I once sincerely believed that decentralization would change the world; I believed that DAOs would provide humanity with a new paradigm of collaboration, making governance no longer dependent on borders and flags; I also believed that each block would, like the printing press during the Renaissance, become one of the most profound social inventions of our time.

However, what I see now is a different scene.
Ponzi schemes hide behind whitepapers; DeFi has become a gray area rife with scams and hackers fleeing with funds; GameFi writes "mine, stake, sell" as the only script, building tall towers in three months only to collapse in a day; SocialFi is just a cyber carnival for leechers, with low throughput supporting nonexistent demand; Play to Earn feels more like a race to see who can run faster—when the music stops, chips scatter everywhere.
We’ve seen cars covered in phones just to farm more virtual tokens; witnessed public blockchains fall into enemy hands, forced to fork for self-rescue; seen soldiers of generals storm into this golden wasteland with no locks, plundering and then leaving. Crypto punk avatars, virtual land plots, useless wallet domains—once revered as divine objects—created myths of overnight wealth under the spotlight. But when the tide recedes, they inevitably face one ending—exchanging for dollars and fleeing in panic.
Most people secretly understand: tokens may be portrayed as the future, but ultimately, money still belongs to the dollar.
Today, few people seriously discuss DAOs anymore, and even fewer mention the ideals of decentralization. The grand narrative of "interstellar currency" sounds more like a distant declaration of ideals from a bygone era. The rebellious youth who once wielded iron swords, claiming to overthrow the old world, have long since sheathed their blades, sitting beneath the great tree of the dollar system, waiting for a falling leaf.
Ideals haven't died—they've just been drowned out by the noise of exchange platforms.