Crypto's New Middlemen: A Call for Transparency and Innovation

Current Challenges in the Crypto Landscape

The crypto industry is at a critical juncture. Over my twelve years in this field, I've never encountered such challenging conditions, even during the most bearish cycles.

Signals of a Crisis

Individually, these issues would be concerning. Together, they indicate a looming crisis. Where is the focus on utility or onboarding the next billion users?

The first concern is the decreasing demand for smart contract audits, as noted in discussions with auditing firms and exemplified by Yearn's recent exploit. This crucial step before launching decentralized applications (dApps) is being neglected, not due to confidence, but because new dApps are scarce. Developers and founders are either waiting for better conditions or leaving the crypto space altogether, disinterested in creating redundant applications.

Investment Trends and Their Impact

Investors are providing little support for utility applications, which are complex and time-consuming to develop. Only projects promising quick, massive returns are getting funded, putting blockchain-savvy founders in a difficult position from the outset.

Current investments focus on short-term profit through memecoins, insider manipulation, opaque DeFi protocols, and over-leveraged trading. This shift in attention is why blockchain-based products and use cases are fading from the spotlight, replaced by discussions on ETF movements, trading tips, and more. Retail investors are often misled, engaging in high-risk ventures without understanding the underlying risks.

The Role of Industry Leaders

Many industry leaders perpetuate this profit-driven focus, neglecting the potential of blockchain to revolutionize global finance and societal well-being. Instead, they are facilitating the rise of a new, dangerous class of middlemen.

These intermediaries have reintroduced complexity and opaqueness into previously transparent markets, fueling unprecedented greed and misconduct.

The Need for a Paradigm Shift

October 11th's liquidation highlights the continued impact on retail investors while powerful entities negotiate their recoveries.

Cryptocurrency and blockchain were intended to dismantle financial oligopolies and democratize access. Instead, we've seen a resurgence of manipulative middlemen, falsely presented as Web3 'saviors.'

Web3 is dubbed the next generation of the Internet because blockchain represents a pinnacle of technological evolution. Properly harnessed, AI and blockchain could enhance productivity and redefine interactions between parties. However, we remain preoccupied with market speculation and short-term gains.

Crypto has yet to realize its transformative potential akin to the World Wide Web, with decentralization at its core. The focus on profit has driven away builders and stunted technological progress.

Drawing a parallel to The Big Short, investor Mark Baum's frustration with market greed resonates. He observes that short-sighted fraud never succeeds. Every profit extracted from the crypto ecosystem drives innovators away and diminishes the underlying asset's value. Ultimately, the entire industry, including technology enthusiasts, will suffer.

Those committed to using crypto for global betterment must denounce this behavior as short-sighted and greedy. We must refocus on utility development, capturing attention with innovative applications for the next billion users, and fulfilling Web3's undeniable potential.

Let's champion the cause of utility while we still can.