Over the weekend, a friend I hadn't been in touch with for a long time sent me a WeChat message, asking if there were any interesting new projects in the crypto ecosystem during this period.

I regrettably replied that aside from a few niche areas, I hadn't discovered any fresh projects in the crypto ecosystem during this cycle.

My friend lamented that for a long time, he and his buddies had found things very boring. They were hesitant to engage with other markets (like the stock market), had little interest in meme coins, and while they consistently held Bitcoin and Ethereum, they were looking for other long-term potential projects worth holding onto, but just couldn't find any.

I share the same sentiment.

Now, even the ecological media I frequently follow report on trivial news, and sometimes I find my interest in reading them quite lacking.

In the past couple of days, I looked at the important financing projects summarized by Messari for each month this year, which can basically be divided into four categories:

One category is on-chain perpetual contract trading platforms (Perp DEX) ignited by Hyperliquid;

The second category includes various infrastructures related to stablecoins, such as L1 and payment platforms;

The third category consists of various tokenization platforms related to RWA;

The fourth category is miscellaneous, but primarily focuses on various infrastructures, such as data on-chain.

At a glance, these projects have distinct characteristics:

• There is little innovation; they are just throwing money at the problem, hoping to secure a position in the market.

For example, 99% of the projects in the first category are just imitations of Hyperliquid, appearing completely unoriginal.

This is clearly a trend to turn a market into a red ocean.

• The project teams are almost devoid of grassroots; they either rely on big players or come from traditional financial institutions to start their ventures.

The most obvious examples are the projects related to stablecoins and various RWA projects.

• Compliance and close relationships with regulators have become a "capital" that many projects boast about.

This is also very evident in stablecoin and RWA projects.

• I originally thought that pseudo-blockchain projects would only appear in certain regions, but they have surprisingly become popular overseas as well.

For instance, in the fourth category, there is a data on-chain project that brazenly claims to use a permissioned blockchain, and then employs privacy technology to protect user data on-chain.

Seeing such projects makes me wonder: can't this type of thing be done without blockchain?

Some overseas internet giants that value personal privacy protection have already implemented good privacy measures for data, processing it before transmission or storage.

What need is there for blockchain here?

Wouldn't a distributed database suffice?

Are there still venture capitalists investing in such projects?

Dozens of projects that have been hotly invested in recent months fall into this category. They lack the "grassroots" entrepreneurship and vitality seen in past cycles, and they certainly do not possess the decentralized essence that the crypto space used to have.

I even find myself reminiscing about some "absurd" projects from previous cycles. Because they were distinctive and innovative, they gave off an absurd feeling. Often, great and disruptive projects emerge from the absurd.

If a startup project is immediately understood by everyone, and it's clear who it is imitating, how much space and potential can such a project have?

These types of projects are merely a competition of resources, where the last one standing is the winner.

I still prefer those grassroots entrepreneurial projects that break new ground and are truly blockchain-based. Unfortunately, such projects are too few in this cycle.

The current crypto ecosystem feels less like an independent new ecosystem and more like a segmented track of the traditional ecosystem.

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