For those of you who have given me the space to grow, I just want to say thank you.
Thank you for letting me evolve publicly.
For cheering me on even after I fumble.
For not reducing me to my worst single moment or my least polished version.
I know I'm not perfect. I know I’ve had to learn some lessons the hard way, in the spotlight. But the people who have stayed kind, patient, and supportive through that process mean more to me than I probably say enough.
I appreciate you. More than you know.
🫡 From the depths —
The White Whale 🐋
Crypto’s Belief Problem
When you first get into crypto, everyone gives you the same unofficial crash course.
DYOR. NFA. No crying in the casino. Establish your own conviction.
That last one is where a lot of us get hurt.
Because nobody really teaches you the difference between conviction and belief.
Conviction is supposed to be conditional confidence. Tested. Revisited. Challenged. Updated when new information comes in.
Belief is an emotional attachment.
Belief gets personal.
Belief becomes identity.
Belief makes you defend something long after the evidence exists to prove you wrong.
And in crypto, that can get very expensive. Very fast.
I’ve watched it happen over and over again. The fiercest bagworkers, the most loyal token holders, the “strongest communities” - they’re often the ones left holding for dear life after everyone else has moved on.
Because they cared too much.
Because they believed.
When you really believe in something, it doesn’t feel like a trade anymore. It feels like betrayal to question it. It feels like weakness to sell. It feels like abandoning the team, the mission, the founder, and the friends you made along the way.
Sometimes the bag is not just a bag.
Sometimes it’s your reputation.
Sometimes it’s your social circle.
Sometimes it’s the version of yourself who told everyone, publicly and loudly, “I think this is going to win.”
And walking that back is brutal.
Believe me, I know. Been there, done that, got the lousy NFT t-shirt.
One of the smartest things I heard early in my crypto journey came from my personal mentor. He told me:
“Just remember, most projects will go to zero eventually.”
At the time, I understood it intellectually.
Now I understand it on a deeper level.
Because what he didn’t add was:
“Except for the strongest few thousand believers who will stay behind and keep posting like the battle is still being fought long after the war has already ended.”
Every dead narrative has survivors.
Every washed out meme has believers.
Every L1 that rides off into CT’s memory has a group of people still standing there, still defending it, still telling each other the comeback is coming.
That part is heartbreaking to watch. The evolved version of me doesn't even try to educate them any more, I just wish them the best of luck while silently pouring a drink for their lost capital.
Because a lot of those people are not bad people. They’re often the best people in crypto. The ones who care the most. The ones who show up every day. The ones who gave their passion-project life when nobody else did.
But crypto has a cruel way of punishing the people who believe the most.
We are all basically venture capitalists out here gambling on some of the highest risk/reward opportunities on earth, while often possessing the least amount of investment education and experience that exists.
I think founders need to think harder about this.
Your true believers are your best customers, and your best marketing staff.
Not the airdrop farmers. Everyone's a believer during points season.
The real believers.
The people who looked at what you were trying to do and believed in your vision. The people who cared when there was no obvious reward for caring.
Find ways to reward them.
Real ways.
Non-inflationary ways.
Build "Proof of Belief" into the design.
Not because anyone should hold an asset forever. That’s cult logic and a horrible investment strategy.
But because if someone genuinely believed in what you were building, that should mean something.
The idea of rewarding actual belief instead of temporary engagement is important.
And traders?
We need to get better at understanding the disctinction between conviction and belief.
We need to become better at letting go.
We need to understand that it's okay to love something and still sell it.
It is okay to respect a founder or a team and still decide the token is no longer a sound investment.
It is okay to believe in a vision and still admit the market does not care right now and perhaps never will.
It is okay to say, “I was wrong.”
Because your money deserves more respect than your ego.
Your future deserves more loyalty than your bags.
Founders: stop designing tokens only for mercenaries. Start thinking about how to reward real belief without inflating your token into dust.
Traders: stop confusing conviction with belief.
Belief can be beautiful. It can build communities, movements, and products that never would have existed without it.
But blind belief becomes a trap.
And in crypto, the "Belief Trap" has eaten more people than any exploit, rug, or liquidation wick ever could.
🫡 From the depths —
The White Whale 🐋
Less than 12 hours ago I was mocked for this trade. My new motto of the year is to not post PnL cards until I hit the cash out button but this is an exception. Running a trailing stop loss. As I said, not betting against this cult.
Never let noise impact your trades thesis.
Been a minute since one of my posts went viral. The pressure for the next thing I write to be good is intense.
I’ll start the draft tonight and finish it up in the morning. It’s on a topic that’s been on my mind a lot lately. Maybe you’ll like it. Maybe you won’t. I normally write for myself, anyway.
X is a journal for me, after all. And if someone out there happens to appreciate something I say or they learn something from my musings all the better.
It’s night already ke?
One day is not enough to celebrate our Father in the Lord oo. 🥹🥹
Dear Daddy Kumuyi, we celebrate you now and always, Sir!
See as Baba’s smile is so contagious. 🥹😍😍
It’s giving everything it should give. 🥹🥹
@WhiteWhaleLabs Nice thesis,I hope you act accordingly to it bcos for me mostly it's one thing to build a conviction it's another to follow it (greed is crazy 🤣).
Dear Solana:
Solana is my favorite blockchain to transact on. It is still one of my favorite assets to trade. And when price is attractive, I still think there is a good case for accumulating it.
But I am less bullish on SOL’s next-cycle price targets than I was last time.
Last cycle, while everyone was calling for $500+ SOL, I publicly said I planned to be out before $250. Solana’s ATH came earlier than BTC and much of the market, but that call ended up being pretty damn close.
This time, unless I see a real fundamental shift, I will probably be lowering my targets. As things stand now, I would likely be out before $200 next cycle.
That is not because I hate Solana. I don’t.
But love is not a sound investment thesis.
The reasons are pretty straightforward.
Pump fun has historically made up a meaningful chunk of Solana volume, and I believe the pump (and broader memecoin casino) meta is dying. Maybe it evolves. Maybe something replaces it. But pretending that was not a significant driver of activity feels dishonest.
Solana DeFi has also taken a serious hit. A lot of Solana DeFi was tied into Drift, and the damage there impacted dozens of protocols. It hurt the broader perception of Solana DeFi.
Then there is the capital markets side.
A lot of Solana DATs were formed at some of the worst possible price points, then unwound, restructured, or de-risked at some of the worst possible price points.
CT forgets everything in 72 hours but institutional capital does not.
If a bunch of institutions got dragged into Solana exposure near the highs, then unwound for losses, that leaves a mark. It does not mean they will never touch SOL again. But it does mean the next wave of institutional appetite may not be as easy, clean, or deep as people assume.
Then there is the cultural layer.
Solana feels disjointed right now. Some of the most prominent Solana voices have spent an incredible amount of time relentlessly shilling an entirely different blockchain. Yes, ZEC is it's own Layer 1.
It does not exactly scream focus on Solana itself. It reads as devs thinking their bag is cooked and so they start pumping their next bag.
Only now does there finally seem to be real traction around addressing the inflation issue, which should have been more meaningfully a long time ago.
But what really read as desperation to me was the @PhoenixTrade push. That moment actually influenced my vision more than any of the others.
Look, I have traded over $5B in perps across various protocols. I have tested or used almost every “perp DEX” worth testing. And Phoenix is about as basic as it gets.
Yes, the engineering under the hood is interesting. Fine. Mad respect to the builders.
But traders do not ultimately care about engineering.
They care about three things:
Does it work?
Can I make money there?
Is it safe?
And right now, the best Solana-adjacent perps venue is @pacifica_fi . I say Solana-adjacent because it is mostly the stables on-ramp and Solana TVL. It is not generating massive activity for the Solana network itself. And even Pacifica has already talked about building its own L1. (A decision I'm skeptical about, even as a fan)
My exact reaction to the huge marketing push on one of the most basic perp dexs I've ever traded on was: they are so very desperate for something to gain traction on Solana it actually scares me.
Solana talks a lot about what it wants to be when it grows up. And to be clear, the vision is compelling. The ambition is real. The talent is definitely real.
But ambition is not maturity.
Every kid wants to be a doctor, an astronaut, or a superhero when they grow up.
I care more about what something actually is than what it says it wants to become.
So what is my favorite new blockchain?
Solana.
Because you can still love something and still be rational about it.
🫡 From the depths —
The White Whale 🐋
JUST IN: President Bola Tinubu has congratulated the founder and General Superintendent of the Deeper Christian Life Ministry, Pastor William Kumuyi, on his 85th birthday.