a16z crypto: The 2021 narrative of cryptocurrency has failed; project teams must demonstrate users and revenue
By: rootdata|2026/06/24 04:45:05
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a16z crypto Paul Cafiero stated that the technology and cryptocurrency industries are entering the "Show Me" era, where the previous model of gaining market recognition through vision, white papers, tokens, and team backgrounds is failing. With regulatory scrutiny, incidents involving bad actors in the industry, the large-scale entry of traditional financial institutions, and the rapid deployment of AI products, the external audience's tolerance for "stories" has significantly decreased.
He believes that after institutions like BlackRock, Fidelity, JPMorgan, and Franklin Templeton entered the cryptocurrency and tokenization space, the threshold for serious projects in the industry has been raised. Project teams now need to demonstrate real data, on-chain transaction volume, active users, revenue, retention, deployed integrations, and verifiable partnerships. He stated that in 2021, it might have been possible to impress the market with 80% vision and 20% facts, but now that ratio has reversed.
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