Yesterday's Roundtable【Deep Dive on Whether the Crypto Industry's Bonus Period Has Ended】

1. How to define the “bonus period”? What are the signals of its end?

In the traditional sense, the “industry bonus period” usually refers to: low entry barriers, high growth expectations, fuzzy rules, capital frenzy, and “easy arbitrage” opportunities driven by early information asymmetry. In the crypto space, this is specifically manifested as:

1. Regulatory arbitrage bonus: regulatory gaps, innovation unrestricted, but also a mix of good and bad actors.
2. Traffic and narrative bonus: a white paper or a grand concept can attract massive funding and attention, with fundamental factors playing a low role.
3. Global liquidity bonus: worldwide cheap capital flooding in, chasing any high-risk assets labeled “Crypto.”
4. Cognitive arbitrage bonus: a few people understand blockchain, and early cognitive differences bring huge returns.

Clear signals indicating the end of these “old bonuses” have already appeared:

* Regulatory Iron Curtain Descends: Global regulatory frameworks accelerate implementation (e.g., MiCA, parallel enforcement and legislation in the US), compliance costs become mandatory constraints, and the arbitrage window closes.
* Capital Becomes Rational: VC investments shift from “flooding the track” to focusing on “revenue and cash flow,” with primary market valuation systems aligning with traditional tech startups.
* User Thresholds Rise: Early users have been washed out, new user growth slows, customer acquisition costs soar, and subsidies and airdrops alone can no longer sustain.
* Narrative Fatigue and Cleanup: All grand narratives from the last cycle (2020-2022)—DeFi 2.0, GameFi, Metaverse—have gone through hype-bubble-burst cycles, and the market’s excitement threshold for “new stories” is extremely high.

2. Typical features of the “mature phase” and new game rules

Bidding farewell to wild growth, the industry is showing typical characteristics of mature capital markets:

1. From “Narrative-Driven” to “Fundamental-Driven”:
* Project valuations will increasingly depend on verifiable revenue, cash flow (protocol income), user activity, moats, and technological barriers, rather than distant visions.
* The valuation framework for “cryptocurrencies” as an asset class is deeply integrating with “tech growth stocks” and “alternative assets.”
2. From “Grassroots Innovation” to “Institutional and Professional Competition”:
* Competition shifts from “who can come up with new concepts” to “who has stronger engineering capabilities, safer financial architecture, more compliant operations, and more sustainable tokenomics.”
* Top talents, capital, and companies from the traditional world (e.g., BlackRock, JPMorgan) are entering, raising industry standards.
3. From “Beta Bonuses” to “Alpha Mining”:
* The era of industry-wide exponential growth (beta) of dozens of times may be over. Future excess returns (alpha) will come from:
* Deep sector exploration: identifying truly value-creating leading projects in DeFi, RWA, on-chain gaming, etc.
* Cross-chain and middleware: projects providing key infrastructure (interoperability, security, data) in a multi-chain world.
* Paradigm reconstruction in the traditional world: areas where blockchain can truly improve efficiency (e.g., supply chain finance, asset securitization).
4. Regulation becomes a core variable rather than background noise:
* Collaborating with regulators and proactively seeking compliance will be prerequisites for project survival and growth, not optional.

3. Insights for practitioners and investors: survival rules in the new normal

1. For entrepreneurs/project teams:
* Forget “To Moon,” focus on “To Business.” You must prove you have real users, real needs, a sustainable business model, and clear profitability paths.
* Place compliance and security at the core of your product roadmap.
* Tokenomics should shift from “speculative incentives” to “incentivizing ecosystem contribution and long-term binding.”
2. For investors:
* Say goodbye to “casting a wide net” investing, embrace “deep research.” Like stock analysts, read on-chain data, evaluate teams, and understand competitive landscapes.
* Lower short-term return expectations, extend investment horizons. Opportunities for quick gains diminish; earning “value growth” requires patience.
* Place extreme importance on risk management: in the mature phase, “avoiding pitfalls” and “not stepping on mines” will far outweigh “catching 100x coins.” Assess regulatory, technical, and team risks upfront.
3. For ordinary users:
* The simple “mine, transfer, sell” model is losing effectiveness. It’s essential to understand the value logic of the protocols you participate in.
* Asset security and private key self-custody are more important than ever.

The crypto industry is shifting from a “big water, big fish, anyone can fish” bonus shallow waters to a “underlying currents, requiring professional navigation charts” deep value zone. The end of “easy bonuses” is precisely the beginning of “serious value” creation. For builders and investors with professionalism, rule-respect, and a focus on value, a healthier, more sustainable, and more skill-testing “new bonus era” has just begun. The core of this roundtable discussion may not be nostalgia, but rather how to forge new oars and compasses for this “deep water” zone.#我的2026第一条帖