Why is it becoming increasingly difficult to make money in the crypto world now?

Most of the early earners who achieved financial freedom have already fully or partially exited. Their lives are now quite comfortable—holding spot assets, investing regularly, and not even needing to monitor the market daily for so-called "opportunities."

And those who didn't make money? Opportunities will only become scarcer moving forward. Those who earned money early on but then squandered their profits are now looking for new chances, but the overall trend has already turned downward.

What is the root cause of the problem? The crypto industry has essentially recreated all the traditional financial models that humans have played with for thousands of years—issuing tokens (equivalent to printing money), opening exchanges, issuing stablecoins (mimicking the Federal Reserve), lending services, staking mechanisms, instant swap services—all are available.

Interestingly, this history has already played out in the United States. Between 1837 and 1863, the U.S. experienced a "Free Banking Era," where anyone could open a bank and issue paper currency. After the birth of the ERC20 protocol, this period of American history has, to some extent, been reenacted in digital form.

This blue ocean is almost exhausted. If you really want to find a new track, you'll need to look at next year's hot topics—on-chain US stocks and prediction markets, both of which might be worth paying attention to.