# running fast nowhere

Source: https://eshitanandini.substack.com/p/running-fast-nowhere
Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/running-fast-nowhere?index=0x6811d0c26d801d13714341a3c343eb258f6bab5142ff7d55b89bd4a9cf2ffdbed66a5dbe
Submitted by macbudkowski.eth on 2025-04-30 UTC, 6 upvotes, 0 comments

## Summary

Crypto projects that build for attention and an eventual token launch tend to stagnate after launch, the author writes, with the team's focus shifting to price rather than product. The piece says builder culture ranks novelty above usefulness because attention, and ultimately the token, is the end product. It adds that building for everyone signals engagement but ends up building for no one, and that builders who stay through launch are left in insecure positions when teams offer little confidence or transparency. The piece suggests that after a correction, the projects left standing would be incumbents in areas of real need, such as stablecoins, payment rails, wallets and developer tooling.

## Article

many projects build without knowing why, other than for the sake of it or for attention. often, the renowned reasonings trace back to:

“because no one is building this, so obviously i should” or

“the more attention this thing has, the better chances at a successful token launch”

these projects stagnate soon after, save for a few partnerships and roadmap improvements to stay afloat. people stop caring beyond this point, reflected by the fact that the team thinks little about what comes after, too.

the pointlessness is prevalent in builder culture in crypto. people rank novelty higher than usefulness because attention (and then ultimately, token) is the end product. the general assumption is that it is harder to excite and attract attention with usefulness than it is with the promise of a new way of doing something, or through speculation and noise. this strategy seemingly gains and maintains attention from users, developers, investors, retail, until launch.

few think beyond the token launch because shipping a token itself is an arduous and capital-intensive process. because attention is the goal, there is pointlessness in who anyone is building for; it is better to build for everyone, because that feigns engagement. as they say, when you build for all, you build for no one - the pointlessness becomes the default in the project’s lifecycle. but if you build for a smaller group of people, your perceived token demand decreases.

the objective beyond the launch is to pump and preserve price. the team’s attention never earnestly shifts to product evolution and retention, but rather all decisions are rooted in price movement. in most cases, you didn’t need to build what you spent years building because your product is completely disjointed from actual strategy, which is a single mandate - capture attention for token price.

now, if you’re building a protocol or infrastructure that expects builders, this lack of confidence and opacity beyond launch trickles down to the builder experience. while users can walk off with an airdrop (or stick around and farm), the builders who stayed from pre-production through the token launch are left in an insecure position: their app/protocol held hostage to your thing. part of the reason builders seem fleeting or mercenary is often because of the ongoing incompetence on the other side of the table.

a mix of infrastructure and consumer projects face this plight. assuming a correction reduces projects like these, we’re left with incumbents in categories of real want/need or where something shifts the status quo with a clear product. things like: stablecoins, payment rails, low-latency infrastructure, audits and security, wallets, developer tooling, speculation (prediction markets, memecoins), and blue chip coins.