Last night, I gathered with three veterans from the industry, and I almost got hit with a "penalty drink" for a comment I made—when I casually complained, "Aster is being pushed by a leading platform, isn’t that just a little trick of transferring from left hand to right hand?" Old Yang, who has been deeply involved in the crypto circle for 12 years, immediately slammed his glass down on the table: "Your perspective is still stuck at the stage of watching K-line fluctuations!"
After a few glasses of whiskey, Old Yang's words exploded in my mind like thunder. He didn’t talk directly about Aster, but instead brought up old internet stories: "Back then, Taobao was about to monopolize C2C, why did Jack Ma insist on launching Alipay despite the pressure? Many people said he was wasting effort, but what happened? Alipay became the 'heart' of Alibaba's ecosystem, weaving a network that others can't tear apart from payment to finance and then to life services."
This statement suddenly made it clear to me. As an analyst who has been watching the crypto industry for 8 years, I suddenly realized: the leading players in the industry are no longer playing the game of "single-point breakthroughs."
Here lies a core logic: the foundation of current traffic must be protected, but the future ecological base must be seized. The centralized trading model that everyone is familiar with now is like Taobao back in the day—it's the current basic platform, with user habits and capital accumulation present; but the trend of decentralization is like the wave of mobile payment back then—if you don’t proactively build your own ship, when others’ fleets come by, you can only stand on the shore and watch.
Old Yang revealed an insider signal: "Recently, many institutions and veteran players have been quietly studying Aster’s ecological rules, not focusing on short-term gains, but calculating the 'ecological ticket' accounts. It’s like back when Tencent was pushing WeChat; some thought QQ was already impressive, but WeChat became the ticket to the mobile internet. The current Aster, in essence, is about someone wanting to establish a new set of 'trading + ecology' rules in the Web3 era."
After waking up from my drunken state, I spent half the night reviewing industry reports, and the more I thought about it, the colder I felt on my back—ordinary people are always focused on "can this thing make money immediately," while true opportunity hunters look at "can this thing define the next 5 years." This cognitive gap is not about how much capital one has, but about whether one can jump out of the "immediate plot of land."
When WeChat first came out, some thought it was just a "QQ that can send voice messages," but those who understood the ecosystem of public accounts and video accounts had long since realized a class leap through traffic monetization; now looking at Aster, if you still think it’s just "trading in a different place," you might truly miss the next wave of ecological dividends.
Opportunities are particularly sly; they never announce "I’m here" with fanfare, but instead hide within what most people "don’t understand." This time, I plan to delve deeper into it, as missing an ecological opportunity in the crypto space might mean waiting several years.
What about you? Do you think this layout is a "real move" or a "fake tactic"? Let’s discuss your views in the comments section～ Follow me, the "booze gathering insights excavator," and when the old-timers chat about industry insider info next time, I’ll clarify it for you right away, so you won’t end up like me, almost getting knocked awake, haha!
