Wintermute founder: The crypto industry has deviated from its cypherpunk roots; Ethereum ecosystem TVL is mostly "dormant capital."

PANews reported on February 21 that Evgeny Gaevoy, founder of crypto market maker Wintermute, recently stated on Fortune magazine's Crypto Playbook podcast that despite the industry's positive developments, such as pro-blockchain government and Wall Street adoption, the crypto industry is gradually being dominated by a "number go up" mentality, deviating from its original cypherpunk ideals. Bitcoin was originally designed to build a decentralized monetary system free from government and bank control, but the current development direction of the industry revolves more around financialization and speculation. The crypto industry should return to the cypherpunk spirit in the future, rather than fully integrating into Wall Street.

Furthermore, regarding the debate between Ethereum and public chains such as Solana, Evgeny Gaevoy pointed out that the market has overlooked the core issue: the real adoption of decentralized applications remains very limited. Although the total value locked (TVL) in the Ethereum ecosystem exceeds $120 billion, most of it is "dormant capital," with a very low proportion truly integrated into real economic activities, which is still negligible compared to the traditional financial system (TradFi).