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2021 Vibes Are Back: High valuations, froth and speculative private rounds dominate despite weak public markets. Private markets remain elevated vs public ones – especially early stage with pre-seed, pre-product ventures still trying to demand ‘5mio at 50mio’ (Denver). At DAS, we did start to see some acknowledgement of this imbalance – with some rounds re-pricing lower.
Fragmented Ecosystem & Narratives: Denver conference mindshare was very trifurcated and split across locations, mini-conferences and events - this includes between L1s, DePIN, Restaking, Stablecoins, AI, Payments and RWAs. Echo chambers within echo chambers. Not seeing good builders shift between verticals and ecosystems like we did in previous years.
Institutional Influx vs Builder Fatigue: Institutional interest (Citadel, Franklin, GS, MS, Coinbase, Trump policy tailwinds) is rising, while many devs (a distinct lack of them vs VCs in Denver i.e. very heavy VC participation) seem to be either chasing the next shiny thing (short attention span) or doubling down on legacy pet projects - very few focusing on real PMF.
Value Discipline Is Key: Investors are becoming more cautious. Overpriced deals - slower deployment and increased diligence should become the norm over Q2/3. Many projects won’t be able to re-raise (from last cycle) or will raise down rounds. New projects still demand strong terms.
IPO/SPAC: Anyone who can, is trying to list. Insiders want their payday and investors want DPI (DAS).
DAS vs Denver: ‘Vibes’ were far better at DAS vs ETH Denver (despite being only one month apart). Most of the ‘energy’ came from institutions side who were long BTC and looking at building on blockchains, but were not exposed to the underlying altcoins. However, at ETH Denver, most people were overexposed to altcoins and underexposed to BTC. Tough times.
Centralised Exchanges: They are coming for Traditional asset classes. Custodians (with banking licences) are going to do the same. Expect further competition. Several are looking towards FX & Equities. NOTE: In short, Coinbase and others are looking to compete with Robinhood as well as the major banks. Separately, Asian and ME exchanges are racing to re-enter the US with OKX and Bitget opening offices in the heart of FiDi and Hudson Yards. Talk of Binance trying to re-open Binance US.
ETH & Polygon Losing Steam: Low confidence in Ethereum core roadmap in Denver (ETH conference so says a lot) - Polygon’s ZK traction and TVL are fading. Other Alt L1s (from previous cycles) are starting to properly be considered ‘sunset’ by attendants (i.e. investors would deploy to apps built on them and builder wouldn’t build on them).
Big Themes:
AI x Crypto is everywhere, but still immature. Agent ecosystem likely transitory, infrastructure needs to be built.
Stablecoins & RWAs seen as real-world bridges.
Stablecoins: Big theme for institutionalisation. Very Saturated market. Almost every institution is exploring how to launch their own stablecoin or how to integrate stablecoins into their existing business.
RWAs: All the largest financial institutions are actively looking to tokenize. Interestingly, private blockchains seem to be a thing of the past and most institutions are looking towards utilizing public blockchains such as, Ethereum, Solana and L2s.
Verifiable Compute + DA dominated infra conversations. Especially with regard to ETH.
Bitcoin Institutionalization is the emerging macro narrative. BTC bifurcated vs rest of crypto. Will continue to trade this way for a while.
Sentiment Split: We have not reached max pain. Surprisingly there was no ‘bear market’ feel on the ground in Denver, and in fact cautious optimism (or maybe everyone is used to these swings). However, VC investors and Funds privately express deep unease. At DAS, very positive feels, partly due to positioning (BTC ETFs) but also due to the real use cases that blockchain brings to TradFi.
Market Sentiment: Eerie Echoes of 2021 (Denver & DAS)
Private Round Froth: Inflated valuations across early-stage rounds. Most felt pre-seed and seed are pricing ala 2021 - with little real justification (pre-product, non-innovative).
Liquidity Disconnect: Public market correction hasn’t translated to private valuations. Some investors are “sitting on their hands” but there remains are few notable large funds (with a lot of dry powder and need to deploy) putting in large cheques (and demanding 10% + ownership) and thus taking round valuations to what feels like unsustainable levels (or ones where the risk reward is off for most other funds).
Funding: There are a lot of protocols failing to find follow on funding from the previous cycle - many will go under/bought for parts.
“Feels very 2021 – private valuations are way too high and public markets continue to come off from their highs. Noone seems to care. In many ways, that is what is most worrying.”
Deployment Slowdown: DD is getting more rigorous. Pressure to rush funding or follow hype rounds is being ignored (by some, but not all). Pace is intentionally slow.
Market feels brittle: No clear catalyst in sight, but pressure is building.
Infra & Ethereum: DA or Bust (Denver)
Data Availability (DA) is seen as one of the most urgent issues for Ethereum's scalability roadmap.
Ethereum DA vs altDA: ETH L1 wasn’t designed for DA - now must compete with purpose-built options like Celestia, EigenDA.
PeerDAS & Proto-Danksharding got attention - seen as critical to future-proof L2 rollups. A lot of talk here.
Base & Coinbase’s Role: Coinbase is investing deeply in Ethereum R&D via BASE and taking mindshare and value away from ETH. Potentially problematic long term for value accretion.
Ethereum Coordination Issues:
New leadership at the EF raises questions.
Foundation selling tokens + lack of cohesion = declining community confidence.
ETH maxis were noticeably silent at the event.
Question: Will ETH be the AOL of this generation? Time will tell.
AI x Crypto: Buzz vs Reality (Denver & DAS)
Biggest Buzz Theme: AI agents for trading, yield farming, and personal finance tools were everywhere. Saturated markets. Question: Is this really solving a problem that anyone outside of crypto cares about?
Key Challenges:
Key management - how to safely let AI agents control assets?
Still MVP phase - many tools are prototypes, not products.
AI fatigue is starting to become real: But high-conviction projects are still pushing forward, heavily backed. Sense that mindshare won’t last for some ventures.
DePIN, RWAs, and Stablecoins (Denver & DAS)
DePIN (Decentralized Physical Infrastructure):
Robotics, storage, compute, data collection, and energy DePIN getting attention.
Solana heavily aligned here - SVMs multiplying.
Stablecoins & RWAs:
Most real traction - especially for TradFi. Very saturated market that arguably relies on high interest rates.
Institutional capital is entering.
Regulatory clarity is key - “legal stablecoins” and tokenized assets are where many funds are quietly placing bets.
Narrative Disarray:
Dozens of micro-conferences, each championing a different trend (DePIN, AI, Restaking, PayFi…).
No dominant meme; just echo chambers.
Institutional Momentum: The “Trump Put” Narrative (DAS)
With Trump Pro-Crypto, a lot of talk on the “Trump Put” i.e. tail-risk removal:
Analogous to a “Fed Put” for equities.
Personally disagree, suspect it acts more like a floor, which markets tend to home in on and eventually break.
BTC Reserve: Coming, and a lot of excitement about this at DAS.
US States Planning BTC Reserves: Could match federal holdings long term (~200k BTC)?
Sovereign Buyers: Abu Dhabi already in; more may follow.
Conference Vibes: Jaded Builders, Focused Institutions (Denver)
Less hype tourists: more serious participants (VCs), less retail.
VC vs Builders: Interestingly, very VC heavy at most events, which is telling.
Conference: Dead. Everyone at side events focussing on their own focus vertical. ‘Market structure’ of ETH Denver has drastically changed over the last 4-5 years.
Many teams burned by rugs and scams - general fatigue.
Product-Market Fit (PMF) became a buzzword again - this time in a more grounded, revenue-focused way. Still a lack of testing this out before building.
Looking Forward..
Cautious optimism: 2025 will be a big year. Macro will be a big driver of price action. General excitement on the pace of change.
Key areas of focus:
Valuation reset - inevitable and necessary.
Real PMF over narrative spinning.
Strong regulatory bridges for TradFi entry (especially through RWAs/stablecoins).
Real use cases – Huge focus here.
