Let's get the unpleasant truth out of the way first—the crypto world is a place where the strong prey on the weak. If you want to play, go ahead, but don't expect to get rich by just lying down.

Many people ask, are there a lot of scammers in the crypto space? Absolutely. What percentage of projects don't last a full cycle? Over 90%. I completely agree when people say this is a dark forest. Over the years, I’ve been scammed, scared, and completely lost my way in this forest myself.

But there's a logical issue that many overlook.

More scammers ≠ everything is a scam. A large trash heap ≠ you can't find anything valuable. If the rules of the world operated so straightforwardly, life would be easier. When I was young, I thought this way too—if I lost money, I’d curse, "All crypto is scams," and after cursing, I’d feel better—like the losses weren’t due to my own judgment but because the environment was too harsh. But after losing more and more times, I stopped blaming everything with that phrase.

Why? I discovered a very painful phenomenon: many of the things I called "scams" haven't disappeared; instead, they’ve become more resilient and persistent.

Take BTC as an example. You might dislike it, but it’s hard to explain how a "Ponzi scheme" that’s been declared dead countless times over more than a decade keeps surviving in increasingly harsh environments. ETH, SOL, BNB—it's the same. They’re not perfect, nor are they sacred, but they share a common trait: they don’t rely on hype and stories to survive. Instead, they depend on real usage, real computing power, real capital flow, and a genuine market game structure to stay alive.

This is the core of the issue.