With the overall market plummeting, the meme market that has been hot for nearly a week has come to an abrupt halt. The noise has gradually faded to retail investors, and retail investor sentiment has returned to rationality. It is time to calm down and talk again about the route collisions and differences in opinions that have occurred in the industry in the past few days.

Perhaps it's due to my lingering idealism that I personally tend to side with the latter in the Meme vs. Build factional debate. While I don't oppose the concept of meme, and I do acknowledge its objective significance as a collective spiritual symbol in the post-internet era, and I believe that this collective sentiment naturally contributes to the cohesion of value, I don't believe that the recent emergence of so-called "memes" with overtly flattering overtones and overt self-interest meet the core definition of a meme. Furthermore, I don't believe these "memes" have sustainable value prospects—because the maintenance of such sentiment requires continuous positive feedback from flattering targets and position returns, rather than relying on the spontaneous emotional expression of the group like classic memes. This makes these "memes" inherently fragile in value.

Disguised as innovation, speculative behavior is mixed into the popular narrative of the times. Similar stories have actually been played out many times in the industry's more than ten years of development history.

Speculation grabs attention, but the industry's development cannot be separated from builders

Starting from the Bitcoin white paper, to the introduction of smart contracts on Ethereum, to various Layer 1 + Layer 2 breaking the shackles of performance, to DeFi, NFT, GameFi, Meme and other different use cases of the application layer... In the evolution and iteration of the cryptocurrency industry, various forms of speculative stories have never been absent.

The Bitcoin era also saw all sorts of bizarre mining coins flying around. While the ICOs of the Ethereum era spawned some promising seed projects, they also created even more "virtual coins." The explosion of DeFi has made free, permissionless finance a reality, but it's also hard to escape the frequent emergence of RUG scams. NFTs are even more common; even now, many people's wallets are still filled with small, zeroed-out images. Memes are the latest example. While some have proven their consensus resilience through market trials, many are essentially just short-term profiteering tools.

Sadly, such speculative activities often end up with conspiracy groups succeeding and retail investors losing money, and even make the industry bear the stigma of "violent ups and downs" and "rampant fraud", which objectively hinders the expansion of cryptocurrencies and the popularization of decentralized concepts.

Fortunately, such speculation has never been the driving force behind industry development, but rather the consequential consequence of technological breakthroughs and narrative upgrades. Bitcoin permeated the concept of decentralization; Ethereum and Solana made on-chain programmability a reality, gradually increasing the application capacity of blockchains; protocols like Aave, Uniswap, and Hyperliquid have made the financial world borderless; OKX Wallet, MetaMask, and Phantom have broken down the barriers of the on-chain world; and Tether and Circle have gradually popularized stablecoins and brought them into the mainstream.

While the speculative craze attracts more attention and recklessly damages the industry's reputation, a group of visionary platforms and builders are quietly using continuous building to reverse prejudice, rebuild trust, and promote the continuous iteration of underlying technologies and continuous innovation of the ecosystem.

In this year of industry breakthrough, what did the mainstream world see?

2025 is destined to be a memorable year in cryptocurrency history. This year saw breakthroughs in both regulatory compliance and mainstream adoption. ETFs for BTC and ETH have become rising stars in the traditional financial market; DATs have attracted a wave of investment; stablecoins have received legislative support for the first time; and the "coin-stock" and "stock-coin" markets are collaborating in a two-way race.

The reason why the mainstream world has gradually begun to pay attention to and is willing to accept the cryptocurrency industry is obviously not because of the hype and speculation, but because they see the value of cryptocurrency and blockchain in reshaping the future of finance: DeFi brings transparency and freedom that traditional finance cannot match, while also significantly reducing intermediary costs and improving system efficiency; stablecoins have demonstrated their huge potential to become a global payment and settlement infrastructure, and may affect changes in the competitive landscape of monetary sovereignty; RWA has opened up the channel between real-world assets and the on-chain world, unlocking new value circulation scenarios.

It is these technological breakthroughs and use case innovations that are pushing the cryptocurrency industry closer to the mainstream world, making more funds willing and even eager to allocate cryptocurrencies. This may be the underlying logic behind the total market value of cryptocurrencies continuing to set new highs this year.

Long-termism is not easy, please give builders more patience

True innovation never relies on short-term hype, but rather requires patience and time. From technology research and development, compliance development, to user education and application implementation, every step requires time and effort to refine.

Although in the shorter term, speculative crazes under the guise of memes can be overwhelming, and their so-called wealth effects can temporarily capture the attention of all users, when the tide recedes, people will eventually discover that the vast majority of "memes" are born and die in a flash, and the so-called wealth effects are essentially fluctuations that haven't had time to develop into a decline.

As OKX CEO Star stated at X, encouraging a small number of "early birds" to mass-produce Memecoin is a short-sighted move that will harm the long-term health of the entire industry and potentially violate compliance and legal regulations. The platform's responsibility is to foster a fair and transparent market environment.

Looking back at the stories of many rounds of speculative disillusionment in the past, every time this kind of "dream-making prosperity" is shattered, there is always a need for teams that adhere to long-termism and continue to work hard to "clean up" the entire industry, gradually repair the trauma caused by speculative behavior, and one day in the future use new technological achievements and innovative narratives to revitalize the industry, and then attract a new batch of speculators again... Over and over again, the cryptocurrency industry relies on these real builders to come to this day with twists and turns and tenacity.

Perhaps these builders cannot give you a hundred times the stimulation in one day, but as vested interests in the development of the industry, we should at least not blame them with mismatched standards.

The crash is coming, but the industry's future remains bright

Following March 12 and May 19, the cryptocurrency market once again experienced a historic plunge today, with nearly $20 billion evaporated from the contract trading market due to liquidations in 24 hours.

Yet, even amidst such volatile market conditions, we clearly witnessed comprehensive upgrades across the industry's infrastructure. From the underlying network to DeFi protocols and CeFi services, all sectors performed far better than before in the face of extreme volatility. During the hour of peak market volatility, Solana achieved 6,000 to 8,000 transactions per second, with gas fees remaining within historical median levels. Aave processed a record $180 million in collateral liquidations in a single hour, with the protocol operating flawlessly and without any bad debts. OKX maintained stable system operations, maintaining smooth and stable operations across all regions, with all system metrics remaining at normal levels.

This is the power of Build. History has repeatedly proven that short-term noise is merely market noise, and market fluctuations are merely incidental. It is through the persistent efforts and dedication of countless builders that the industry consistently rises from the ashes in the face of challenges, returning with a more robust posture.