Andre Cronje's latest article: Crypto is dead, long live Crypto

Original Author: Andre Cronje

Original Title: 《The rise and fall of crypto culture》

Compiled by: Hu Tao, Chain Catcher

Crypto is dead. Long live Crypto.

I hope to be old enough. Old enough to witness the birth of monetary policy. I hope I have seen the mistakes those people made, because I believe we are repeating them now.

I often imagine the builders of Crypto, after reading those articles on Wikipedia about bonds, seigniorage, or debt instruments, thinking "they could do better."

This is something that often happens in coding; you discover a new piece of code written by another organization or developer, and you quickly start looking for mistakes, "this isn't necessary," "this could be done better," "why did they do it this way? It makes no sense," and then you start thinking "I can do better." So you redesign the code over the next few days, weeks, or even months, and then you hit the first wall, you have to make some adjustments, then the second, then the third, and so on, until your code looks exactly like theirs, and when you finally understand why it is that way, you have that "oh, right, that's why" moment.

Monetary policy is the same; you cannot look at money supply, issuance, debt, bonds, seigniorage, bonds, commodities, securities, and derivatives in isolation. They exist for a reason. But Crypto is a new generation, the "we can do better" generation.

For a long time, I have been outspoken about my disdain for crypto culture and my love for the spirit of Crypto. It may sound strange, but the spirit of Crypto is about concepts like self-sovereignty, self-custody, and self-empowerment. Crypto culture is about concepts like wealth, rights, fulfillment, and self.

Crypto culture stifles the spirit of Crypto.

A professor once told me, "Contracts emerge in times of depression, not in times of prosperity." Regulation and legislation are the same. They only appear in the most needed times of depression, not in the beautiful times of honeymoon and champagne.

As a protective mechanism rather than a preventive mechanism, I feel the need for regulation now more than ever, even necessary. It's like a child trying to stick their finger into a power outlet; you stop them, and then they understand why they shouldn't do that. One day they will understand, but not today.

Crypto is dead. Long live Crypto.

We are entering a new era, the current iteration will become wasteland, unknown wallets lurking in the shadows, and we will see the rise of a new blockchain economy, driven not by greed, nor by trustlessness, but by trust. It's ironic to come full circle, but I find myself more excited than ever. I will not step into the wasteland again, but I am very excited about this new future.