Crypto's Great Maturation 🍂
Evolving from pure speculation to sustainable value creation
Hello!
Every Saturday I dive into a podcast by our partners at Decentralised.co and share what caught my attention.
This week, I'm reflecting on an episode hosted by Saurabh Deshpande with Will Clemente. The conversation underscores the shift the crypto industry is going through where it transforms from one with pure speculation to witnessing sustainable value creation.
Listen to the full episode here.
"Crypto is the purest form of capitalism we've ever seen."
Will Clemente's words stayed with me long after our conversation ended. It reminds me of crypto’s ability to self-correct through pure market forces with no regulators but just the efficiency that rewards what works and eliminates what doesn't.
Will, who built his reputation through Bitcoin on-chain analysis and later sold his research firm Reflexivity Research to a publicly traded company, has watched crypto mature from close quarters. His perspective reveals that we're witnessing crypto's graduation from a speculative casino to a market where fundamental value creation is becoming the primary driver.
For years, the crypto investment thesis was mostly nihilistic. Since most projects had no real value accrual mechanisms, why not buy the most speculative assets possible - the meme coins, the pure narrative plays, the tokens with no underlying business whatsoever?
This logic didn’t sound absurd in a world where lack of regulation clarity prevented real business models from emerging. Will feels that’s changed over time.
With favourable regulation finally arriving in the US, he feels that the argument of "the marginal dollar going into memes because none of the stuff was generating any value” is quite less compelling now.
Today, people with millions in liquidity will no longer hesitate to take that money off the table if there’s no working product.
This is visible across the global crypto landscape, too.
He gives HyperLiquid's case as an example.
While most crypto projects launched tokens first and promised products later, HyperLiquid flipped the script. "They built a product that people use, generating millions of dollars in revenue every single day from trading fees. And they launched the token after they built out a working product."
In the old world, teams could raise tens of millions on promises alone. Today, HyperLiquid's approach creates a template for sustainable value creation: prove your product works, generate real revenue, then create the token. This model requires significant upfront resources, which HyperLiquid's team had at their disposal: the capital to build without external funding.
Will also says, “The traditional four-year cycles as we know them are over.” Why? Because crypto is no longer operating in isolation. Bitcoin now trades with higher correlation to macro assets, behaving more like "another asset in that basket of how you can trade different macro factors" rather than following its own mystical patterns.
As crypto integrates into traditional finance, it loses some of its volatility patterns but gains legitimacy and sustainable growth. Will predicts retail will increasingly migrate from equities to crypto because it's becoming more accessible and legitimate while offering better opportunities for individual investors. This migration represents crypto's evolution into a genuine alternative to traditional markets, complete with real businesses, regulatory clarity, and fundamental analysis.
The part that made me rewind and replay was one where Will emphasised crypto's self-correcting nature.
"You can't have the next big move without purging a lot of the waste from the prior run." Isn’t this just how most new things in the world work?
Reminds me of the 1900s, when America had over 250 car manufacturers building expensive, hand-crafted vehicles for the wealthy. In three decades, market forces had purged the industry down to just 44 companies after survivors like Ford had learned to unlearn artisanal manufacturing in favour of mass production, proving the industry couldn't scale until it purged the waste from its artisanal past.
In crypto, too, projects without real value propositions have been getting "filtered out" during bear markets. Those with genuine utility survive and thrive.
This evolution is changing investor psychology in many ways. "People are willing to hold things for longer if they feel like they can actually tie a fundamental reason to hold them." This matters because sustainable markets require patient capital. When investors can sleep at night knowing they "own a good business that's going to keep generating value," they're less likely to panic sell at the first sign of volatility. It's the difference between owning a lottery ticket and owning equity in a growing company.
Despite this progress, Will identifies a crucial missing piece: "Having real value accrual mechanisms back to the tokens will unlock pools of capital to be able to feel like they can value this stuff."
Too many projects still operate with foundations that "rake fees" while providing "no value accrual to the people that have held the token for several years." Think of chains like Uniswap and Arbitrum, both of which generate substantial fees but none of them are ploughed back to the token holders.
This disconnect between protocol success and token holder value remains a major barrier to institutional adoption. But regulation is beginning to unlock solutions. As compliance frameworks emerge, projects can finally implement direct value distribution to token holders without regulatory uncertainty.
This maturation doesn't necessarily mean crypto is now boring. Speculation will always exist - it's part of what makes markets efficient. We all know how traders on prediction markets called their trades in the most recent NYC mayoral primary elections.
We're witnessing crypto's transformation from a purely speculative market to one where sustainable value creation drives long-term success. The purest form of capitalism is finally growing up.
Make sure you get the front row seats and some popcorn. I’ll be right there tracing its every move.
Want to hear Will's full argument about crypto's evolution and his predictions for the next market cycle? The complete conversation includes his insights on institutional adoption and the changing dynamics of crypto investment.
Token Dispatch is a daily crypto newsletter handpicked and crafted with love by human bots. You can find all about us here 🙌
If you want to reach out to 200,000+ subscriber community of the Token Dispatch, you can explore the partnership opportunities with us.
Fill out this form to submit your details and book a meeting with us directly.
Disclaimer: This newsletter contains analysis and opinions, not financial advice. Trading crypto involves substantial risk - your capital is at risk. Do your own research.