“I Wasted 8 Years in Crypto”: Aevo Co-Founder’s Viral Exit Letter Shocks Asia

Ken Chan, former co-founder and ex-CEO of Aevo (the once-hyped Layer-2 derivatives chain), dropped a 40-tweet thread titled “I wasted 8 years in crypto” that instantly went nuclear across Asia.

Within 48 hours, the thread racked up:

• 38 million impressions on X
• Top trending topic on Weibo, Xiaohongshu, and Korean forum DCInside
• Translated into Mandarin, Korean, Japanese, and Vietnamese by community members
• Covered by every major Chinese crypto media outlet (BlockBeats, PANews, Odaily, etc.)

The Core Quotes That Hit Like a Truck

“I am NOT building a new financial system. I built a casino. And the house always wins.

8 years. 3 protocols. Hundreds of millions in FDV at peak. And at the end of the day we were just creating faster slot machines for degens.

The token went up 100× → everyone called us visionaries The token went down 99% → suddenly we’re criminals Nothing about the tech actually changed.

I watched friends become paper billionaires and then depressed millionaires in the same year. I watched teams fake volume, bribe KOLs, and launch 50 copycat farms. I did some of it too.

I’m done.

Context

• Ken Chan stepped down from Aevo in May 2025
• $AEVO token currently trades at $0.013 — down 99.1% from its $1.49 all-time high
• Aevo’s TVL collapsed from $1.2B at peak to <$40M today
• The project raised $16.6M from Paradigm, Dragonfly, and Coinbase Ventures at a $350M valuation

Immediate Reactions Across Asia

Chinese communities: “Finally someone with a nine-figure exit says the quiet part out loud” Korean traders: “This is why we only ape memes now, at least memes are honest” Singapore/SEA builders: Split between “he’s right, the perp casino meta is dead” and “sour grapes after dumping on retail”

Some called it hypocrisy (“you cashed out hundreds of millions and now preach?”). Others hailed it as the most honest builder exit letter since the 2022 bear market.

Why It Hit So Hard in Asia

Asia still accounts for >60% of global crypto trading volume and >70% of perpetual futures open interest. The region lived through the entire “DeFi summer → CeFi blowups → L2 farming → perp casino” arc more intensely than anywhere else.

For many Asian traders and builders who survived 2022–2025, Ken Chan’s thread felt less like drama and more like a collective PTSD trigger.

Closing Line of the Thread

To the kids still grinding 80-hour weeks for the next points farm: Ask yourself once, honestly: Are you building the future, or just running the table while the music is still playing?

I couldn’t answer that question anymore. So I’m out.

Whether you see it as a coward’s exit or the most honest post of 2025, one thing is certain: Ken Chan just dropped the Asian crypto scene’s biggest mirror of the cycle.

And a lot of people really don’t like what they see.