Anthony Pompliano says most of the crypto industry is already dead and that the market has not fully admitted it yet. In a May 6 video posted on X, the Bitcoin investor and commentator argued that the sector\u2019s long tail of unused chains, illiquid tokens and speculative projects is being cleared out as the parts with real utility merge into the broader financial system.<\/p>\n
Pompliano said the reaction to his initial post on X was immediate and hostile. He had written that \u201cmost of the crypto industry is dead and it\u2019s never coming back,\u201d a message he said followed him through the Consensus conference in Miami.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have been called an idiot, I\u2019ve been told I was wrong, and I must have been asked over 50 times about the tweet while I was at the Consensus Crypto Conference yesterday down in Miami,\u201d Pompliano said. \u201cBut after spending the day at the conference, I\u2019m more convinced today than I was yesterday. Most of the crypto industry is dead and it is never coming back.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pompliano\u2019s core argument rests on what he sees as a broken business cycle inside crypto. In traditional industries, failed companies are shut down, capital is redeployed and talent moves toward stronger ideas. In crypto, he said, that clearing mechanism rarely works because blockchains can keep running with minimal participation and tokens can linger far above zero even after liquidity and relevance have evaporated.<\/p>\n
He described the result as an ecosystem filled with \u201cghost chains\u201d and \u201czombie coins.\u201d Ghost chains<\/a> are networks that remain technically operational but have little meaningful activity. Zombie coins are tokens whose communities or markets have collapsed, while remaining holders are often unable to exit without taking severe losses.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are millions of coins and there are thousands of blockchains,\u201d Pompliano said. \u201cJust those two things alone would make my original claim that most of the crypto industry is dead accurate. Because you have to ask yourself: does anyone actually believe that millions of crypto coins are going to thrive in the future?\u201d<\/p>\n Pompliano said he asked that question from the stage at Consensus and \u201cliterally zero people raised their hand.\u201d That shift, he said, is visible in short-lived meme tokens, scam coins, market manipulation, rising yield-farming incentives and product launches designed more for attention than utility. Pompliano\u2019s criticism was not aimed at speculation alone, but at an industry culture he believes has become detached from solving real user problems. Pompliano also pushed back against what he called the \u201cwe hate investors class,\u201d pointing to online criticism of venture capital, large financial institutions and regulation. He argued that venture firms funded much of the early infrastructure that allowed users to buy, store and send Bitcoin, while major institutions are now becoming the dominant distribution layer for crypto exposure.<\/p>\n Morgan Stanley\u2019<\/a>s plan to launch Bitcoin trading through E-Trade was his central example. Pompliano noted that E-Trade has 8.6 million clients and said Morgan Stanley intends to offer Bitcoin trading with lower fees than Coinbase and Charles Schwab, using ZeroHash as infrastructure. He framed that as a major \u201cnarrative violation\u201d for crypto-native firms.<\/p>\n At the same time, Pompliano said crypto-native companies are moving in the opposite direction by adding equities, prediction markets, options, commodities and other non-crypto products. The distinction between crypto platforms and traditional brokerages is becoming less clear.<\/p>\n That convergence also shaped his reading of Michael Saylor\u2019s recent comments that Strategy could sell Bitcoin or Bitcoin derivatives to fund preferred dividends if doing so served the company\u2019s interests. Pompliano said such an idea would have been treated as \u201cblasphemy\u201d years ago, but now looks more like standard capital allocation inside a financialized Bitcoin business.<\/p>\n The crypto industry is dying.<\/p>\n That is a good thing.<\/p>\n The resilient and valuable aspects of the industry need to compete on the biggest stage, not stay pigeon-holed in a boutique industry with declining capital and talent. pic.twitter.com\/TlVJAG6zFz<\/a><\/p>\n
\nBeyond unused networks and dead tokens, Pompliano argued that crypto has lost much of the ideological conviction that once defined its early base. The industry, in his view, has shifted from \u201chardcore missionaries\u201d who prioritized the success of Bitcoin<\/a> and the underlying technology toward \u201cmercenaries\u201d who chase whichever trade offers the largest financial reward.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cIf you have mercenaries outnumbering the missionaries, the broader crypto industry is now run by people who don\u2019t understand or believe in the original vision for the industry,\u201d he said. \u201cAs the saying goes, if you don\u2019t stand for something, you\u2019ll fall for anything. And I think that\u2019s what\u2019s happening across the industry.\u201d<\/p>\nWall Street Is Absorbing Crypto<\/h2>\n