The best communities in crypto were never incentivized. They never needed to be.

I know most of you hate hearing this, but airdrops were one of the dumbest things this industry ever normalized. Billions of dollars spent to bribe people into clicking buttons they never would have clicked otherwise, just for them to dump the token and never come back.
And don't come at me with Hyperliquid. Absolute exception. One that only worked because @chameleon_jeff built a product people genuinely want to use, one that prints revenue with or without an airdrop. Take the airdrop away and Hyperliquid still wins.
That's exactly the point.
Now name me one other airdrop that isn't down only since TGE.
The truth is simple: if your product solves a real problem or provides something that people really want, they will show up. Maybe you spend some marketing dollars to put it on their radar, but not a 5-figure budget per person just because they clicked some buttons and never came back.
Everything else was a ponzi. 9 out of 10 founders and the CEXs filled their bags and dumped without ever looking back. Those who didn't were, quite frankly, delusional.
So yeah, I love where we are right now. Fewer scammy founders. No ponzi schemes disguised as "incentive alignment." No mercenary communities pretending to care.
Sounds like a great foundation for what comes next.