This is a morale-boost post for the Tezos folks and a warning for the rest of the crypto industry - I do believe that XTZ has entered the trough of the Gartner Hype Cycle earlier than most projects since the people there tend to be more honest about where blockchain tech is at right now.
"Technology Trigger -> Peak of Inflated Expectations [Visibility] -> Trough of Disillusionment -> Slope of Enlightenment -> Plateau of Productivity"
Leaders and influencers in the Tezos ecosystem tend to get a lot of flak from the meme-coiners for saying that the technology has a long way to go - which is objectively true, but not what most people want to hear. So, this suggests that we haven't reached the enlightenment/productive phases of the industry just yet. People are still in the party mentality, and are not really ready for the party to stop.
Personally, this will be my 3rd crypto winter and the temptation is to say that previous crashes put us in the trough - but back then, the visibility to the general public just wasn't there. The first 2 cycles was mostly an insider game that most people weren't aware of so they don't really "count" in the expectations part of it, I'd say. In a way, it was a nicer time because with no expectations there was room for more experimentation and building, which isn't really the case today were people have performance and salary expectations that are usually unreasonable and high. (Again, this wasn't the case in previous cycles, even when markets were going up.
So that means that more marketing won't help - most people have at least heard of crypto at this point but they're (literally) not buying it. So the only thing that will get us out of this through is to make something actually useful. In that regard, the industry's adoption and profitability numbers outside of speculation have been fairly abysmal. At some point it's all going to catch up - even, or especially - the larger projects in the space that have more room to fall.
The hype from 21' lasted longer than most people expected because COVID triggered an "emergency" response from the Fed that kept interest rates artificially low - which allowed for projects that were there mostly for the money-grab to go on longer than it should have. Now that we're entering a different economic environment, most of that will go away - including Web2 companies that have been kept artificially alive through cheap loans as well. That whole mentality of trying to make money by institutional arbitrage was flawed to begin with anyway - and why we saw very little progress made in the tech itself in the last few years, despite all of that money that was thrown in at the time.
You can see that in the pattern of Bitcoin's price, which consists of several spikes, rather than a gradual slope of recovery as the Gartner hype cycle suggests - that means, it's still overdue for a big crash, before it makes its way back to "recovery mode". Tezos? We're known for being the "broke" ones in the industry already, so we're already there (especially if you were in the ICO - the returns on there haven't been great, especially if you haven't been staking your funds). But the bet is that gradually, over time, people will realize the merits of what it's doing, and more people will be willing to take their chance.
So being ahead of the race, Tezos has bottomed out first, ready to move onto the next steps. Other places haven't quite gotten the memo yet, and are still marketing its delusions to its users, in an attempt to squeeze as much value from them before the inevitable crash that is soon to follow. Would be a different story if there was product-market-fit, or at least some sort of evidence that platforms like Bitcoin or Ethereum are being used for something tangible, beyond its novelty value. But like the unpopular voices in the industry have said - we're not quite there, yet.
So it's entirely conceivable that Bitcoin may fall as low as $10-20k, as some analysts have been predicting, given all of the backroom deals that have been keeping the price action going is starting to run dry. Again, it's the expectations - many crypto firms were established with the assumption that Bitcoin will go up 20%+ a year and that will pay for everything - including salaries and obligations to investors that are very expensive. The price doesn't even have to go down for that to happen, it just takes a few quarters of companies not hitting their marks for it to trigger a death spiral that will take out huge swathes of startups that were created in the last few years - as these things usually go.
But money itself never gets destroyed - it just changes hands and shuffles itself around, depending on where the wind blows. For people, projects, and ecosystems that have been swimming in the other direction, this may create opportunities on a scale never before seen - it just might not feel that way, since the folks running the show now are starting to lose and they're going to want you to join in on the pity party, too. But at some point - especially with tariffs and the dominance of the US dollar at risk - people are going to realize the silliness of putting your life savings into penguin pictures and the latest dog coins to try to get rich quick.
There's a reason why they call the "recovery phase" the "Slope of Enlightenment" - it's supposed to be difficult, trying, and mostly unpleasant. But in the aftermath of that is real productivity - economically, philosophically, and over time, culturally as well. Tezos gets made fun of by the rest of the industry much in the same way artists and creatives face adversity for speaking the truth - but the fact that the artistic talent in the space has decided to settle permanently in XTZ rather than in other chains is a sign that this ecosystem will weather the hard times and stick around for a very long time. Enlightenment requires awareness, and that is what art literally does for society.
I've also mentioned a few times that there are parallels of this happening in the real world as well. In many cities "Arts Districts" are known as areas of high long-term growth because creatives have a talent for moving into areas where the rents are cheap and the quality of living is high - since they need those two things to ensure that they can work on their craft. Through creativity, they make the neighborhoods that they live in more desirable, making people want to move there, eventually leading to gentrification - which increases the value of the area as a whole.
I've seen this pattern happen in Ethereum and Dogecoin before in previous cycles, but I think this time, it will be alts like Tezos to have its "turn". The unfortunate thing about ETH and DOGE is how it wasn't able to maintain its growth over time - largely due to the mismanagement of resources after the money started coming in. The two projects were basically coopted by middlemen using the platforms for their own agendas rather than thinking of long-term growth - and because the platforms weren't sufficiently decentralized, it became corrupted by perverse incentives and a shadow of their former selves at this point.
In recent years, crypto’s obsession with shortcuts—VC funding, token launches, and centralized ‘growth hacks’—has eroded the very decentralization it promised. Chains now resemble Wall Street startups more than peer-to-peer experiments, trading censorship-resistance for quick liquidity. But the tide is turning. As regulators crack down and users wise up, the industry will be forced to reckon with its compromises. Projects like Tezos, which never abandoned decentralized governance, permissionless innovation, or community-led evolution, aren’t just outliers—they’re the blueprint. The next cycle won’t reward hype; it’ll reward those who kept the faith. Decentralization isn’t a checkbox—it’s the foundation. And foundations matter when the storm hits.