Disrupting the Price Puzzle: Where Does the Lasting Value of Blockchain Come From

For more than a decade, discussions about Blockchain have been constrained by a cliché: "Price is important."

Their argument is simple: developers will not develop unless they can stake tokens on future prices. They claim that speculation is the "engine" of innovation.

This is not only wrong - it is completely upside down.

History clearly shows that foundational technologies are not built on the illusions of speculation; they are forged in the crucible of utility. Prices follow capability, not the other way around. Edison did not sell "light bulb coins" before perfecting the filament. Noyce did not issue "chip tokens" to fund integrated circuits. Cerf and Kahn did not mint "ARPANET NFTs" to promote the development of TCP/IP.

The reason they are being built is that their utility is beyond doubt, the issues are urgent, and the demand is real. Only after these systems are operated on a large scale in the real world can their financial benefits be realized.

The "price matters" camp in cryptocurrency has inverted this model. They use price as an incentive, hoping that utility will follow. The results are clear: hollow hype cycles, fleeting adoption, and fragile ecosystems.

Every leap in modern infrastructure tells the same story. The power grid was not born from a bet on "Watt Token," but rather to provide reliable, scalable electricity to entire cities and nations, funded by serious, long-term investments in physical infrastructure, not by retail speculators.

Integrated circuits have broken the "digital tyranny" in electronic products, driven by the explicit demands of NASA and the Department of Defense. The price of chips has dropped from $32 to $1.25, not due to speculation, but because technology has proven itself indispensable.

The Internet? It was created to withstand nuclear attacks and connect research networks, not to fill anyone's crypto wallet. The Internet was entirely funded by the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), and commercial use was even illegal for many years. The protocols we rely on today were born without a single speculative asset.

The lessons of each era are the same: first comes capability, then comes financialization.

In the field of Blockchain, lasting value does not stem from betting on volatile charts. Rather, it comes from providing legitimate, scalable public infrastructure capable of handling billions of microtransactions daily and solving real-world problems.

If we measure success by speculation, we will build sandcastles. If we measure success by infrastructure, we will lay the cornerstone.

Why the "Price First" Model Fails

In every major technological revolution, the earliest and most steadfast supporters are not the speculators chasing quick profits, but the users demanding the highest standards, who will not tolerate any failures. In the blockchain domain, this principle has been abandoned by those who advocate a "token-first" strategy, and the cracks are evident.

Incentive Misalignment

When founders monetize in advance through token sales, the focus shifts from solving complex, systemic problems to speculation cycles. This is not only a cultural flaw but also structural. Founders have a legal obligation to serve shareholders, not token holders. The result? Value capture is optimized at the company level, while network participants creating real utility are left holding volatile assets.

Short-termism

Price surges reward fleeting behaviors that may spike today but harm sustainability tomorrow. Once these incentives disappear, the participation and value of protocols supported by inflated token rewards will collapse.

Market Disruption

When the price of tokens becomes the core indicator, engineering roadmaps tend to stimulate speculation rather than improve throughput, reduce transaction costs, or meet compliance requirements. The "Blockchain frenzy" of 2017 proved this: companies released vague statements, their valuations soared with Bitcoin, only to evaporate within 30 days due to a lack of substantial progress.

User friction

Products with high token thresholds will force users to become speculators before they can become true users. It does not provide seamless dedicated services but instead throws potential users into the market volatility of "pump and dump." This attracts gamblers rather than the long-term participants needed to sustain the ecosystem. Once airdrop miners and yield chasers leave, the entire L1 ecosystem will be hollowed out. Prices may attract crowds, but they cannot establish a foundation.

The Reality of Builders: Intrinsic Motivation + Direct Returns

Ask those who lay the Internet backbone, design database engines, or expand Blockchain infrastructure why they do it, and you will never hear "because I can trade coins." They build to solve meaningful problems, earn the respect of their peers, and push the limits of possibility.

Open source software proves this every day. Linux, Python, Apache, Kubernetes—these invisible arteries of the global economy carry trillions in value, none of which were born from speculative token sales.

Decades of open-source history clearly show that the infrastructure that changes the world does not need tokens to survive; it needs to establish a direct connection between the value created and the value obtained.

The reason why those enduring projects receive funding is that they solve key problems, not because they are in a hype cycle. In this model, returns come from measurable impact, which allows builders to focus on performance, reliability, and applications, which are the principles that blockchain must follow for sustainable development.

The Legal and Scalable Path to the Future

If blockchain wants to move beyond its speculative adolescence, it must adhere to the same rigorous principles that governed the construction of the Internet, power grids, and modern computing. These systems did not emerge by chance; they were built through careful consideration and systematic large-scale problem solving.

It starts with a real, measurable problem, one with clear beneficiaries and definable outcomes. It is not a vague "future potential" promise, but rather an urgent, specific challenge that can be addressed today.

Success must be measured by utility indicators: cost savings, fraud reduction, operational efficiency, rather than vanity metrics like "Total Locked Value," which can inflate overnight due to liquidity and can disappear just as quickly. Important metrics are those that withstand market cycles and demonstrate sustained value.

The path forward is not unknown. We have seen it in every transformative infrastructure over the past century. The question is not whether it is feasible, but whether Blockchain has the discipline and focus to achieve it.

Conclusion

Price speculation is fleeting. Utility continues to grow. If Blockchain is to become a permanent and indispensable layer in the global economy, we must stop viewing token prices as the North Star.

Speculation will find its outlet, and the market exists for this reason. As builders, investors, and policymakers, it is our responsibility to ensure that there is real, legitimate, and scalable support behind speculation.

History will not judge us by the peaks of a bull market, but by the infrastructure we leave behind after the dust settles—those infrastructures that endure market cycles, serve billions of people, and provide globally scalable verifiable trust.

This is the future worth building. This is also the only lasting future.