Written by: YQ

Translated by: Chopper, Foresight News

A current debate in crypto Twitter is: "Should I stay or leave?" The question itself is flawed; it assumes there is a safe place, when in fact, there isn't.

Goldman Sachs states that 300 million jobs worldwide will be impacted by AI. The CEO of Anthropic claims that 50% of entry-level white-collar jobs will disappear within five years. In just the first quarter of 2026, 45,000 tech workers have been laid off.

This is not a problem unique to the crypto industry but a manifestation of the Fourth Industrial Revolution knocking at everyone's door.

The panic you feel is real and widespread. Those who identify the next direction for building will define the next thirty years.

What I see is that the crypto industry hasn't made you weak; it has forged you into the fastest learners, the strongest cross-domain capable builders, and the most adaptable individuals on Earth. The real question is: will you leverage this ability or disregard it in pursuit of an illusory sense of security?

Confronting the Real Issues

The statement "cryptocurrency is dead for builders" had some truth in 2022. What it describes is a market that no longer exists.

Behind the same anxieties lies a more brutal and universal truth: AI is commodifying all work based on existing knowledge through pattern matching.

This is the real fear, not "cryptocurrency lacks use cases." What is genuinely unsettling is that Claude Code, Codex, and Gemini Code Assist have become so powerful that most entry-level software development positions are being replaced.

Research from Stanford confirms that since the launch of ChatGPT, the employment rate for developers aged 22-25 has dropped by 20%. 60% of companies plan to replace employees with AI by 2026. A competent code agent's marginal cost is approaching zero.

This is not a cryptocurrency problem. It is an issue that all of humanity's civilization is facing and is simultaneously impacting every industry.

Three Types of People Profit, While Others Panic

Stripping away the hype, who is actually profiting from AI right now?

First layer: Nvidia. Nvidia's annual revenue is $216 billion, with Jensen Huang aiming for $1 trillion in annual revenue from AI chips by 2027. This is a typical "selling shovels" logic that has been tried and true in every transformation.

Second layer: Large model makers. OpenAI's annualized revenue is $12.7 billion, with a goal of reaching $54 billion by 2027. Anthropic is approaching $9 billion in annual recurring revenue, targeting $20-26 billion by 2026. They sell API calls, have recurring revenue, and real profit.

Third layer: Anxiety sellers. Short video bloggers and course sellers profit by telling you "AI will replace you." The content is fear, and the product is a $99 course with extremely high profit margins.

Everyone else is searching for a moat but can’t find one. A good idea goes live, and within days it will be copied by hundreds of companies. As long as profits are sufficient, OpenAI, Anthropic, or Google will personally launch similar offerings.

Manus is the first universal AI agent, then Claude introduced Cowork, followed by OpenClaw openly releasing the entire concept, gaining 219,000 stars on GitHub. The window from "innovation" to "commoditization" is now measured in weeks.

A dangerous signal: If your moat is just "a pretty interface over a large model," then you have no moat at all. The marginal cost of encapsulating large models is approaching zero. The real barrier in the AI field lies in mastering the foundational infrastructure that large models depend on, not just piling functions on top.

Why Crypto Builders Have Unique Advantages

Setting aside the shallow argument of "crypto is dead," ask: how much better off are other fields?

Compared to SaaS? All functionalities can be copied by AI overnight. Compared to consulting? Agents are replacing analysts. Compared to entry-level development positions? Employment rates have dropped by 20% in two years.

Crypto builders possess structural advantages not found in other tech fields.

One crucial point: the crypto community is the most information-dense group in the tech sphere. They track cryptography, distributed systems, macroeconomics, geopolitics, oil, gold, AI, biotechnology, longevity technology, SpaceX, and all cultural hotspots.

Why? Because they are betting on it. Meme coins, prediction markets, new token issues... speculation is not a flaw; it is the fastest learning mechanism invented by humanity. By the time traditional industries react to a trend, crypto builders have already laid the infrastructure for it and moved on to the next opportunity.

Moreover, technological barriers are not simply talk; they are measurable. The Ethereum Foundation has elevated post-quantum cryptography security to its highest strategic priority. Vitalik's "Simplified Ethereum" roadmap places "full quantum resistance" at its core. Zero-knowledge proof systems, Poseidon hash functions, lattice-based cryptography...

Claude Code can easily crush CRUD applications, but when it comes to writing recursive SNARK circuits or designing validator punishment mechanisms with game-theoretic guarantees, it is far less effective.

Facts That Everyone is Ignoring

Look at actions, not emotions. Those who are genuinely doing work are providing an answer that is completely opposed to crypto Twitter's doomsayers through their actions.

Stripe will not integrate a nearly obsolete protocol. BlackRock will not issue a staked ETH ETF in a dead market. Cloudflare will not jointly launch a payment foundation for an industry with no future.

Hype does not equal demand; implementation is the true demand. These giants are all voting with their feet.

Pandora's Box Has Been Opened

Sam Altman cannot predict what GPT-6 will bring. Dario Amodei has built a lab focused on safety but admits that half of entry-level positions will disappear. Sundar Pichai has restructured all of Google for a full transition to AI.

Those who build these technologies do not know what the future will hold; no one knows.

Only three things are certain:

• The box will not close. AI will become increasingly powerful, code agents will become more useful, and white-collar automation will accelerate. We cannot return to an era of entirely handwritten code. The issue is not how to escape but how you position yourself.
• New tools will create new jobs. In 1995, no one foresaw "social media management"; in 2005, no one foresaw "cloud architect." Today, no one can predict AI-native jobs in 2030. However, with every industrial revolution, the number of jobs created exceeds those destroyed, without exception.
• Builders during times of panic will lead the next era. Amazon was born amid doubts during the internet bubble; Stripe was founded in an era when payments were "solved"; Coinbase started when Bitcoin was still a joke.

When everyone feels that "now is not the time to do anything," that is precisely the signal that it is the best time to act.

Your Choice

Doing outdated things means this is the worst of times. Trying new things means this is the best of times.

Don’t leave the industry because of the anxiety in crypto Twitter. Everyone is anxious: financial analysts are anxious, SaaS founders are anxious, and junior engineers at Google are anxious.

The difference is: the crypto industry has equipped you with a set of abilities that most builders do not have—cross-domain pattern recognition around the clock, an unpermissioned innovation testing ground, streamlined teams that can go live quickly without approval, and the fastest community for absorbing new technologies globally.

Follow your heart. Not because it’s a comforting cliché, but in a world where no one knows the future, the only reliable signal is whether you truly care about this matter, and whether you are willing to persist during tough times.

And tough times will come for everyone and every industry.

Pandora's box is open and cannot be closed. Pick up new tools and move to the frontier. Those who persist in building amidst panic will ultimately define the next era.