From Tech Enthusiasts to Gambling Hype: How Crypto Lost Its Soul
Once upon a time, crypto was built by tech visionaries—engineers and entrepreneurs who dreamed of decentralization, financial independence, and breaking free from traditional banking. They shared knowledge, built infrastructure, and pushed technological boundaries.
Then the social media wave hit. Suddenly, crypto wasn’t just for insiders; it became a spectacle. A new breed of players arrived—people who didn’t understand the tech but knew how to sell a narrative.
Then came the influencers. No longer was information freely exchanged among builders. Now, it was packaged, monetized, and sold to the highest bidder. The scene collapsed into a cesspool of hype, where technology took a backseat to clicks, engagement, and speculative frenzy. What was once about innovation became a game of gambling dressed up as finance.
Memecoins are the final stage of this transformation. They aren’t just another trend—they are a paradigm shift into… well, you know what it rhymes with. Memecoins became a symptom of crypto’s complete surrender to entertainment over substance. They strip away any illusion of technological progress and lay bare the simple truth: this market is about influence, not innovation.
The Gambling Class Takes Over
Forget early crypto adopters who were fascinated by blockchain’s potential. Who are the dominant players now? Binary options traders, forex hustlers, and online gamblers—people who thrive on risk, high stakes, and quick wins. They don’t care about whitepapers, decentralization, or smart contract security. All they want is to make a quick buck.
Bitcoin’s rise from $1 to $100,000 created a fantasy. Traditional finance, with its slow returns, became irrelevant. Why settle for 5% interest when a single tweet can send a memecoin soaring 500% overnight?
From ICO Scams to Memecoin Madness: How Retail Became Exit Liquidity
The ICO boom was the first great illusion. A wave of projects promised revolutionary tech, raised millions, and then—poof—vanished. No product-market fit, no real adoption, just endless token unlocks and exit scams. Retail investors got wrecked.
Then came venture capitalists. They stopped funding any random whitepaper and started demanding a clear product-market fit. But that didn’t mean they stopped playing the game—it just meant they needed a new way to dump their bags.
Enter the shillers. VCs learned that hype was more valuable than tech. Instead of trying to build lasting projects, they hired influencers, paid for narratives, and pumped their tokens with coordinated marketing blitzes.
And retail? They were always last in line—the collateral damage of every cycle. After years of getting rugged by overhyped, underdelivering projects, they had no illusions left. They weren’t early enough to profit, connected enough to get in on private rounds, or big enough to move markets.
So, they made the only logical choice—they stopped pretending crypto was about fundamentals. If everything was just a glorified casino, why not bet on the wildest, fastest-moving chips? Memecoins weren’t an alternative; they were the inevitable endgame. A simple, brutal game: buy early, sell before the music stops, and pray you’re not the last one holding.
But no matter how the bonding curves were designed, no matter how much retail tried to play along, they were always the exit liquidity.
The system wasn’t broken—it was built this way.
TrumpCoin: The Ultimate Grift
Take TrumpCoin—the perfect example of how politics, influence, and gambling have merged into one chaotic spectacle. Trump, the master of branding, didn’t even need to officially endorse it. Just his reputation as a businessman and a crypto-friendly politician was enough to drive its value sky-high.
And why wouldn’t he back it? He understands the game better than anyone. He’s spent decades monetizing hype, and now, with TrumpCoin hitting a $75 billion market cap, it’s clear that memecoins might be more profitable than traditional business itself.
And he’s not alone. Javier Milei’s LIBRA debacle in Argentina followed the same playbook: a politician endorses a coin, it pumps, then collapses, leaving chaos in its wake. The difference? Milei’s move was reckless enough to spark legal actions and even impeachment discussions.
When politicians turn into memecoin shillers, what does that say about the industry?
The Future After the Memecoin Era: A New Hope for Crypto
Memecoins didn’t just wreck the market—they hijacked its entire financial flow. They drained liquidity from real innovation, cannibalized funding, and turned the ecosystem into a battleground of hype over substance. Serious projects struggled to survive while capital flooded into tokens with no roadmap beyond the next viral tweet.
But here’s the twist: maybe this collapse was necessary. Maybe we deserve it.
For all the damage memecoins have done, they exposed the flaws in crypto’s funding model. They revealed what retail actually wants, how narratives drive markets, and why old-school fundraising models were doomed to fail. And now, with the memecoin cycle burning itself out, there’s an opportunity—the chance to rebuild the right way.
If the market learns from this, the next era of crypto could be different. Not just VCs dumping on retail, not just influencers pumping empty tokens, but a funding system that actually supports real innovation. The chaos of memecoins might have forced us to evolve.
But if there’s one lesson to take from this, it’s that crypto has the power to reinvent itself. The wreckage left behind isn’t just failure—it’s an opportunity. New tools, better models, and a smarter market can emerge from the chaos. Maybe this time, we build something that lasts.
This cycle is over.
Let there be hope for a brighter future ahead.
About author: Andriy Velykyy, a Warwick Business School alumnus, entered the crypto space in 2015. Recognizing the growing need for bridging solutions, he co-founded Allbridge in May 2021 alongside Yuriy Savchenko. Since then, Allbridge has steadily expanded, introducing new non-EVM integrations and advancing cross-chain interoperability. Their flagship product, Allbridge Core, launched in 2022, delivers a more efficient and user-friendly approach to bridging.
