Movement Turmoil: The Game and Breakthrough between Project Parties, Market Makers, and VCs

Source: Crypto Pump & Dumps Have Become the Ugly Norm. Can They Be Stopped; Compiled by: lenaxin, ChainCatcher

This article is compiled from an interview on the Unchained blog, featuring guests José Macedo, founder of Delphi Labs, Omar Shakeeb, co-founder of SecondLane, and Taran Sabharwal, CEO of STIX. They discussed topics such as liquidity shortages in the crypto market, market manipulation, inflated valuations, opaque locking mechanisms, and how the industry can engage in self-regulation.

TL;DR

1. The core function of market makers is to provide liquidity for tokens and reduce trading slippage.
2. The options incentives in the cryptocurrency market may induce “pump and dump” behavior.
3. It is recommended to adopt a fixed fee model to reduce manipulation risks.
4. The cryptocurrency market can refer to the regulatory rules of traditional finance but must adapt to decentralized characteristics.
5. Exchange regulation and industry self-discipline are key entry points for promoting transparency.
6. Project parties manipulate the market through means such as falsely reporting circulation volume and transferring selling pressure through over-the-counter transactions.
7. Reduce project financing valuation to avoid retail investors taking over high bubble assets.
8. The lock-up mechanism is opaque, early investors are forced to cash out informally, triggering a sell-off: dYdX plummeted.
9. Misalignment of interests between VC and founders, disconnect between token unlocking and ecosystem development.
10. Disclose true circulation volume, lock-up terms, and market maker dynamics on-chain.
11. Allow reasonable liquidity release and hierarchical capital collaboration.
12. Refine financing after validating product needs to avoid being misled by VC hotspots.

(1) The Functions of Market Makers and Manipulation Risks

Laura Shin: Let’s start by delving into the role of market makers in the cryptocurrency market. What core problems do they solve for projects and the market? At the same time, what potential manipulation risks exist in the current market mechanisms?

José Macedo: The core function of a market maker is to provide liquidity across multiple trading venues to ensure that the market has sufficient buy and sell depth. Its profit model mainly relies on the bid-ask spread.

Unlike traditional financial markets, in the cryptocurrency market, market makers often acquire a large number of tokens through options agreements, thereby occupying a significant proportion of the circulating supply, which gives them the potential ability to manipulate prices.

Such options agreements typically include the following elements:

1. The exercise price is usually based on the previous round of financing price or a 25%-50% premium on the weighted average price (TWAP) over 7 days after issuance.
2. When the market price reaches the strike price, the market maker has the right to exercise and profit.

This type of protocol structure will to some extent incentivize market makers to artificially inflate prices. Although mainstream market makers are usually more cautious, non-standard option agreements do pose potential risks.

We recommend that project parties adopt a “fixed fee” model, which means paying a fixed fee monthly to hire market makers, and requiring them to maintain reasonable bid-ask spreads and continuous market depth, rather than driving prices through a complex incentive structure.

In short, fees should be independent of the performance of token prices; cooperation should be service-oriented; and distortion of objectives due to incentive mechanisms should be avoided.

Taran Sabharwal: The core value of market makers lies in reducing trading slippage. For example, I once executed a seven-figure trade on Solana that resulted in a 22% on-chain slippage, while professional market makers can significantly optimize this metric. Given that their services save costs for all traders, market makers deserve to be compensated accordingly.

When selecting a market maker, the project party needs to clarify the incentive goals. Under the basic service model, market makers mainly provide liquidity and lending services; while in the short-term consulting model, short-term incentives are set around key nodes such as the mainnet launch, for example, by using TWAP trigger mechanisms to stabilize prices.

However, if the strike price is set too high, once the price far exceeds expectations, market makers may execute options arbitrage and sell tokens in large quantities, thereby exacerbating market volatility.

Lessons learned indicate that one should avoid setting overly high exercise prices and prioritize choosing basic service models to control the uncertainties brought about by complex agreements.

Omar Shakeeb: There are two core issues with the current market-making mechanism.

First of all, there is a misalignment in the incentive mechanisms. Market makers often focus more on the arbitrage opportunities brought by price increases, rather than fulfilling their basic duty of providing liquidity. They should attract retail trading by continuously providing liquidity, instead of merely obtaining arbitrage profits through betting on price fluctuations.

Secondly, there is a serious lack of transparency. Project parties often hire multiple market makers simultaneously, but these institutions operate independently and lack a collaborative mechanism. Currently, only the project foundation and exchanges have access to the specific list of market maker collaborations, while secondary market participants are completely unable to obtain relevant information about the trading executing parties. This lack of transparency makes it difficult to hold the responsible parties accountable when irregularities occur in the market.

(II) Movement Turmoil: The Truth about Private Placement, Market Making, and Transparency

Laura Shin: Has your company been involved in any related business with Movement?

Omar Shakeeb: Our company has indeed been involved in Movement-related business, but only in the private placement market. Our business processes are extremely rigorous, and we maintain close communication with the founders of the projects, including Taran. We conduct strict investigations and audits on the background of every investor, advisor, and other participants.

However, we are not aware of the pricing and specific operations involved in the market making process. Relevant documents are only held by the project foundation and the market makers, and have not been disclosed to other parties.

Laura Shin: So, did your company act as a market maker during the Token Generation Event (TGE) of the project? However, I think the agreement between your company and the foundation should be quite different from that of a market maker, right?

Omar Shakeeb: No, we do not participate in market-making activities. What we engage in is private market business, which is completely different from market-making. Private markets are essentially over-the-counter (OTC) transactions, which usually occur before and after the TGE.

José Macedo: Did Rushi sell tokens through over-the-counter trading?

Omar Shakeeb: As far as I know, Rushi did not sell tokens through over-the-counter trading. The foundation has clearly stated that it will not conduct sales, but how to verify this commitment remains a challenge. Market makers also face this risk in their trades. Even if market makers complete large transactions, it may simply be on behalf of the project team selling tokens, and the outside world cannot know the specific details. This is exactly the problem caused by the lack of transparency.

I recommend starting from the early stages of token allocation to clearly label wallets, such as marking them as “Foundation Wallet,” “CEO Wallet,” “Co-founder Wallet,” etc. This way, the source of each transaction can be traced, clarifying the actual selling situation of all parties involved.

José Macedo: We did consider labeling the wallet, but this measure could lead to privacy breaches and increase the barriers to entry for startups.

(3) Exchange and Industry Self-Discipline: Feasibility of Regulatory Implementation

José Macedo: Hester Pierce emphasized in the recent safe harbor rule proposal that project parties should disclose their market-making arrangements.

Currently, exchanges tend to maintain a low trading volume to achieve high valuations, while market makers rely on information asymmetry to earn high fees.

We can draw lessons from the regulatory experiences of traditional finance (TradFi). The Securities Exchange Act of the 1930s and the market manipulation tactics revealed by Edwin Lefebvre in “Reminiscences of a Stock Operator” during the 1970s and 1980s, such as artificially inflating trading volume to lure retail investors, are strikingly similar to certain phenomena in the current cryptocurrency market.

Therefore, we suggest introducing these mature regulatory systems into the cryptocurrency field to effectively curb price manipulation. Specific measures include:

1. It is prohibited to manipulate market prices through false orders, front-running, and priority execution.
2. Ensure the transparency and fairness of the price discovery mechanism to prevent any actions that may distort price signals.

Laura Shin: Achieving transparency between issuers and market makers faces numerous challenges. As Evgeny Gavoy pointed out in the “The Chop Block” program, the market-making mechanisms in the Asian market generally lack transparency, and achieving global regulatory uniformity is nearly impossible.

So, how can these obstacles be overcome? Can industry self-discipline drive change? Is it possible in the short term to form a hybrid model of “global convention + regional implementation”?

Omar Shakeeb: The biggest problem is that the underlying operations of the market are extremely opaque. If leading market makers can voluntarily establish an open-source information disclosure mechanism, it will significantly improve the current state of the market.

Laura Shin: But will this approach lead to the phenomenon of “bad money driving out good money”? Violators may evade compliance institutions, so how can we truly curb this kind of misconduct?

José Macedo: At the regulatory level, the exchange’s review mechanism can be used to promote transparency. Specific measures include: requiring exchanges to publish a list of market makers and establishing a “compliance whitelist” system, among others.

In addition, industry self-regulation is equally important. For example, the auditing mechanism is a typical case. Although there is no legal requirement, it is almost impossible for projects that have not undergone an audit to obtain investment nowadays. Similarly, the qualification review of market makers can establish similar standards. If a project is found to be using non-compliant market makers, its reputation will be damaged. Just as there are varying qualities among auditing firms, a credit system for market makers also needs to be established.

The implementation of regulation is feasible, and centralized exchanges are the key entry point. These exchanges generally hope to serve American users, and U.S. laws have a broad jurisdiction over cryptocurrency businesses. Therefore, regardless of whether users are located in the U.S., as long as they use American exchanges, they must comply with relevant regulations.

In summary, exchange regulation and industry self-discipline can both become important means of effectively regulating market behavior.

Laura Shin: You mentioned that market maker information should be made public and that compliant market makers should gain market recognition. However, if someone deliberately chooses non-compliant market makers, and such institutions lack the incentive to publicly disclose their partnerships, the following situation may arise: the project party appears to use compliant market makers to maintain their reputation, but in reality, they simultaneously entrust opaque institutions to carry out operations. The key issue is:

1. How to ensure that the project parties fully disclose all the market makers they are cooperating with?
2. How can the outside world detect the violations of market makers who do not proactively disclose information?

José Macedo: If an exchange is found to be in violation of using non-whitelisted institutions, it is equivalent to fraudulent behavior. Although project parties can theoretically cooperate with multiple market makers, in practice, due to the limited circulation of most projects, there are usually only 1-2 core market makers, making it difficult to conceal the true partners.

Taran Sabharwal: This issue should be analyzed from the perspective of market makers. Firstly, it is one-sided to simply classify market makers as “compliant” and “non-compliant.” How can we require non-regulated exchanges to ensure the compliance of their trading entities? The top three exchanges (Binance, OKEx, Bybit) are all offshore and unregulated institutions, while Upbit focuses on spot trading in the Korean market.

Regulatory challenges include regional differences, monopolization by leading players, and excessively high entry barriers. In terms of accountability, project founders should bear primary responsibility for their manipulative actions. Although the exchange’s review mechanism is already quite strict, it is still difficult to eliminate evasion operations.

Taking Movement as an example, its issues are essentially social failures, such as overcommitment and improper transfer of control, rather than technical flaws. Although its token market value dropped from 14 billion FTB to 2 billion, many new projects still emulate it. However, the team’s structural errors, particularly the improper transfer of control, ultimately led to the project’s demise.

Laura Shin: How should all parties work together to address the various issues currently exposed?

José Macedo: Disclosing the real circulation volume is key. Many projects inflate their valuations by falsely reporting circulation volume, while in reality, a large number of tokens are still in the lock-up period. However, tokens held by foundations and labs are often not subject to lock-up periods, which means they can sell through market makers on the token’s launch day.

This operation is essentially a form of “soft exit”: the team cashes out when market enthusiasm is at its peak on the launch day, and then uses these funds to repurchase the unlocked team tokens a year later, or to temporarily boost the protocol’s TVL before withdrawing.

In terms of token distribution mechanisms, a cost-based unlocking mechanism should be introduced, similar to the practices of platforms like Legion or Echo. Currently, there are evident flaws in channels like Binance Launchpool, making it difficult to distinguish between real user funds and platform-held funds in pools worth billions of dollars. Therefore, establishing a more transparent public sale mechanism is urgent.

The transparency of the market-making process and ensuring that retail investors can clearly understand the actual token holdings is also crucial. Although most projects have made progress in terms of transparency, further improvements are still needed. Therefore, it is necessary to require the disclosure of details regarding the token lending agreements of market makers, including key information such as the amount borrowed, option agreements, and their exercise prices, to provide retail investors with a more comprehensive market insight, helping them make more informed investment decisions.

Overall, disclosing the actual circulation volume, standardizing the disclosure of market-making agreements, and improving the token distribution mechanism are the most urgent reform directions at present.

Omar Shakeeb: The primary issue is to adjust the financing valuation system. Current project valuations are inflated, generally between 3-5 billion USD, exceeding the capacity of retail investors. Taking Movement as an example, its token valuation dropped from 14 billion to 2 billion, and such an excessively high initial valuation is detrimental to any party. We should revert to the early valuation levels of Solana, around 300-400 million USD, allowing more users to participate at reasonable prices, which is also more conducive to the healthy development of the ecosystem.

Regarding the use of ecosystem funds, we have observed that project teams often fall into operational dilemmas. Should they hand it over to market makers? Engage in over-the-counter trading? Or choose other methods? We always recommend selecting over-the-counter trading (OTC), as this ensures that the recipient of the funds aligns with the project’s strategic goals. Celestia is a typical case; they raised over $100 million with a valuation of $3 billion after their token issuance, but they achieved effective allocation of funds through sound planning.

(4) The Truth About Market Manipulation

Laura Shin: Is the essence of current market regulation measures to gradually guide artificially manipulated token activities, such as market maker interventions, towards a development track that aligns with natural market laws? Can this transformation achieve a win-win situation for all parties, ensuring the interests of early investors while also ensuring the sustainable development of project teams?

José Macedo: The structural contradiction currently faced by the market lies in the imbalance of the valuation system. In the last bull market, due to project scarcity, the market exhibited a widespread bullish trend; however, in this cycle, due to the excessive investment by venture capital (VC), there has been a severe surplus of infrastructure tokens, causing most funds to fall into a loss cycle, forcing them to liquidate positions to raise new funds.

This imbalance of supply and demand has directly changed the market behavior pattern. The funds of buyers show fragmented characteristics, with holding periods shortened from years to months or even weeks. The over-the-counter trading market has fully shifted to hedging strategies, where investors maintain market neutrality through options tools, completely saying goodbye to the naked long strategies of the previous cycle. Project parties must face this change: the success of Solana and AVAX is built on industry blank periods, while new projects need to adopt low circulation strategies (for example, Ondo controls actual circulation to below 2%) and maintain price stability by signing over-the-counter agreements with major holders like Columbia University.

The performance of projects such as Sui and Mantra in this round has validated the effectiveness of this path, while Movement’s attempt to stimulate prices through token economics design without a mainnet has proven to be a major strategic mistake.

Laura Shin: If Columbia University did not create a wallet, then how are they receiving these tokens? That seems a bit illogical.

Taran Sabharwal: As one of the main institutional holders of Ondo, Columbia University’s tokens are in a non-circulating state due to the lack of wallet creation, objectively forming a “paper circulation” phenomenon. The tokenomics of this project presents significant characteristics: after a large-scale unlocking in January of this year, no new tokens will be released until January 2025. Market data shows that despite active perpetual contract trading, the depth of the spot order book is severely lacking, and this artificial shortage of liquidity makes prices susceptible to small amounts of capital.

In contrast, Mantra has adopted a more aggressive liquidity management strategy. The project team transfers the selling pressure to forward buyers through over-the-counter trading, while using the funds obtained to pump the spot market. By only utilizing $20 million to $40 million in funds, they created a 100-fold price increase on a thin order book, causing the market cap to soar from $100 million to $12 billion. This “time arbitrage” mechanism essentially uses liquidity manipulation to create a short squeeze, rather than a price discovery process based on genuine demand.

Omar Shakeeb: The crux of the issue lies in the fact that the project team has set up a multi-lockup mechanism, but these lockup terms have never been disclosed publicly, which is precisely the most difficult part of the entire incident.

José Macedo: There is a serious distortion issue with the token circulation displayed by authoritative data sources like CoinGecko. Project teams often include “inactive tokens” controlled by the foundation and team in the circulation, resulting in a surface circulation rate of over 50%, while the actual true circulation entering the market may be less than 5%, with 4% still controlled by market makers.

This systematic data manipulation has been suspected of fraud. When investors trade based on the erroneous perception of 60% circulation, in reality, 55% of the tokens are frozen by the project party in cold wallets. This serious information gap directly distorts the price discovery mechanism, making the real circulation of only 5% a tool for market manipulation.

Laura Shin: The market operation methods of JP (Jump Trading) have been widely studied. Do you think this represents an innovative model worth emulating, or does it reflect the short-term arbitrage mentality of market participants? How should the essence of such strategies be characterized?

Taran Sabharwal: JP’s operations demonstrate a sophisticated ability to control market supply and demand, but its essence is a short-term illusion of value achieved by artificially creating a liquidity shortage. This strategy is non-replicable and, in the long run, undermines the healthy development of the market. The current phenomenon of imitation in the market precisely exposes the participants’ short-sighted mentality, focusing excessively on market cap manipulation while neglecting true value creation.

José Macedo: It is necessary to clearly distinguish between “innovation” and “manipulation.” In traditional financial markets, similar operations would be classified as market manipulation. The crypto market appears “legitimate” due to regulatory gaps, but it is essentially a transfer of wealth through information asymmetry, rather than sustainable market innovation.

Taran Sabharwal: The core issue lies in the behavioral patterns of market participants. Currently, the vast majority of retail investors in the cryptocurrency market lack a basic awareness of due diligence, and their investment behavior is essentially closer to gambling rather than rational investing. This irrational mentality of chasing short-term profits objectively creates an ideal operating environment for market manipulators.

Omar Shakeeb: The key issue lies in the project party’s establishment of a multi-lockup mechanism, but these lockup terms have never been publicly disclosed, which is precisely the most troublesome part of the entire event.

Taran Sabharwal: The truth about market manipulation often lies in the order book. When a buy order of $1 million can push the price to fluctuate by 5%, it indicates that market depth simply does not exist. Many project teams exploit technical unlocking loopholes (where tokens are unlocked but effectively locked for a long time) to falsely report circulation volume, leading short sellers to misjudge the risk. When Mantra first broke through a market cap of 1 billion, many short sellers were consequently liquidated and exited.

WorldCoin is a typical case. At the beginning of last year, its fully diluted valuation reached 12 billion, but the actual circulating market value was only 500 million, creating an even more extreme supply shortage than ICP that year. Although this operation has allowed WorldCoin to maintain a valuation of 20 billion to this day, it essentially harvests the market through information asymmetry.

However, an objective evaluation of JP is needed: during the market downturn, he even sold personal assets to buy back tokens and maintained project operations through equity financing. This dedication to the project truly demonstrates the founder’s responsibility.

Omar Shakeeb: Although JP is trying to turn the tide, it is by no means easy to make a comeback after falling into such a situation. Once market trust collapses, it is difficult to rebuild.

(5) The Game Between Founders and VCs: The Long-term Value of Token Economics

Laura Shin: Do we have fundamental differences in our development philosophy regarding the crypto ecosystem? Are Bitcoin and Cex essentially different? Should the crypto industry prioritize encouraging short-term arbitrage token game design, or should it return to value creation? When price is disconnected from utility, does the industry still hold long-term value?

Taran Sabharwal: The issues in the crypto market are not unique; there are also phenomena of liquidity manipulation in the small-cap stocks of traditional stock markets. However, the current crypto market has evolved into an intense battleground between institutions, with market makers hunting proprietary traders, quantitative funds harvesting hedge funds, and retail investors long marginalized.

This industry is gradually deviating from the original intention of cryptocurrency technology. When new institutions promote Dubai real estate to practitioners, the market has essentially become a blatant wealth harvesting game. A typical case is dBridge, whose cross-chain technology is advanced, yet its token market value is only $30 million; in contrast, meme coins with no technical substance easily break through a valuation of over $10 billion thanks to marketing gimmicks.

This distorted incentive mechanism is undermining the foundation of the industry. When traders can profit $20 million by speculating on “goat coins,” who will still focus on refining products? The spirit of crypto is being eroded by a culture of short-term arbitrage, and the innovative drive of builders is facing severe challenges.

José Macedo: There are two completely different narrative logics in the current cryptocurrency market. Viewing it as a zero-sum game “casino” versus seeing it as a technological innovation engine leads to completely opposite conclusions. Although the market is filled with speculative behaviors such as short-term arbitrage by VCs and market value management by project parties, there are also numerous builders quietly developing infrastructure such as identity protocols and decentralized exchanges.

Just like in the traditional venture capital sector, 90% of startups fail but drive overall innovation. The core contradiction of the current token economy lies in the fact that a poor launch mechanism can permanently damage a project’s potential. When engineers witness a token plummet by 80%, who would still be willing to join? This highlights the importance of designing sustainable token models: they must resist the temptation of short-term speculation while reserving resources for long-term development.

Excitingly, more and more founders are proving that cryptocurrency technology can surpass financial games.

Laura Shin: The real dilemma is how to define a “soft landing.”

In an ideal situation, token unlocking should be deeply tied to the maturity of the ecosystem. Only when the community achieves self-organization and the project enters a stage of sustainable development does the profit behavior of the founding team become legitimate.

However, the reality is that, apart from time locks, almost all unlocking conditions can be manipulated artificially, which is the core contradiction facing the current token economic design.

Omar Shakeeb: The root of the current token economics design problem lies in the first-round financing negotiations between VCs and founders, emphasizing that token economics involves balancing multiple interests, satisfying LP return demands while also being accountable to retail investors. However, in reality, project parties often sign secret agreements with leading funds (such as A16Z’s investment in Aguilera with high valuation terms disclosed months later), and retail investors cannot access details of off-market transactions, leading to liquidity management becoming a systemic issue.

Token issuance is not the end, but the responsible starting point for the crypto ecosystem. Each failed token experiment depletes the market’s trust capital. If founders cannot ensure the long-term value of the token, they should adhere to an equity financing model.

José Macedo: The misalignment of interests between VCs and founders is the core contradiction. VCs pursue maximum portfolio returns, while founders often find it difficult to avoid the impulse to cash out when faced with immense wealth. Only when on-chain verifiable mechanisms (such as TVL fraud detection and liquidity spoofing verification) are fully developed can the market truly move towards regulation.

(6) Industry Outlook: Transparency, Collaboration, and Return to Essence

Laura Shin: In our discussions so far, we have identified areas for improvement for all parties involved, including VCs, project teams, market makers, exchanges, and retail investors themselves. What do you all think should be improved?

Omar Shakeeb: For founders, the primary task is to validate product-market fit, rather than blindly pursuing large-scale funding. Practice shows that it is better to validate feasibility with 2 million yuan first and then gradually expand, rather than raising 50 million yuan without being able to create market demand.

This is also the reason why we release the private placement market liquidity report every month. Only by bringing all hidden operations into the sunlight can the market achieve truly healthy development.

Taran Sabharwal: The current structural contradictions in the crypto market put founders in a dilemma. They need to resist the temptation of short-term wealth and adhere to value creation, while also facing the pressure of high development costs.

Some foundations have transformed into private vaults for founders, with “zombie chains” worth billions of dollars continuously consuming ecological resources. While meme coins and AI concepts are being hyped up in turns, infrastructure projects are mired in a liquidity crisis, with some teams even forced to delay token issuance for two years without launching. This systemic distortion is severely squeezing the survival space for builders.

Omar Shakeeb: Taking Eigen as an example, when its valuation reached 6-7 billion dollars, there were buy orders of 20-30 million dollars in the over-the-counter market, but the foundation refused to release liquidity. This extreme conservative strategy actually missed a good opportunity, as they could have asked the team whether they needed 20 million dollars to accelerate the roadmap, or allowed early investors to realize 5-10% of their holdings for reasonable returns.

The essence of the market is a collaborative network for value distribution, not a zero-sum game. If the project party monopolizes the value chain, the ecological participants will eventually leave.

Taran Sabharwal: This exposes the fundamental power struggle in token economics, where founders always see early exits by investors as betrayal, while ignoring that liquidity itself is a key indicator of ecological health. When all participants are forced to lock their assets, the seemingly stable market value actually hides systemic risks.

Omar Shakeeb: The current cryptocurrency market urgently needs to establish a value distribution mechanism for positive cycles: allowing early investors to exit at reasonable times not only attracts quality long-term capital but also creates a synergistic effect between different time-horizon capitals.

Short-term hedge funds provide liquidity, while long-term funds support development. This layered cooperation mechanism is far more conducive to ecological prosperity than forced lock-ups, and its key lies in establishing trust bonds. Reasonable returns for Series A investors will attract continuous injections of strategic capital from Series B.

José Macedo: Founders need to recognize a harsh reality: behind every successful project, there are numerous failure cases. When the market frantically promotes a certain concept, most teams ultimately spend two years without being able to issue tokens, resulting in a vicious cycle of concept arbitrage, which essentially overdraws the industry’s innovation capability.

The real solution to breaking the deadlock lies in returning to the essence of the product, developing real needs with minimal viable financing, rather than chasing hot signals from the capital market. It is especially important to be vigilant against collective misjudgments caused by erroneous signals from VCs. When a certain concept receives a large amount of financing, it often leads founders to misinterpret it as genuine market demand.

Exchanges, as gatekeepers of the industry, should strengthen their infrastructure functions, establish a market maker agreement disclosure system, ensure that circulation data is verifiable on-chain, and standardize the reporting process for over-the-counter transactions. Only by improving market infrastructure can we help founders escape the “prisoner’s dilemma” of “no hype, no survival” and promote the industry to return to the right track of value creation.