Chill

70% of this rant was good but I have to strongly disagree with this take floating around all week that CT is dead. CT is not dead or dying 1) CT is the information hub of crypto industry. It’s the MarketWatch, the CNBC and WSJ, wallstreetbets and town square of the industry. There is no alternative, and that makes it not comparable to fintwit 2) There have always been alternative platforms for social trading in crypto: Telegram last cycle, Discord cycle before that. None of them meant the death of CT (not tg’s arguement but this was the argument of a lot of takes on this) 3) Currently social trading apps are the strongest they’ve ever been but this is a recent meta, and importantly, almost everyone with influence is being paid to post and trade there. We’ve seen this many times before, never this successful for sure, but also never killed CT. Callout rewards have existed for less than 3 months 4) Surprised more people haven’t talked about this, but the one company who could be competitive with crypto social trading apps on day 1, and possibly even pull the rug out of under them on market share, is X itself. If X decided to compete in crypto social trading, I think the crypto-native apps likely survive, possibly pivot to more data and crypto-native experience like current terminals. I find this possibility of X competing in the future more likely than CT dying 5) If CT does die and social crypto moves to these social trading platforms, the onchain industry will permanently shrink and become more niche. I do not expect this to happen and it hasn’t been the trend 6) In 2018 there were 50-100 big accounts left on CT, in 2023 we had months where basically nobody was here besides the true believer die hards. This current bear market has genuinely an order of magnitude more people sticking around. CT is more active than it’s ever been with comparable market conditions. And when people want to discuss high level ideas and metas, even non-CT native Fortnite kids, then come to X to discuss them. People who never tweeted during the bull run are now reply guying on X 7) Sure every American knows about crypto, but you go and talk to people and barely anyone understands it, most hate it or think it’s worthless with no value to the tech. This technology is not going away like some trendy brand. There is fundamental value, tokenization is happening, the global markets are embracing stablecoins and blockchains. Many people will never understand crypto tech, but the bulk of the functional adoption curve (people using the tech regardless of if they know they are) is still ahead. Crypto x AI implications and importance are still in their infancy of exploration and discovery. AI will never use cash, and will prefer open blockchains to walled institutions 8) Possibly we never see the celebrity engagement in onchain markets we’ve seen in past cycle, but if anything that would be a sign of maturity. IMO the entire concept of celebrities and the culture of celebrity worship is plummeting. Not to zero, but I think we’re entering an era where culture and fame is fragmented, and nobody gives a fuck if you’re famous Have thoughts about the geeks, MOPs, sociopaths topic for another post. Mostly agree with that part, if anything I think it’s even worse than described, but optimistic how things play out long term CT is not dead. Crypto is not dead. Crypto is never cool during bear markets but the tech makes the coolest markets of the future most likely to be on, if not only possible on, public blockchains