Crypto project failures expose pre-funded boom-time economics

Another experiment now being tested is decentralized governance. Token ownership did not necessarily translate into active participation, Kirkley said. Governance votes could make it harder for struggling protocols to pivot quickly. “Token holders do not mean active participants in your ecosystem.”

The result is a market increasingly deciding what crypto actually needs. Kirkley points to stablecoins, neobanks and institutional-grade wallet and settlement infrastructure as emerging winners. Areas including social tokens, memecoins and parts of Web3 gaming face a harsher reckoning.

The shakeout could intensify if bitcoin breaks its next major support zone. Kirkley described the market as a “soft bear market,” but sees support at $61,200 as critical. A failure there could trigger forced selling among leveraged players and potentially open a path toward $41,000. Bitcoin was trading around $64,100 at publication time.

Yet beneath the market weakness, Kirkley sees something crypto spent years waiting for – adoption. Over the past month, he said he met representatives of seven governments interested in blockchain technology. Global Settlement Network itself pitches regulated infrastructure for digital currencies, tokenized assets and cross-border settlement.

The catch is that adoption looks increasingly unlike crypto’s original vision. Governments and institutions see blockchain’s potential to lower costs and modernize finance, Kirkley said. They just aren’t necessarily interested in doing it through decentralized rails. Crypto may finally be seeing mass adoption, even as it becomes clear that decentralized money was never the outcome the market ultimately wanted.