Behind the big dump of TIA: The disillusionment of traditional encryption industry narratives

Once a shining star, the TIA token has now fallen below its price when it was listed on exchanges. As of now, the quote is only $1.62, a drop of over 90% from its peak of around $20. As a former leader in modular blockchain, TIA is now mired in negative public opinion due to founder sell-offs and internal management chaos.

The fall of this former star project not only represents the decline of the modular blockchain track but also epitomizes the gradual disproof of the once-popular narratives in the entire encryption industry.

Against the backdrop of the Nasdaq index hitting new highs, the cryptocurrency world is in a state of despair. The once hot narratives are collapsing, and coin prices are experiencing a big dump. This means that traditional cryptocurrency narratives are becoming unsustainable, and the industry has entered a true test of practical applications.

From Glory to Fall

TIA (full name Celestia) was one of the most notable modular blockchain projects from the end of 2023 to the beginning of 2024. In the early 2024 bull market, the TIA token skyrocketed from single digits post-airdrop to a peak of 20 dollars. Its vision is to combine the sovereign interoperability of Cosmos with the shared security centered around Ethereum.

However, starting in the second half of 2024, as market enthusiasm wanes and project ecosystems progress slowly, governance and team issues of Celestia gradually come to light. The most controversial is the suspicion of the executives collectively cashing out. Some users revealed that as early as the beginning of October 2024, all senior executives of Celestia had completed their unlocks and began to sell tokens on a large scale. One co-founder was even pointed out to have sold over 25 million dollars worth of tokens off-market, and then quietly moved abroad.

At the same time, Celestia's marketing operations have also encountered backlash. Several well-known figures who once endorsed TIA have been exposed for receiving substantial promotion fees. Although the co-founder of a certain media platform frequently recommends TIA, he has contradicted himself on the key issue of "whether to hold the tokens," further raising community doubts about whether the project is merely a marketing product manipulated by capital.

The deeper rift comes from the management, as the former head of developer relations was fired for alleged misconduct, triggering a public relations crisis. Celestia has been reported to have bought out a competitor for seven figures in USD, forcing them to withdraw from collaborations with other projects. This type of "exclusive acquisition" has sparked considerable controversy while also revealing the team's anxiety regarding their expansion path.

At a time when the cryptocurrency price is experiencing a big dump and community trust is on the verge of collapse, a co-founder 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 address ongoing inflationary pressures. However, before this disruptive proposal could be implemented, the fact that team executives were cashing out was gradually exposed, leading the community to widely believe that this was a guise of governance aimed at "stabilizing prices and covering up problems." As of now, its cryptocurrency price has fallen more than 90% from its peak. The on-chain activity is also dismal; according to data, its on-chain Gas revenue in the past 24 hours was only $231.

The Collapse of the Encryption Industry Narrative

The collapse of TIA is not just a failure of a project and a token; it reflects the disillusionment of the new narrative in the entire encryption industry.

In the past cycles, concepts like modularization, AI Agent, DePIN, GameFi, and NFT have sparked wave after wave of excitement, bringing about a collective frenzy of capital and retail investors. However, by 2025, we witnessed the collective collapse of the once-thriving narratives, with altcoins in disarray.

Similar to the situation with TIA, various leading projects in different tracks that were once favored by capital rapidly accumulated a large amount of traffic and saw a big dump in their coin prices in a short period, thanks to the favorable narrative. However, this hype is often short-lived and quickly cools down.

The fall of these star tokens reflects a deeper crisis in the encryption industry: the lack of true technological innovation and user adoption leads to the constant depletion and dilution of narrative and trust. After modularization, it is also difficult to see new narratives at the public chain level. Meanwhile, there are other voices in the current industry: projects combining AI and blockchain mostly remain at the conceptual level, and RWA not only faces regulatory issues but also needs to address the fundamental question of "whether there is really a demand."

The once-prominent hype is being debunked one by one and quickly forgotten by people. Meanwhile, the traditional financial market continues to bring good news, whether it is the stocks related to encryption compliance in the U.S. or Hong Kong markets, such as stablecoins and compliant exchanges, all of which have seen a sustained rise.

On one side is the lack of native innovation in encryption and the big dump in coin prices, while on the other side, compliant encryption projects in the Hong Kong and U.S. stock markets are being sought after by capital and the market. Some believe this is a sign of the "end of the industry," but in reality, it serves as a warning to various project parties: only true technological innovation and application implementation can create real value. The old ways of the traditional encryption circle—relying on storytelling, competing for traffic, and pumping and dumping—are no longer viable. Today's Web3 projects, just like Web2 projects, are truly competing in their ability to implement applications.