TIA big dump and the disillusionment of the encryption industry narrative

Written by: Jessy, Golden Finance

TIA, which once showcased a tenfold increase after its launch on exchanges during the small bull market in early 2024, has now fallen below its price at the time of the exchange launch. As of the time of writing, it is quoted at 1.62U, having dropped more than 90% from its peak of around 20U. Once a 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 sector. The collapse of a leading sector project that was immensely popular last year is merely the surface. The deeper truth is that the once bustling narratives in the crypto world are gradually being debunked.

On one side is the stock market carnival with the Nasdaq hitting new highs, while on the other side, the once-popular narratives in the crypto world are collapsing, leading to a plummet in coin prices. The traditional narratives in the crypto space can no longer sustain, and the industry has reached a critical moment of real implementation and application.

From glory to ruin

TIA, short for Celestia, is one of the most closely watched modular blockchain projects from late 2023 to early 2024. During the small bull market in early 2024, the TIA token skyrocketed from single digits after the airdrop to a peak of $20, with the vision of combining the sovereign interoperability of Cosmos with the Ethereum model centered around shared security.

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

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

The deeper rifts within come from the management, as former developer relations head Yaz Khoury was fired for alleged sexual harassment, causing a public relations storm. CelesTIA has been reported to have bought out its competitor Abstract for seven figures in USD, forcing it to withdraw from its collaboration with EigenLayer. Such "exclusive mergers and acquisitions" are quite controversial and also reveal the team's anxiety about their expansion path.

As the price of the coin plummeted and community trust was 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 in response to ongoing inflationary pressures. However, before this disruptive proposal could be implemented, the fact that senior executives of the team were cashing out was gradually exposed, leading the community to generally believe that this was a governance facade aimed at "stabilizing prices and covering up problems." As of the time of publication, its price had dropped over 90% from its peak. The on-chain activity was also dismal; according to Defillama data, its on-chain Gas revenue in the past 24 hours was only $231.

The collapse of the narrative in the crypto industry behind the fall of TIA

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

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

Similar to TIA, the once-popular projects like WorldCoin and Helium, which were highly sought after by capital, quickly gained massive traffic and experienced skyrocketing coin prices by riding the wave of narrative. However, they all quickly cooled off after just a wave of hype.

The fall of these star tokens, including TIA, reflects a deeper crisis in the cryptocurrency industry: the lack of genuine technological innovation and user adoption leads to a continuous depletion and dilution of narrative and trust. After modularization, there are no new narratives at the public chain level. Looking at other sectors in the industry today, many AI and blockchain integration projects remain at the conceptual level, while RWA faces not only regulatory issues but also a profound question of "is there really a demand."

The once booming trends are being disproven one by one and quickly forgotten by people, while at the same time, the traditional financial market continues to receive good news. Whether it is the US stock market or the Hong Kong stock market, stocks related to cryptocurrency compliance, such as stablecoins and compliant exchanges, have seen a continuous rise.

On one hand, there is a lack of native innovation in cryptocurrency and a sharp decline in coin prices, while on the other hand, compliant cryptocurrency projects in Hong Kong and the US are being warmly embraced 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 practical applications are what create real value. The old ways of the traditional crypto circle, which involve storytelling, competing for traffic, rallying prices, and then dumping, can no longer be sustained. Like Web2 projects, today's Web3 projects are all about implementation.