The Illusion of Prices: Understanding Relative Value in the Maturity of the Crypto Market

In times of market uncertainty, many observers cling to comforting narratives. But it’s time to abandon those unrealistic expectations and face an uncomfortable truth: the relative value of crypto assets will remain the key factor in the coming years, far more than the price movements that capture market attention.

The Inevitable Gap: When Adoption Outpaces Prices

We observe a paradoxical phenomenon defining this phase of the crypto industry: real adoption of cryptocurrencies will continue to accelerate while prices remain stagnant or decline. This is not an anomaly but a necessary feature of current evolution.

If you broaden your perspective to a decade, the outlook becomes incredibly attractive. However, maintaining this long-term vision is an extraordinary psychological challenge. You must prepare to see adoption rates keep growing while prices stagnate; you also need to be ready to witness other sectors—artificial intelligence, traditional stocks, new market trends—generate gains, while the crypto ecosystem seems to fade from the spotlight.

This process feels unfair, almost like prolonged torture. But the gap between adoption and price is inevitable. Essentially, many crypto assets never should have reached the valuations they once held. The market ignores real adoption until prices collapse, at which point adoption becomes relevant again. Understanding this cycle is crucial for assessing the relative value of your investments.

The Silent Infrastructure: Who Truly Captures Relative Value

The popularization of crypto applications can paradoxically lead to significant speculative bubble problems. It’s the painful process of value discovery: when actual demand cannot sustain inflated valuations, the market adjusts. This adjustment is precisely the necessary path for healthy long-term development.

When crypto infrastructure reaches scale applications, it becomes clear that invested capital far exceeds actual usage demand. During this testing phase, some business models will quietly disappear, others will survive but with valuations drastically lower than their peak historical promises.

Cryptocurrencies are undergoing a fundamental transformation: from being front and center in the spotlight to becoming secondary players, from exciting to ordinary. This is the inevitable path toward maturity after initial speculation. And this transformation is a positive development. History offers clear parallels: during the dot-com bubble burst, the Nasdaq fell about 78%, while internet users tripled and broadband infrastructure was fully deployed. The market took years to recover, but today the internet has quietly transformed the world. Software, as the famous phrase goes, “devoured the entire world.” Infrastructure technology does not reward impatient investors but rewards those who understand the long-term relative value of investments.

Desynchronized Cycles: Why Relative Value Must Be Redefined

It’s crucial to distinguish two different phenomena that investors often confuse: the price cycle and the application cycle.

The price cycle is driven by market psychology and liquidity. It’s volatile, emotional, unpredictable. The application cycle, on the other hand, is driven by practical value and infrastructure development. It’s slow, methodical, inevitable. They are related but never synchronized.

Historically, prices tended to lead applications—a common feature in early technological revolutions. Today, applications are beginning to dominate while prices lag significantly. Marginal crypto buyers are currently looking elsewhere, chasing the wave of artificial intelligence. This phenomenon may continue or reverse, but what’s certain is that a world without stablecoins, transparent capital channels, and 24/7 global settlement is becoming increasingly hard to imagine.

The deepest lesson is this: we must accept that the gap between applications and prices can extend much longer than expected. If you seek sustained compound returns, you need to stay rational when patience wears thin. This is not just a call to HODL your positions but to understand the relative value of your portfolio within the broader market context.

Many crypto projects will never recover. Some have design flaws from inception, others lack strong competitive defenses, and some have been completely abandoned. New winners will emerge, fallen stars will appear, and only a few will achieve a true comeback. Differentiating among these groups requires analyzing relative value, not just price revaluation potential.

True Winners: Companies vs Protocols in Capturing Value

The market’s shift in phase will unsettle many participants. Developers who spent years maintaining open-source repositories will see others copy their achievements and capture most of the economic benefits. Early-stage crypto-focused venture funds will observe traditional venture capital funds capturing more value. Retail investors who bought tokens instead of stocks may feel sidelined as companies benefit from the network without returning proportional value to token holders.

Some of these challenges are structural problems; others are self-imposed dilemmas. The market is self-correcting. Open networks will develop rapidly, incentives will shift, and mechanisms for capturing value will improve—but not all models will survive long enough to benefit.

The central question defining current relative value is: who will truly capture the value created by blockchain technology?

Basic technology primarily benefits consumers through lower prices and improved experiences. Secondary beneficiaries are companies updating their systems to leverage cheaper, faster, and programmable infrastructure. This theoretical framework raises fundamental questions:

Visa or Circle? Stripe or Ethereum? Robinhood or Coinbase? A portfolio of Layer 1 protocols or user aggregators? DeFi or traditional finance stocks? DePIN or conventional infrastructure stocks?

It’s not necessarily about choosing one over the other; a diversified strategy is also viable. The key issue is relative value and return: who will capture the residual value created by blockchain? My analysis suggests that traditional and hybrid companies accessing open settlement channels to reduce costs and increase margins will capture more value than the underlying infrastructure. However, all theoretical frameworks have exceptions, and relative value can shift with market evolution.

Building Patience: How to Protect Your Capital by Understanding Relative Value

My strongest conviction is that over the next 15 years, most companies will adopt crypto technology to stay competitive. By then, the total crypto market capitalization will surpass $10 trillion. Stablecoins, tokenization, user scale, and on-chain activity will grow exponentially.

At the same time, valuation standards will be completely redefined. Current giants may decline, and irrational business models will be eliminated. This process is healthy and necessary for market maturity.

Cryptocurrencies will eventually become invisible. The more a company makes crypto the core of its product, the more fragile its business model. True long-term winners will deeply integrate cryptocurrencies into their operations, payment systems, and balance sheets. Users shouldn’t even notice the presence of crypto technology but should simply experience faster settlements, lower costs, and fewer intermediaries.

Cryptocurrencies must be pure and “boring.” When capital becomes restricted, the era of massive airdrops, subsidized demand, and irrational incentives will end. This is yet another inevitable repeat of market history.

My basic judgment is simple: crypto applications will become more popular, prices will adjust, and valuations will return to rationality. Crypto is a long-term trend, but that doesn’t mean the specific tokens you hold will necessarily appreciate. Understanding the relative value of your portfolio is more important than expecting uniform revaluation.

I am not particularly optimistic about price movements in the coming years. Adoption rates will continue to rise, but prices may keep falling, possibly exacerbated by a mean reversion in stocks and a cooling of the AI speculative cycle.

However, patience is an extraordinary advantage. The value of cash is underestimated—not for its financial return but for the psychological immunity it provides. It allows you to act decisively when others are paralyzed.

I am optimistic about the crypto-as-a-service model. I am optimistic about crypto-powered companies. I am pessimistic about excessive financialization. I am pessimistic about the failed unit economy. I am pessimistic about overbuilding infrastructure.

Protecting capital becomes crucial at this stage. The market has entered an era of rapid pace and diminishing patience. Professional managers frequently rotate portfolios to demonstrate value. Retail investors chase short-term trends more and more. Institutional investors will inevitably declare once again that cryptocurrencies are dead.

But gradually, more traditional companies will adopt crypto technology, and more balance sheets will connect to blockchain. One day, looking back at this period, everything will seem as clear as day. Signs are everywhere; only firm conviction often seems obvious only after prices have risen.

Until then, wait for the pain. Wait for sellers to capitalize. Wait for faith to collapse. But we are not there yet. No need to rush. The market will continue to fluctuate, life goes on, spend more time with the people who matter.

Don’t let your investment portfolio become your world. The crypto ecosystem will keep functioning silently, whether the market is in shadow or under the spotlight. The relative value you build today will matter tomorrow.

Good luck to all.