Disclosure: the views and opinions expressed here belong only to the author and do not represent the views and opinions of the editorial of Crypto.News.
A few weeks ago, Jeffy Yu – The founder of a same project called Zerebro (Zerebro) – brought his life to the camera. Then his wallet started to move. Fortunately, Jeffy did not really die. It was a blow, and although the backlash was deserved, the reason reported behind him – rushing to escape harassment and blackmail – hit a nerve. I don’t tolerate it. But I recognize the impulse of disappearing.
The crypto is chaotic. A public day, went the next day. And although fake your own death is extreme, the idea behind it is not unrelated to many founders. The pressure to disappear, to withdraw, to become anonymous again – is real. And not because of guilt. But because even when you build in good faith, you are a bad painting to be labeled a crook.
He is not a single person. This is the environment we have created – a space that claims to reward risk and experimentation but punishes anyone. A space where personality is flattened in a token price. And where failure, whatever intention, is treated as fraud. We say that we want innovation. But we have built a culture where most of the ideas never get started, because people behind them are exhausted first.
When success becomes a passive
I co -founded Pegaxy in 2021. He took off quickly – hundreds of thousands of users in weeks. When we launched our token, we deliberately launched a low evaluation to support organic growth. But crypto does not slow down. The market pumped and took our token for the walk, the catapultant at 100x yields. And suddenly, the favorite narrative of the market has changed: investors have ceased to pay attention to our real project and to the things we build, becoming purely obsessed with the price of tokens. Our roadmap was no longer important. Only the graph did.
And when did the graph turn? The crowd too. As a public face of the game, I went from hero to the bad in a few days. Not because of fraud. Not because we pulled a carpet. But because our token had become swept away in an unbearable and speculative frenzy, before crashing to the place where it started.
Media threshing has calmed down and investors moved to the following trend. Our token price fell and someone had to answer for that. This is the reality that the founders face. People don’t see you like a person. They see you as a proxy for their bags.
Failure is not fraud
The most dangerous thing that is happening in crypto at the moment is not bad actors – this is the way we have decided that each non -satisfied setback or waiting must reflect a bad intention.
We do not separate the moral reprehensible acts of market fluctuation. Even if a project saw a massive adoption, had a transparent team and a strong execution, the story is rewritten with hindsight: “They had to know.” And once this story sticks, it is almost impossible to shake.
This is what I worry most – not just for me, but for the younger founders or earlier in their careers than me. Those who succeeded during their first swing are chewed and never come back. Not because they had no more ideas. But because they know the cycle now: media threshing, hatred, exhaustion. Who wants to pass twice?
The result? The following idea – the best, the most mature – is never built. In this industry, talent is not the limiting factor. Endurance is.
What does survival really look like
So how do you continue? You build mental calluses. You stop reading the comments. You stop explaining. You build in silence for a while. You make walks, read books and disappear in the woods with your wife and no cell signal.
For me, the rejection training arrived early. I used to knock on the doors for ten hours a day. Then I called the cold which did not want to be called. I got used to “no”. It helped, but none of this prepares you for the kind of coordinated rage that can come to you in crypto. When a crowd decides on your business – and your character – is worthless, the most difficult thing to do is to stay focused and build anyway.
We lose more than the founders
What aggravates is that culture does not just damage people – it also deforms products. The teams are starting to build for appeasement instead of aligning. Instead of designing for real users, they build for the strongest holders. And because so many communities are encouraged to extract, not to maintain, the result is products that do not please anyone and fail anyway.
We don’t just lose people. We lose the point.
Let’s make room for a second act
I am not interested in defending the bad actors. Call the grifters, liars, those who have never intended to send anything.
But we must stop treating each founder who fails as if they were in the same category. Crypto talks about a big game on “public experimentation”, but we have created an ecosystem where the penalty of a failed experience is exiled.
Some of the most important companies – on the channel or out of sight – will be built by people who have already tried and who have not completely stuck the landing. If we do not make room so that these people can try again, we are not only stifled innovation – we give people too anonymous people to worry about it.
Crypto does not need more heroes. It needs a culture that allows manufacturers to stay in the arena long enough to build what really matters.
