Will the future of cryptocurrency be like this?

1. Bitcoin will not become the main currency for on-chain payments, but will serve as a tool for storing value, leaning more towards the role of gold.

2. Ethereum will still be the king of smart contract chains in the short term, but the future (in a few years or a decade) remains uncertain. Ethereum still faces high user TPS demand and high on-chain costs; it is difficult to make significant changes due to its size. Some drawbacks of Layer 1 cannot be solved in the short term, and a lot of trading share will be taken away by Layer 2 and other Layer 1 chains. So far, Layer 1 is still not a chain that ordinary players can afford, and while the fees of Layer 2 have significantly decreased after upgrades, many Layer 2 solutions are quite dispersed, with even a trend towards Layer 3 development. Although they all rely on Layer 1 for validation, it feels like the complex Layer 2/3 setups are not true allies working together, but rather independent competing branches.

3. At least one high-performance public chain will break through; the blockchain needs a truly high-performance public chain that is secure, efficient, and has low interaction costs, solving various interaction needs through a single chain. The demand has always existed, and such a chain will definitely have the opportunity to emerge.

4. Currently, the blockchain is still in a phase where traffic is king, and it may be difficult to escape this in the future, as most people entering this market have a strong speculative mentality. However, practical products will become the backbone, and the approval of ETFs will allow traditional financial capital to enter the crypto space, marking a milestone progress that will also change the rules of the game in the crypto world.

5. Products that combine AI and games present opportunities for breaking out; although blockchain games have been quite dismal so far, there will definitely be breakout successes.

6. In the future, discussions about absolute decentralization in the crypto space will be meaningless. Human nature dictates that wealth will always flow to a minority group, and true decentralization is hard to achieve. The window of opportunity for sudden wealth will also narrow; in the past, one might have relied on luck, but in the future, fewer people will be able to rely solely on luck. In this market, both luck and strength will be essential for survival.

7. PoS and PoW are not the key determinants of decentralization; it is a matter of human effort. What matters is the kind of people in the team and the community.

8. It seems that VCs also do not fully understand this market, which indicates that at least in the next few years, there will still be many opportunities for ordinary people.