Hello @binance :)

While everyone was sleeping, someone was building in the trenches 😜

If you come to me with such website I will immediately block you.

Found this old screenshot I took back in 2022. 15 projects. Big investors. New consensus mechanisms. The next generation of blockchains, supposedly about to change finance. And right above the list: “Who is the next 1000x?” Four years later, what the fuck actually happened? Did these projects build something useful? Did they run out of money? Were there rugs? Or did the technology work while the investment story fell apart? I went back through the funding announcements and project updates. The answer is more interesting than “everything was a scam.” The funding figures below are rounds I could trace, not a claim that those amounts were all spent or lost. @Aptos and @SuiNetwork actually built financial ecosystems. Aptos Labs raised at least $350M across two 2022 rounds. Mysten Labs, the original developer of Sui, raised $336M across two early rounds. Serious money before either network had much opportunity to prove itself publicly. Calling them abandoned projects would be nonsense. When I checked on September 22, DefiLlama tracked approximately $1.12B in stablecoins on Aptos and $536M deposited in DeFi on Sui. Those are different metrics, but both show that actual financial assets exist on these networks. Neither number is company revenue or proof that token buyers made money. Sui also gives us a concrete answer to “where did some of the money go?” Mysten paid approximately $96M to repurchase FTX’s equity stake and SUI token warrant rights in 2023. A documented transaction, not missing money. And yes, bad things happened. The Cetus exchange on Sui suffered a roughly $223M exploit in May 2025. About $162M was frozen and subsequently reclaimed through a recovery process. This was an application exploit, not evidence that Sui itself was a rug. But it demonstrated that a new architecture does not make financial applications immune to catastrophic bugs. @ironfishcrypto is a much harsher reality check. Around $33M in early funding. A privacy blockchain that launched. Then its development team was acquired by Coinbase in 2025. The network and token were not what Coinbase acquired. In April 2026, the foundation announced maintenance mode, no future grants or renewals, and the closure of its Discord. It explicitly said it could not sustain its previous pace of development. The network still runs. That distinction matters. A blockchain can survive while the development effort that attracted people to it shrinks dramatically. I found no evidence here that the funding was stolen. But “the chain still works” is a pretty low bar compared with the ambition surrounding this screenshot. @AleoHQ shows how much harder the engineering was than the fundraising headlines suggested. Aleo raised $228M across its Series A and B. Its 2022 funding announcement anticipated mainnet later that year. Mainnet actually arrived in September 2024. The development process included changing its planned consensus model following concerns about centralization. That is a substantive technical challenge, not simply a marketing delay. It did ship, but much later than the original expectation. For me, the lesson is that funding advanced cryptography and turning it into a dependable financial product are two very different milestones. @celestia delivered something real, but “another L1” was never a useful description of it. Celestia announced $155M in cumulative financing by September 2024. Its mainnet launched in October 2023, providing a specialized data availability layer that other blockchains can use. That is a concrete infrastructure contribution. But helping developers build blockchains and making the token an attractive investment are separate questions. The technology does not get a free pass on economics just because it is technically interesting. Subspace became @AutonomysNet. After $37.4M in identified early rounds, the project rebranded and shifted its mission toward decentralized AI infrastructure, building on its existing storage technology. Not simply gone. Not automatically a scam. But the thing you would be evaluating today is different from the investment story someone might have taken from this chart. A pivot can be sensible. It should still trigger a fresh assessment, not automatic loyalty. @EspressoSys also moved beyond the original framing. At least $60M across its early funding and 2024 Series B. Its development moved toward shared sequencing and infrastructure connecting blockchain ecosystems, rather than just another standalone chain competing for users. That is an interesting outcome: part of the work became helping chains function together, not replacing all of them with one winner. Worldcoin became @worldnetwork. Tools for Humanity had raised roughly $240M in reported venture funding by March 2025. Today, the project combines identity verification, consumer applications and World Chain, which is an Ethereum L2, not another general purpose L1. Even the categories in these old comparison charts need rechecking. @shardeum eventually shipped, but the timeline matters. Its identified seed and strategic rounds total $23.6M. Its roadmap places the token mainnet in 2025 and the EVM smart contract mainnet later that year. That is delivery. It is also a long distance from being included in a 2022 chart of imminent opportunities. Launching is the point at which the adoption thesis can really be tested, not the point at which it has been proven. The less prominent names did not all disappear, either. @anoma now presents a distributed operating system and private payment products. @Minima_Global continues developing blockchains embedded in devices, and announced another $1M+ fundraising close in July 2026. @partisiampc continues working on privacy infrastructure using multiparty computation. Those are specific areas of work, not interchangeable attempts to become the next Ethereum. Then there are the names where verifying the headline becomes part of the story. @5ireChain announced a $21M seed and a later $100M Series A. That Series A came after this screenshot’s April 2022 date, so it cannot independently validate the amount printed here. @ParallelChainLB’s later $50M GEM deal was a financing commitment through a token subscription facility. That is not proof that $50M arrived in its bank account. And a failed investment does not, by itself, prove a scam. What bothers me most about revisiting this chart is how much attention it gives to funding, backers and consensus mechanisms, while saying nothing about how success would eventually be measured. Did any of these projects contribute something useful? Yes. Does that validate the “next 1000x” framing? No. I would rather see dated treasury balances, spending, recurring revenue and users who stay without rewards than another ambitious roadmap. The question I care about now is not which logo survived. It is what all that capital actually built, who still uses it, and how much of the original promise survived with it.

CRYPTO IS GOING UP!!!!! WE ARE SO BACK!!! DUBAI, LAMBO!!!! ALL THAT OTHER SHIT!!! LETSSSS GOOOO!

ChatGPT released GPT-6 Astra I bet another will be Versa or possibly some another cosmic thing.

Our Airdrop of 2,710,049 velvet:native (worth $1M+ at current prices) drops August 10th Your payout is 100% determined by your rank on the Gem leaderboard Here's exactly how to climb it and maximize your share

If you watch the World Cup right now, you are watching 21 millionaires and 1 billionaire on the pitch.

I almost got a heart attack, lol @solflare

I like that some clones just top of the iceberg and it's insane....

I bet if you remove monetisation completely the stats will improve even more, after all those monetisation abusers will leave this place.

Facebook is down, too many ai slop

Do not change the fact that it does the same shit as Excel, just more “interesting UI”

if before you needed to learn coding now just learn how to connect dots, how to connect your apps with correct integrations, like stripe, railway, supabase.

okay, this is funny

Said a while ago

monopoly go! chat is the right choice :D

Hey @aiedge_, I see you writing about AI all the time and how cool it is to use Claude Code or any other agent. Cool. I have a few interesting points that would be great to discuss. Claude Code is a tool you really need to master. What would you recommend for people who only have 1–2 hours per day to learn it? What’s the best way for them to take advantage of it? Claude Code doesn’t really work well in enterprises because of regulations and permission issues. What would be another option for people to use at work? Not all of us are unemployed business owners :D Working with AI is kind of like painting. What would be your advice to others on the best style to paint with?

some lucky bingo balls

2025 2026 has been a turning point for Web3. The noise is getting filtered out. Less room for con artists, scammers, fake projects, and wannabes. What is left is stronger, more resilient, and actually building. Real value beats hype. Always.