

• Risk layering

• Leverage structures

• Interest swaps

• Various structured yield designs

These are essentially doing one thing:

Migrating traditional financial structuring capabilities onto the chain and recombining them.

In this stage, DeFi’s role is no longer just a trading market but gradually becoming a financial engineering tool layer.

6. Changes on the capital side: from “maximizing yield” to “optimal structure”

On the other end is the capital side, including allocators such as family offices, crypto hedge funds, and some traditional asset management institutions.

A very realistic change is: Crypto’s absolute returns are no longer obviously superior to traditional markets.

This means that capital decision-making logic is changing from “where to get higher yields” to “where the structure is more optimal.”

The significance of RWA here also shifts; it’s no longer just a new asset class but a portfolio tool: enhancing returns, reducing risks, and optimizing allocation structures.

Meanwhile, a structural feature of on-chain markets begins to re-emerge: uneven efficiency.

Due to retail investor structures, fragmented liquidity, and information asymmetry, arbitrage opportunities are reappearing in on-chain markets.

So you will see cross-market arbitrage, on-chain/off-chain price differences, and various structured yield products gradually emerging.

7. DeFi security incidents will not change the big direction

Another frequently discussed issue is DeFi security incidents.

But from a structural perspective, these events have limited impact on long-term capital.

Because the real incremental capital is still in the observation stage, not yet deeply involved.

Currently, the affected parties are mostly existing participants, not future capital.

More importantly, these events will not change a bigger directional judgment: whether the system will continue to evolve toward on-chain financial structures.

8. Retail perspective: the hundredfold opportunity has not disappeared, only the structure has changed

This is the true source of many people’s “pessimism.”

People are not worried about technology but about:

“Can retail still achieve the same wealth leaps as in the last cycle through Crypto?”

It’s very important to clarify:

These opportunities have not disappeared.

Early DeFi, airdrops, memes, prediction markets, perp DEXs—these mechanisms still exist in essence, and infrastructure is even more complete than before.

But the changes are:

• More tools

• More dispersed funds

• More intense strategy competition

• Rapid alpha dilution

So the question is not “no hundredfold opportunities,” but:

Hundredfold opportunities are no longer concentrated but become dispersed + window-driven + highly cyclical.

You will still see wealth effects, but they depend more on:

• Liquidity phases

• Narrative shifts

• Special event-driven factors

• Liquidity reallocation

In many cases, it’s still a structural process:

Liquidity is re-aggregated → Attention is amplified → A new short-cycle wealth effect forms

But this process is faster, more fragmented, and harder to anticipate.

So, the “pessimism” of many is not because opportunities have disappeared but because:

There are no longer clear, stable, replicable paths to last cycle’s wealth.

9. Why does it seem “boring,” but actually is an engineering phase

Returning to the mood at the Web3 Festival, it’s understandable why many feel “boring.”

Because they are applying the logic of past cycles to the present—looking for new narratives, explosive points, or emotion-driven rallies.

But the more fundamental change this cycle is:

The industry is entering an infrastructure engineering phase.

The characteristics of this stage are:

• Not sexy

• No continuous explosions

• No unified narrative

• But continuous structural accumulation

The so-called pessimism is likely just a misreading of the engineering phase as stagnation.

10. Core question: Will the financial system become programmable?

From a deeper layer, there is only one question: will the global financial system gradually become programmable?

If the answer is yes, then all the “calmness” we see now is just the infrastructure still being laid out, not the endgame, so there’s no reason not to be optimistic.