Crypto used to be the frontier for speculation. This came in two forms: 1. Genuine interest and optimism in the underlying tech and potential use cases. 2. High inefficiency and low institutional/professional participation, which resulted in high volatility and good trading conditions for retail. That has changed. AI is the frontier for speculation, and has many more tangible use cases and impact than crypto in a much shorter time frame. Crypto has some cool stuff but use cases have generally converged towards speculation, and the memecoin cycle/max financial nihilism + crime cycle brought out the worst of that paradigm. Retail got siphoned into short-lived, extractive scams and insider-bundled shit sandwiches with a million different tokens instead of participating in public, liquid markets. In 2017 we all felt like geniuses for a while (before losing everything) because massive trend and momentum effects were both lasting and also easily accessible via centralized exchange listings. Even after losing money, the temporary wealth effect made us come back believing that we could do better when (more of an ‘if’ at the time) the market recovers. That’s quite different from being sent into a launchpad abattoir where the lifespan of a coin is measured in hours and if you don’t get lucky or have inside information, you’re down 99% within a day. It shouldn’t be surprising that retail traders prefer 0 DTE options, equity futures, metals, and basically anything other than crypto (with the slight exception of prediction markets). So what does this all mean? I don’t know, I didn’t think that far. I’ve spent 9 years in this industry, I’m unemployable, have no skills, and have formed an emotional attachment to my abuser. Looking forward to seeing you all in the permanent underclass living pod. Cheers