DeFi was once the core narrative of the crypto market, but as high APY and liquidity bonuses fade away, the market is gradually returning to rationality. Today's users are no longer simply paying for stories; they are starting to think about more fundamental questions: In the current environment, why continue using DeFi? What mechanisms can truly transcend industry cycles?

This Space episode deeply explored these questions. Guests analyzed the transition in DeFi narratives and value anchors, as well as the JST repurchase and destruction mechanism in the TRON ecosystem, dissecting the evolution logic of DeFi from "high APY driven" to "real income driven," and discussing what types of DeFi projects can weather market shifts when attention is diverted to AI and RWA. Here are the highlights from this episode of dialogue.

When the tide goes out, the core opportunity for a new DeFi cycle lies in digging deep into "real demand."

In the current fast-changing narrative of the crypto market, is DeFi still the mainline for the next cycle? Will its position be replaced? Regarding this question, many guests unanimously agreed that DeFi still occupies an unshakable position in the crypto market, but its narrative style and value anchors have undergone a fundamental transformation.

Peter from the crypto circle first broke down the current market structure. He believes that the value stratification in the market is becoming increasingly apparent. The AI sector carries immense imagination brought by technological innovation, Memecoins embody the community's emotional atmosphere, and RWA contains policy expectations and incremental capital stories. These three sectors inherently attract short-term flows and speculative funds because they are "easier to tell stories."

However, Peter sharply pointed out that the focus of attention does not equate to the accumulation of value. Especially when the market enters a phase of oscillation and correction, funds quickly shift from speculation to risk aversion, seeking sectors with "verifiable data." He emphasized that DeFi's essence is financial infrastructure, rather than being a trend product that relies on narrative or expectation fulfillment. As long as there are assets and transactional demand on-chain, the value of DeFi will naturally amplify with the market's recovery, which is its underlying logic for transcending cycles. Mr. Misi also pointed out, without DeFi as the foundational capital pool and financial Lego, emerging sectors cannot sustain massive capital inflows at all. Therefore, even if future emotional waves recede, the flow of funds will ultimately return to the core area of DeFi.

While affirming DeFi's "cornerstone" position, the guests also noted a shift in its role. Unlike its image as the absolute king during "DeFi Summer," after experiencing cyclical rotations, DeFi is becoming a foundational infrastructure akin to water and electricity. HiSeven believes that if DeFi wants to truly lead value as the mainline in the next phase, the criteria for market evaluation will change: in the past, what mattered were high APY and short-term liquidity incentives’ wealth effects. In the next cycle, real users, real protocol income, and long-term sustainable operating mechanisms will be core.

HiSeven added three specific dimensions for selecting projects in the future: real protocol income and distribution capability, sustained user retention and repurchase behavior, and sustainable mechanisms that can operate in a cold market. He asserted that the core opportunity for the next stage of DeFi is no longer to tell novel stories, but to expand, deepen, and solidify the real, existing, yet undervalued demands.

The new narrative in the second half of DeFi: How does JST achieve an independent market trend with a repurchase and destruction mechanism?

From the insights of various guests, the evolutionary direction for the next stage of DeFi is clear: the era of high leverage and inflated APYs is coming to an end, and a new phase driven by real demand, protocol income as an anchor, and renewed trust through data transparency is opening up.

Against this backdrop, the TRON DeFi ecosystem's genuine repurchase and destruction of JST illustrates the substantial transition from "traffic thinking" to "value thinking."

JST is the governance token of the JUST protocol within the TRON ecosystem, and its repurchase and destruction mechanism is a systematic arrangement deeply tied to protocol income that went through community proposals. On October 21, 2025, the community proposal was officially passed, deciding to fully use the excess part of JustLend DAO's existing profits, future net income, and part of USDD multi-chain ecosystem revenue exceeding 10 million dollars for repurchase and destruction. This fundamentally created a self-reinforcing loop of "more income → more repurchase → more destruction → stronger deflation."

Once the mechanism was established, the real test was execution. Looking back at the six months from October 2025 to now, JST has efficiently completed three rounds of large-scale repurchase and destruction, with a tight rhythm and increasing intensity of investment:

• The first round (end of October 2025) involved an investment of about 17.72 million dollars, destroying approximately 559 million JST, accounting for 5.66% of the total supply.
• The second round (January 15, 2026) escalated the destruction, with about 21 million dollars invested, destroying approximately 525 million JST, accounting for 5.30% of the total supply.
• The third round (April 15, 2026) involved about 21.3 million dollars, destroying approximately 271 million JST, accounting for 2.74% of the total supply.

In total, over 60 million dollars have been invested, permanently destroying approximately 1.356 billion JST, accounting for 13.7% of the total supply of the token. Based on the recent market price of JST around 0.08 dollars, the total value of the destroyed tokens has exceeded 100 million dollars.

The real impact of continuous repurchase and destruction using actual funds is most visibly reflected in the price trend of JST. Before the repurchase and destruction plan was launched, the price of JST hovered around 0.032 dollars, but by December 2025, the price rapidly climbed to about 0.045 dollars, a phase increase of about 40%. By the end of March 2026, the cumulative increase over six months approached 100%, and it continued rising, breaking through 0.085 dollars, more than a 160% increase compared to before the mechanism's launch. Even in a market environment where Bitcoin saw a decline of over 37% at one point, JST still achieved an independent market trend.

The true significance of this mechanism lies in its deep binding of token value to the protocol's fundamentals. As Web3's Cai Cai Zi stated, the three rounds of destruction of JST were all funded by the protocol's real net income, without any external subsidies, which signifies that the project has formed a positive flywheel of "real demand accumulating income, and protocol income benefiting token holders," establishing a long-term verifiable value anchor for the entire sector.

In essence, DeFi is bidding farewell to the era of wild growth and returning to the essence of finance. Whether it's the in-depth exploration of real demand or a deflationary mechanism like JST supported by actual protocol income, all reflect a substantial shift in market focus towards "sustainability." In the upcoming cycles, setting aside inflated expectations, those DeFi projects that can reliably capture value, establish healthy income distribution mechanisms, and communicate with transparent data will genuinely possess the foundational basis for long-term development.