The revelation of WLFI’s sky-high opening price: The end of the “geek era” of cryptocurrency

The crypto industry is shifting from technology-driven "geek" innovation to a finance-first approach dominated by institutional adoption and sophisticated financial engineering. Key observations from the market include:

Wall Street's influence is growing, with narratives like Trump-affiliated WLFI's $7B launch市值 overshadowing traditional technical focuses such as Layer 2 or ZK-proofs.
Capital efficiency is now prioritized over technical specs; projects like Dolomite, Mitosis, and APR Labs are innovating in liquidity reuse and MEV value capture.
Financial engineering outperforms complex tech concepts, as seen with Hyperliquid’s CEX-like on-chain experience and Pendle’s structured products attracting institutional interest.
The B2B2C model is replacing direct consumer-focused strategies, emphasizing services tailored for institutions (e.g., vaults, whitelist pools) rather than purely retail users.
Compliance has become a critical barrier and competitive advantage, with projects like Coinbase’s Base and Circle’s USDC expansion prioritizing licenses and regulatory alignment from the start.

In essence, the future of crypto may belong to those who can effectively repackage blockchain into Wall Street-friendly financial products, moving away from grassroots technological idealism.

Author: Haotian

Simply by virtue of the Trump family's reputation, @worldlibertyfi's market capitalization reached $7B upon launch. With virtually no reliable ecosystem support, its market expectations surpass those of blue-chip crypto-native protocols like AAVE, Uniswap, Ethena, and Pendle. Why? The answer is clear: the current trend in the crypto industry has completely shifted. Here are some observations:

1) To Wall Street institutions, the popularity of a new Wall Street DAT narrative has overshadowed many previous technical narratives such as Layer 2, BTCFi, and ZK. Facts have proven that institutional adoption will truly bring incremental growth, even if most of these traders have ulterior motives;

2) Focusing on capital efficiency, the market no longer focuses on the TPS arms race and superficial TVL Show, but begins to focus on how to make limited funds generate more yield.

For example, @Dolomite_io's liquidity reuse, @MitosisOrg's programmable liquidity innovation, @apr_labs' MEV value capture and high-frequency trading flywheel, etc., all tell stories of how to improve capital efficiency;

3) Financial Engineering > Technical Concepts. Crypto's expansion from finance to non-financial sectors seems to be a vicious cycle. Each cycle emphasizes mass adoption, but ultimately returns to its most fundamental financial transaction scenarios. The allure of complex cryptography and consensus mechanisms has long faded, replaced by structured product design that is deeply versed in financial operations.

For example, @HyperliquidX's on-chain order book depth and CEX-level trading experience have made people almost forget about decentralized finance. Meanwhile, @pendle_fi's Boros protocol innovations have opened a Pandora's box for traditional finance. It turns out that sophisticated financial engineering design is far more powerful than complex technical concepts.

4) The B2B2C model replaces the purely C-end narrative. Facts have long proven that there's only one business model in the cryptocurrency world that effectively serves and drives retail investors: exchanges. These centralized, monopolistic, and not-so-cool local tyrant models are notoriously centralized. For typical builders seeking on-chain innovation, it's wise and prudent to first serve institutions and then allow them to serve retail investors.

Therefore, under TradFi's product positioning, services such as Vault, whitelist pool, KYC threshold, AMM optimization, etc. customized for institutions will become the direction of innovation.

5) Compliance has become a barrier to entry for innovation. Once upon a time, compliance wasn't a primary concern for crypto innovation; it was essentially an afterthought. However, the new trend is that obtaining a license before developing a product is more effective than developing the product first and then pursuing compliance. Alternatively, compliance has become a new, unfair competitive advantage, as exemplified by the Trump family's reliance on government resources and their consequential attacks on the cryptocurrency market.

Coinbase's @base, Circle's USDC expansion path, and even the market expectations and valuation logic behind the Trump family's WLFI have verified the efficiency of this path.

above.

Bottom line: The next decade of crypto may no longer belong to geeks who change the world, but to those who understand how to package the on-chain world into financial products that Wall Street can understand. Do you agree?