Crypto's Vibe Shift

2025 will be remembered as a defining year in the evolution of the crypto industry. Several milestones make that clear:

• The passage of the GENIUS Act, establishing the first federal regulatory framework for stablecoins
• A wave of successful crypto IPOs (Circle, Bullish, Figure, etc.), proving that public markets now demand direct crypto exposure
• Record-breaking inflows into crypto ETPs, the fastest-growing exchange-traded product category in history
• A reversal in public opinion among historically critical institutions and leaders (Vanguard, Jamie Dimon, etc.) acknowledging crypto’s legitimacy

But the most important development this year wasn’t any of these headlines. It was something less visible but far more consequential: a deep shift in the industry’s cultural operating system.

By this I mean the norms, assumptions, and values that shape how capital is allocated and where entrepreneurs focus their energy. Over the course of the year, we saw a decisive move away from a speculation-first ethos toward one grounded in pragmatism. This cultural reorientation will matter more to the next decade of crypto than any single product launch or price event.

An industry’s culture acts as its compass, and when that compass shifts, the entire trajectory of the industry moves with it. Wall Street offers a vivid example: once ruled by instinct-driven traders, it was transformed within a generation into a domain dominated by mathematicians, quants, and systematic thinking. The cultural discontinuity that pushed the industry to think of markets as mathematical systems that can be modeled and monetized transformed the talent pipeline from floor traders to PhDs, and gave rise to a new generation of firms (e.g., D.E. Shaw, Two Sigma, Renaissance Technologies, etc.) that dominate the landscape today.

The crypto industry’s speculative spirit has led to a number of incredible innovations that serve as the foundation for the future of the market. It’s also undeniable that this ethos has led to a number of norms that have earned the industry a mixed reputation. This includes things like high FDV / low float token launches, claims of market manipulation, and many other issues. Most notably, it created an incentive system that historically maximized rewards for investors and founders who either leaned into making products that made it easier to speculate on the price of crypto, or focused on creating hype rather than enduring businesses.

We have seen a major vibe shift this year. Public-market participants are increasingly vocal about grounding token valuations in fundamental business metrics, not just theoretical technological upside. And among venture investors, the hottest markets weren't another wave of infrastructure like restaking, L2s, or bridging protocols. It was stablecoins, payments businesses, and adjacent opportunities focused on bringing crypto infrastructure to real-world financial systems.

This cultural shift will rewrite the industry’s opportunity frontier. Investors are beginning to prioritize traction and defensibility over hype, and we are seeing more founders focusing on products that solve real problems for real-world users. I believe this is the beginning of a major inflection point in the market that will open the door for a new wave of growth unlike anything we’ve seen to date.

The industry is no longer building for speculation, it’s building for the real world. Those who understand this shift early will be the ones who define crypto’s next decade and will capitalize on this new era.