Is the studio becoming a scapegoat? An in-depth analysis of the "top-level interest chain" behind the chronic issues in the cryptocurrency industry

Author: Ice Frog

Recently, the public opinion regarding the dismantling of studios seems to have started to ferment again. Some attribute the inability of altcoins to rise to the studios, believing that in order for the industry to reverse this situation, studios must first be eliminated.

It must be acknowledged that the industry indeed has many problems and chaos, but I believe that not all of these issues are caused by studios, which is worth discussing.

1. Will banning studios make the industry better?

To answer this question, one must address a prerequisite logic: studios are a product of the industry's development, not the other way around. The importance of clarifying this logic lies in understanding that in any profit-driven market, many things that seem to be prohibited are the result of the interests of multiple parties. Studios are no exception.

Thus, our analysis around this interest game is quite simple.

Who are the biggest vested interests? Who are the ultimate rule-makers? If your knife does not cut towards the biggest vested interests or the rule-makers, reform is destined to be ineffective.

Studios are not the biggest vested interests in this industry, nor are they the rule-makers. If studios had that kind of power, they wouldn't be in a position of being pushed around and having to defend their rights.

Who are the funders? Who sets the rules of the chips? Who decides which tokens are listed on exchanges? Who sets the airdrop rules? Who drives the traffic? Before these fundamental questions are answered, simply attributing the blame to studios is hard to convince.

However, from the perspective of interests and power, when the chain of interests breaks and the capital feast ends, studios can easily become scapegoats. After all, in this industry chain, studios are a relatively special existence; they are a part of the traffic but do not have much say, often being pushed back, while retail investors find it hard to empathize, and project parties and capital have a love-hate relationship with them. Therefore, from this angle, targeting studios can easily become a politically correct choice.

Regardless of whether it is possible to ban studios, even if you do ban them, what we want to discuss is: does that solve the problem? Will the industry's false prosperity completely dissipate? Will the industry become better?

The simple truth is: false prosperity is the result of the industry's distorted development, not the cause. The biggest problem is that many people are accustomed to treating phenomena as original sins while ignoring the underlying structural and institutional issues.

The chaos in the industry fundamentally lies in: fairness, still fairness. In an industry without a fairness constraint mechanism, you can ban studios, but you cannot ban human greed and profit-seeking.

Furthermore, if project parties/capital/exchanges are determined not to cooperate with studios anymore, technically you can still exclude studios. If they are eliminated this way, it is understandable.

The problem is, in a free market, in a market without fairness regulation, you need what studios provide. You set the rules, and studios cooperate with you to play. How can studios be deemed utterly evil? You can strike at studios, but how can you change the rules yourself, anger the market, cut the leeks, and then push studios out, saying it’s all their fault?

I wonder if you are familiar with this kind of script. In classic films like "The Wolf of Wall Street," "The Big Short," and "The Godfather," within the pyramid of unequal power: the most conspicuous problems are the easiest to be targeted, while only those vested interests and the core of power walk away unscathed.

When the "scapegoat" is eliminated, everything remains the same, and new "scapegoats" will quickly emerge, while only the top of the power, who are profiting immensely, will toast in places you do not know.

2. Is retail taking the fall really the fault of studios? Who is the true liquidity black hole in the industry?

When project parties and exchanges are enjoying a lavish feast, why attribute the end of the banquet to the studios and retail investors who are left with the scraps?

To be honest, this title makes me, as someone who runs a studio, feel ashamed, mainly because I neither have the ability to help retail investors escape their losses nor have I managed to avoid being trapped and pushed back myself; I can only curse a bit and then endure.

From the perspective of interests, no studio is inherently willing to crash the market. After all, being pushed back, time costs, and losses all carry risks. If project parties can truly focus on continuously building their projects without blindly inflating valuations, they will make long-term plans. Who would want to sell right after the launch?

Truly high-quality undervalued projects will naturally receive positive feedback from the market. Even if your project seems high-quality, under a valuation that does not match its merits, no one would want to take over.

In an investment market, studios seeking short-term profits or any participants other than project parties pursuing short-term gains is not a problem. Using so-called long-term value to coerce others is indeed a kind of "value purism."

As any participant in the market, no one has the moral standing to demand others to protect the market except for the project parties themselves. Especially when project parties and capital are using various means to offload their assets, they have no right to demand others to do better. The most frustrating thing is that there are too many who cut the leeks in the name of so-called "value."

If we view studios selling chips as the liquidity black hole of the industry, it obscures the real problem.

Some say that studio FUD affects project development. I want to say that a project with a solid fundamental is not afraid of market FUD; its user base has never come from studios. The FUD threat from studios indeed overestimates their power, or perhaps this is just a cover for garbage projects. The market is the true fire that refines gold; what can truly shake a quality project is never the keyboard of a script kiddie but the Trojan horse within the project party's own armor.

We must acknowledge the existence of chaos but firmly oppose and be vigilant against weaving an overall lie from partial truths. Just as police may collude with gangs, if we attribute the complex systemic chaos solely to studios and the binary opposition of the market, the so-called studio threat theory may very well be a cover for the real market manipulators. After all, everything can be blamed on studios.

3. Are studios completely useless and contribute nothing to the industry? Whose fault is the chaos in the industry?

The speculative nature of this industry is greater at this stage, which is a basic fact, but when discussing the development of the industry, we should at least avoid making moral judgments.

In fact, if it weren't for a large number of airdrop studios investing money, traffic, and attracting users to join the community, experience the project, and continuously share their experiences, ordinary retail investors might not even be able to recover their gas fees without the mass brushing from studios.

No studio rejects long-termism, but in an industry lacking constraints, the pursuit of profit by human nature is understandable and beyond reproach. You cannot attribute the destruction of rules to studios; they do not have that capability. More importantly, when the most powerful rule-makers in the industry casually break the rules, why demand studios to have higher moral self-discipline?

You can't say that you can engage in insider trading while I can't allow you to profit from the project. Furthermore, from the perspective of rule-breaking, objectively evaluating, who damages fairness more: project parties engaging in insider trading or studios? Who is truly eroding market credibility?

This is akin to asking Las Vegas gamblers not to count cards while allowing the real dealers to modify the odds of the roulette.

What should true fairness be: fairness in rules or fairness in power balance? Fairness in the world does not exist in the equality of everyone's background, education, or experience, but in the same environment and rules, where everyone uses their means to obtain the maximum benefit, which cannot be reproached by anyone. In a profit-driven market, people never hate that your power is stronger than mine; they hate that while playing the same game, you execute different rules.

The unfairness and lack of transparency of rule-makers are the greatest original sins of this market. If project parties are willing to build long-term and capital does not exacerbate inflated valuations, and exchanges can truly practice valueism, studios would not only not be a disadvantage but an advantage. At least when the industry has not yet reached a larger stage, they provide the initial trickle of traffic, and you must acknowledge that some studios do provide better optimization and continuous feedback for projects.

For studios, we do not easily define what constitutes a scam project. In a market where the wealth effect outweighs everything, a project that allows everyone to make money is a good project.

If the market truly develops to the point where studios' business models are naturally cleared out, there is no need to oppose it. After all, it means that as profit-seekers, we no longer have to grit our teeth and provide the only liquidity to projects during bear markets. It means that the market has truly matured, and we no longer need to blame each other for leading the market into decline.

Finally, from the perspective of reform, if all of this does not point to the industry's biggest vested interests, perhaps studios can be banned, but human greed cannot be prohibited, or perhaps it is just another cover for harvesting.