1confirmation Founder: The Crypto Industry Needs to Merge the "Belief Builders" with the "Speculative Hype Men"

Odaily Planet Daily reported that 1confirmation founder Nick Tomaino published an article discussing the marketing challenges faced by long-termists in the Crypto industry. He believes that true builders need to understand and attract Degen users while maintaining authenticity, rather than criticizing speculative culture from a high horse. He has been trying to solve this problem for the past 15 years and has failed many times. He admits that users holding different asset positions might see him as "condescending," but he was once heavily involved in speculation and suffered losses when he was younger, so he does not look down on the Degen crowd.

Nick Tomaino believes that many truly predatory participants in the crypto industry are actually able to exploit Degens for arbitrage precisely because they look down on them. Current crypto market participants can be divided into two major camps:

The first camp: True believers, represented by the leadership of Ethereum and Coinbase. These teams have gone through multiple market cycles, continuously building new products and infrastructure. They do not chase short-term traffic and capital but focus more on long-term value.

However, the problem with this camp is that sometimes they are too idealistic and do not fully participate in high-heat scenarios like Memecoin trading and perpetual contracts, making them relatively inadequate in marketing and user acquisition.

The second camp: Hype men, including some altcoin project teams, executives, and KOLs. This group excels at generating attention, attracting Degen users, and capturing market hotspots.

Tomaino believes that some of these participants are more focused on short-term capital and traffic, lack real innovation, merely package themselves with industry narratives, and do not truly practice long-term value. Hype men are better at capturing attention and trading demand, while believers possess stronger authenticity and long-term reputation, but both have shortcomings. Ultimately, these two cultures will merge. The key lies in whether long-term builders can better understand and attract Degen users, and whether traffic drivers can shift from short-term hype to creating genuine long-term value. The future direction of the crypto industry will depend on which side can influence the other—whether long-termists can push more speculative users towards building, or whether hype players will gradually transition to a healthier, more positive-sum ecosystem.