TIA big dump and the disillusionment of the encryption industry narrative

Jessy, Golden Finance

Once shining with a tenfold increase after being listed on exchanges during the small bull market in early 2024, TIA has now fallen below its listing price, currently quoted at 1.62U, having dropped over 90% from its peak of around 20U. As a former leader in modular blockchain, TIA is now mired in negative public opinion due to issues such as founder sell-offs and internal management problems.

The fall from grace of the once-popular TIA token is not just a symbol of the decline of the modular blockchain track. The downfall of a leading project that was extremely popular last year is merely a surface phenomenon. The deeper fact is that those once lively narratives in the crypto world are gradually being debunked.

On one side, there is the stock market frenzy with the Nasdaq hitting new highs, while on the other side, the cryptocurrency space is witnessing the collapse of once-popular narratives and a sharp drop in coin prices. Traditional narratives in the crypto world are no longer viable; the industry has reached a true turning point where practical implementation and application are crucial.

From Glory to Fall

TIA, short for Celestia, is one of the most anticipated modular blockchain projects from late 2023 to early 2024. During the early 2024 mini bull market, the TIA token surged from single digits post-airdrop to a peak of $20, with a vision to combine the sovereign interoperation zones of Cosmos with a summary-centered Ethereum that has shared security.

However, starting in the second half of 2024, as market enthusiasm wanes and project ecosystems progress slowly, governance and team issues of CelesTIA gradually come to light. The most controversial is the suspicion of its senior management collectively cashing out. Twitter user @0xCircusLover revealed that as early as the beginning of October 2024, all C-level executives of CelesTIA completed their unlocks and began to sell tokens on a large scale, with co-founder Mustafa being pointed out for selling over $25 million worth of tokens in the over-the-counter market, and then quietly relocating to Dubai.

At the same time, CelesTIA's marketing operations have encountered backlash. The KOL @ayyyeandy, who once supported TIA, was revealed to have received substantial promotional fees. Meanwhile, David Hoffman, co-founder of the media platform Bankless, although frequently recommending TIA, has contradicted himself on the key issue of "whether to hold the tokens," further raising community doubts about whether the project is merely a marketing product manipulated by capital.

The deeper internal rifts stem from the management, as the former head of developer relations, Yaz Khoury, was fired for alleged sexual harassment, sparking a public relations crisis. CelesTIA was reported to have bought out its competitor Abstract for a seven-figure sum in dollars, forcing it to withdraw from its collaboration with EigenLayer. This type of "exclusive acquisition" has generated considerable controversy, while also exposing the team's anxiety over its expansion path.

At a time when the price of the currency is collapsing and community trust is on the verge of collapse, co-founder John Adler proposed a radical governance model of "governance as proof" in early 2025, advocating for off-chain governance voting to replace the traditional proof-of-stake mechanism to cope with ongoing inflationary pressures. However, before this disruptive proposal could be implemented, the fact that team executives were cashing out was gradually exposed, leading the community to widely believe that this was a governance facade aimed at "stabilizing prices and covering up problems." As of the time of writing, its price has fallen more than 90% from its peak. The on-chain activity is also dismal; according to Defillama data, in the past 24 hours, its on-chain Gas revenue was only $231.

The Collapse of the Narrative in the Cryptocurrency Industry Behind TIA's Fall

However, the collapse of TIA is not just a failure of a project and a token; it is a glimpse into the broader disillusionment of the new narrative within the entire cryptocurrency industry.

In the past cycles, modularization, AI Agent, DePIN, GameFi, NFTs, and so on have all created one huge bubble after another, leading to rounds of collective euphoria among capital and retail investors. However, by 2025, we will face a collective collapse of the once-promising narratives, with altcoins in disarray.

Similar to TIA, the leading projects in various sectors that once became extremely popular and were highly sought after by capital, such as WorldCoin and Helium, quickly accumulated a large amount of traffic and saw a surge in coin prices by riding the wave of narrative. However, after a wave of enthusiasm, they also rapidly cooled down.

The fall of these star tokens, including TIA, reflects a deeper crisis in the crypto industry: the lack of true technological innovation and user adoption leads to a continuous consumption and dilution of narratives and trust. After modularization, new narratives are no longer seen at the public chain level. Looking at the current state of the industry, there are other voices in different tracks: projects combining AI and blockchain mostly remain at the conceptual level, while RWA is not just a regulatory issue, but also poses a profound question of "is there really a demand?"

The once popular trends are being proven false one by one and quickly forgotten by people. Meanwhile, the traditional financial market continues to bring good news, whether it's the US stock market or the Hong Kong stock market, related to cryptocurrencies and compliance stocks, such as stablecoins and compliant exchanges, all of which have seen a continuous rise.

On one side is the scarcity of native innovations in cryptocurrency and the plummeting prices of coins, while on the other side are compliant cryptocurrency projects in Hong Kong and the U.S. being favored by capital and the market. Some believe this is a sign that "the industry is doomed", but I think it actually serves as a warning to all project parties that true technological innovation and the implementation of applications are what create real value. The old ways of the traditional crypto world—telling stories, competing for traffic, driving up prices and then dumping—can no longer continue. Like Web2 projects, today's Web3 projects are all about landing real applications.