I just watched this interview with Charles Hoskinson at Consensus 2026. He nails it. Here are some of my thoughts with the video at the end of this post.
Where's our killer app? That's the billion dollar question. We are wondering what happened to our alt season or lack thereof, but it's obvious, there was no catalyst through this market cycle. Most of us had hoped ETF approvals would fuel the market and carry alts with it. That didn't happen this time. It may not be too late, but I'm very skeptical we see a truly booming alt season this market cycle.
With that said, we lost our way. I signed up for banking the unbanked. I literally wanted to screw Wall St, the banking system, and the governments of the world by taking the money away from them. Making a small fortune in the process was the cherry on top. The fact of the matter is, we wanted to let the people control the money supply. MAKE THE GOVERNMENTS OF THE WORLD ASK FOR PERMISSION. We were well on our way. Then we embraced Wall St, and watched our invention get highjacked by the very people we were trying to defeat. Poor Satoshi, I don't think embracing Wall St was part of his plan. Never underestimate the power of greed. I get it, I'm just as guilty as you probably are!
By this time I expected crypto fueled loyalty rewards, easy ways to transfer money around social networks, tipping platforms, decentralized crypto fueled social networks, digital downloads, easy remittance, financial settlement layers, crypto backed stocks sold on DEX platforms. Online payment systems that ended identity theft and made for safer transactions when shopping online.
We have Hive and a few other social networks. No mainstream adoption. What little adoption there is, is a super tiny fraction of a fraction of a fraction of what we should be seeing. Christ, even the adult industry is staying away and they hate the credit card companies and the system of chargebacks that they use. Our tech is a perfect fit, yet time and time again, it's a proven failure for that industry.
On top of all this, we seem to keep making things more and more complicated. There isn't a seamless crypto experience. Wallets and storage aren't super easy for the average person to use. Security is a huge issue when people don't understand the tech. DEX platforms only further complicate things. Then we have to jump through hoops for the regulators. The only good thing that's really happened recently is we don't have to deal with that WEASEL Gary Gensler. Still, I believe dark forces are at work to sabotage all the great work we've already accomplished.
It's time to return to our roots. We have to stop asking for permission. Zuckerberg tried with Libra, I'm honestly glad he "sort of failed". Facebook is the scourge of our time, it would have been sad to see him get control of such a vast financial network. We need organic, grass roots growth and Zuckerberg proved it. As soon as Facebook rolled out Libra, Facebook became public enemy number one. A company that could do no wrong was suddenly making headlines. All those little things like selling our personal data, and privacy matters that most people said didn't matter suddenly became real issues. Oh, and what about the children? We have to protect the children. Between protecting the children, drugs, and terrorism, it's like a backdoor to stripping away our rights and the general public falls for it, EVERY SINGLE TIME with the help of our mainstream media of course. Zuckerberg killed Libra and suddenly the headlines subsided. Facebook was the family, and community gathering place once again. No more worries about privacy or selling our data. All was right in the world once again.
We really need a decentralized network to take control of social media and take the power away from major corporations. We need it to be easy to use, fun, and we need it to go viral. Until that happens, we're going to be trapped in this cycle of spinning our wheels. Bitcoin succeeded because nobody could control it. We need that same ethos across everything we create in this space. As they say in the Anarchy space, become ungovernable!
Musk is another perfect example. As soon as he bought X I assumed one of the first upgrades would be a tipping network, or crypto payment system, maybe even Xcash tokens or incorporating a DOGE wallet into the platform, or some other such nonsense. Musk is one of the most brilliant entrepreneurs of our time, there's a reason he's not plugging crypto into X. I'm telling you someone is putting the kibosh on our technology. Even a small fraction of a percentage of all transactions going through X would be massive amounts of money for the company. They'd no longer need to charge users 🤣 Can you imagine paying someone to manipulate your feed and sell your personal data, yet the public seems ok with it. I regress, but just saying...
Surprisingly, Truth Social is the only mainstream company I know of that is doing anything with incorporating crypto into the platform. I know BOO hiss. That's about as bad as Zuckerberg taking control, even worse. Still, it's just a rewards program. As far as I know you can't transfer money around the social platform or use it for any payments. I'm not on Truth so please correct me in the comments if I'm wrong.
And yes, I get it. Hive already accomplishes this, but we need to be bigger and more expansive. Everyone gets mad when I say it, but Hive is a blogging platform. With the exception of 3Speak, anytime we try to use it for anything else, the community gets in a tizzy about it. Just keeping it real people. I love this platform and the people on it, but it is what it is.
On top of all that, we're dealing with technology that isn't just another financial instrument. It has the ability for so much more. I'm pretty confident, the technology is being stifled until those in control can figure out a way to actually control it. That's just me, but I'm confident in that assumption. I think Hoskinson feels the same, he mentions the move to stifle DEX innovations.
The other issue we're currently facing is that we've lost the excitement. Everyone is starting to grow weary. Especially those who have been around from close to the start. We need something to come along and inject a little excitement back into the space. Revolutionary ideas generate excitement, conforming to the status quo and begging for acceptance doesn't create excitement. Just saying.....
I could go on and on about this, but I wont. I'll leave you with this Charles Hoskinson video.
Charles Hoskinson nails it in this talk at Consensus 2026. He talks about the need to once again stop asking for permission. We need to build the decentralized platforms. We need to take back control of our invention. We need to get back to privacy and freedom and all the things that made crypto great in the first place.
On a final note. I just started following this Cardano based crypto.
AI: Midnight (NIGHT) is a privacy-focused blockchain network developed by Input Output Global (IOG), the company behind Cardano, led by founder Charles Hoskinson. It is designed as a fourth-generation blockchain that enables programmable privacy—allowing users and applications to selectively disclose data while keeping sensitive information confidential. Midnight operates as a sidechain to Cardano, leveraging its security and decentralization while offering advanced privacy features through zero-knowledge proofs (ZK-SNARKs).
End Ai.
You might want to do your own research on that project.