I’ve always wanted to add an interesting spin-off to this Crypto “Three Kingdoms” article:
1) The Crypto Native Narrative School corresponds to the isolated "Shu Kingdom", which is located in the dangerous Bashu area. Vitalik Buterin is the "Zhuge Liang, drawing the Rollup Centric" and "ZK Endgame" as the roadmap of the grand blueprint.
Advocating the concepts of governing the country with virtue, such as "Code is Law" and "decentralization", is very similar to Liu Bei's benevolence and righteousness. It seems to be on the moral high ground, but it is restricted everywhere in the cruel market competition.
What about joining forces with Wu to fight against Cao, and conquering the Central Plains in the north? New technology narratives have been introduced time and time again, from DeFi to NFT to layer2 and AI Agent. Just like Ge Liang's six expeditions to Qishan, each one was a grand event, but the application of Mass Adoption was always one step away.
Until Zhuge Liang died after devoting himself to his work, developers fled the AI community, leaving behind a dwindling pool of talent and a lack of successors. While I hate to say that idealism was the first to fall, the good news is that the belief in "Han and traitors cannot coexist" and the spirit of decentralization will continue to be the industry's guiding principles.
2) The CEX Exchange Alliance corresponds to the "Wei State" that occupies the Central Plains, with CZ as "Cao Cao", who holds "user liquidity" and "currency listing rights" to hold the emperor hostage and control the princes.
They vigorously pursued a "military farming" strategy, establishing a new ICO pipeline consisting of Wallet, Alpha, and contracts, encircling all parties within their own internal market. Fortunately, they prioritized talent, recruiting both technical and MEME-focused investors as long as they could generate trading volume. Consequently, China's national strength reached its peak, crushing all competitors.
However, the biggest risk of this approach is fostering too many "parasites"—market makers, project owners, and KOLs—all sucking away revenue. Once problems arise, the entire system collapses instantly. This ultimately created a bustling and prosperous era, but after a wave of vigorous "regulatory arbitrage," it ultimately became a mirage.
Ultimately, they will either be "recruited" by regulators, "shorn of power" by internal interest groups, or "usurped" by new forces. This constant spree of "quick money projects" and overdrawing the industry's long-term credit is bound to backfire. It's unclear whether the CEX empire will ultimately be named "Zhao" or "Trump."
3) Wall Street financial capital represents the "Eastern Wu" that controls Jiangdong, with Wall Street institutions like Coinbase and BlackRock and US political figures representing "Sun Quan." They collaborate with the tech-savvy Shu Kingdom to promote decentralized innovation, while collaborating with the Wei Kingdom to develop compliant CEX channels. They partner with whoever is useful, employing a strategic strategy of "uniting with secondary enemies to attack the primary one," carefully strategizing and assessing the situation.
Just like the Eastern Wu dynasty, which controlled the Yangtze River, Wall Street has seized the advantage of "dollar hegemony" and its "compliance moat." They control off-chain access with ETFs, on-chain settlement with USDT and USDC, and are infiltrating the DeFi ecosystem with RWA strategies like tokenizing US stocks and on-chain US Treasury bonds. The smartest strategy now is to bide one's time, letting the tech-savvy CEXs fight a decisive battle while they quietly plan and profit.
There's no doubt that if the future trend of crypto is toward compliance, institutionalization, and licensing, then the crypto world will ultimately belong to Wall Street. Now you understand why they say the old Northern Wei dynasty might soon be ruled by the Eastern Wu "Trump."
The difference is that Trump is not Sima Yi, and he doesn't need to lie low and be sneaky.
