TIA big dump, has the narrative of the traditional encryption industry been shattered?

Author: Jessy, Golden Finance

TIA, which once shone with a tenfold increase after its listing on the exchange during the small bull market at the beginning of 2024, has now fallen below its price at the time of listing. 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 founder sell-offs and internal management issues.

The fall from grace of the once-popular TIA token is not just a symbol of the decline of the modular blockchain sector. The downfall of a leading project that was extremely popular last year is merely a surface issue. The deeper truth is that the once-thriving narratives in the crypto space are gradually being disproven.

On one side, there is the stock market frenzy with the Nasdaq hitting new highs, while on the other side, the once-popular narratives in the crypto space are collapsing one after another, leading to a plummet in cryptocurrency prices. The traditional narratives in the crypto space can no longer be sustained; the industry has reached a true moment of focusing on landing and application.

From Glory to Fall

TIA, short for Celestia, is one of the most anticipated 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 interoperation zone of Cosmos with a summary-centric Ethereum that has shared security.

However, starting in the second half of 2024, as market enthusiasm wanes and project ecosystems progress slowly, the governance and team issues of CelesTIA gradually come to light. The most controversial issue is the suspicion of its senior executives collectively cashing out. Twitter user @0xCircusLover revealed that as early as early 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 dollars worth of tokens off the market, and then quietly relocating to Dubai.

At the same time, CelesTIA’s marketing operations faced backlash. KOL @ayyyeandy, who previously promoted TIA, was exposed for receiving substantial promotional fees. While Bankless co-founder David Hoffman frequently recommended TIA, he contradicted himself on the key question of “whether to hold the tokens,” further raising community doubts about whether the project is merely a marketing product manipulated by capital.

However, deeper rifts within the organization stem from management, as the former head of developer relations, Yaz Khoury, was fired due to allegations of sexual harassment, triggering a public relations storm. CelesTIA was reported to have bought out competitor Abstract for a seven-figure sum in USD, forcing them to withdraw from their 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 collapsed and community trust was on the verge of crumbling, 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 to cope with ongoing inflationary pressures. However, before this disruptive proposal could take effect, the fact that team executives 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 writing, its price has dropped over 90% from its peak. The on-chain activity is also dismal; according to defillama data, in the past 24 hours, its on-chain Gas revenue was only $231.

TIA The Collapse of the Narrative in the Crypto Industry Behind the Fall

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

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

Similar to TIA, various leading projects like WorldCoin, Helium, and others that once enjoyed immense popularity and were highly sought after by capital, rapidly accumulated a large amount of traffic and experienced a spike in coin prices in a short period, riding on the narrative wave. However, they all quickly cooled down after just a wave of enthusiasm.

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 repeated depletion and dilution of narratives and trust. After modularization, there are no new narratives emerging at the public chain level. Looking at other tracks in the industry today, most projects that combine AI and blockchain remain at the conceptual level, while RWA is not only a regulatory issue but also poses a profound question of “whether there is real demand.”

The once popular trends are being debunked one by one and quickly forgotten by people. Meanwhile, positive news continues to emerge from the traditional financial markets, with cryptocurrencies and related stocks in both the US and Hong Kong markets, such as stablecoins and compliant exchanges, experiencing sustained growth.

On one side, there is a scarcity of native innovations in cryptocurrency and a plunge in coin prices, while on the other side, compliant cryptocurrency projects in Hong Kong and the US are being enthusiastically embraced by capital and the market. Some believe this is a sign that “the industry is doomed,” but I think this is actually 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 involved storytelling, competing for traffic, pumping and then dumping, can no longer be sustained. Like Web2 projects, today’s Web3 projects are all about practical implementation.