Prices are down, X was down (and for a little moment I had hope of being free), and people in crypto are realizing that they might have to re-think their priorities. 

Story One

ETH Denver disappoints 

Despite everyone hating the location (you'll dehydrate and get the plague), ETH Denver, a conference, has been one of the few consistencies in the ever-changing crypto industry. 

In recent years, it's become commonplace to complain about how the main venue is stuffed with random non-Ethereum projects.

This year the vibes were even more off, which explains how my timeline turned into a potpourri of hot takes about how ETH Denver '25 was sad, and not even the AI agent hype could camouflage that. The disillusionment poked out like a pimple, which you only make more apparent with concealer. 

Why were the vibes off? Chances are that the heavy commercial focus of the conference, a lack of genuine representation of real people and dApps for them, and the slow death of memecoins contributed to it. 

People are tired of the same-old panels delivered by the same speakers without us making any apparent advances. After all, if we did, we could finally stop talking about Web3 UX. 

Takeaway: Community conferences, so obviously selling out is the problem. If you want genuine community interactions, you're unlikely to get that in an environment where market forces dictate. Don't believe me? Then read Sandel's book on what Money can't buy. 

Story Two

Memecoins success dwindles

From people finally realizing how out of touch their conference cycle is, to another area where I, with big Schadenfreude, watch the demise: Memecoins. Yes, I am a hater but not for the obvious reasons. I don't mind people getting rich quick. What I do mind is the fact that most of these memes were just a guise of community, to make already well-off people even richer. 

Fortunately, presidents getting involved in memes might have been the final nail in their coffin and memecoin launches on pump.fun are down 80%. Still thousands launch a day, but barely any of them ever make it even to the Twitter feed. The only recent exception was PWEASE, a meme inspired by JD Vance's performance during the disastrous White House visit of Zelenskyy.

Yet, even that meme didn't prove lasting; its quick market cap increase to $33 million quickly followed by the price catapulting it slowly back to obscurity. 

Takeaway: Maybe this is a case where it (the greed) had to get really bad first, to expose what's wrong and we can now move on to bigger and better things. 

Story Three

The Crypto strategic reserves we deserve?

Remember that thing I said about nature healing? It might be in parts, but it's more like small patches of greenery in a woodfire. Overall, you'd think that the US digital asset working group discussing the implementation of a strategic reserve is a good thing. 

But leave it to the current administration to also turn that into a bad idea. While people can get on board with governments holding Bitcoin, like how they keep gold around, Ripple and Cardano should not be included in that same category. 

Finally, we found something nearly all of crypto Twitter agrees on: chains that are best known for lawsuits, or in the case of Cardano, an annoying founder, should not be part of a nation's holdings. 

While Trump supposedly wants to elevate the industry after years of corrupt attacks, his choices only signal a lack of understanding, and once again highlight the Faustian bargain we entered when we started making crypto about politics. At least Faust got a girl, all we get is tariffs and market crashes. 

Cognitive dissonance is about to be added to the list of mental health issues of crypto people. 

Takeaway: Instead of cheering for nation states to pump our bags, it might be time to channel our contrarian roots and work on undermining the current system again. 

Fact of the week: If you feel like you need a deep clean after reading the news these days, and take up your soap, you might stop to ask, how did we ever invent this? It was a happy accident, a byproduct of cooking out meat where fat droplets fell into the ashes to form a substance that worked great for cleaning. You can find a great write-up of the history of soap here. 

Naomi for CoinJar

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