From the "Zeroing" Warning to the "King" Return, What Has FIL Really Experienced?

Let me tell you a story. Recently, the "Future World Experience Hall" downstairs, which has been closed for years, suddenly started lining up with people. Rumor has it that the owner replaced all the VR headsets inside with the latest models that can even emit scents, attracting a crowd to sign up for memberships.

This scene reminded me of the recent frenzy around certain digital assets, like Filecoin, which was nearly dead not long ago and suddenly became "popular."

Many people came to ask me, saying, "Professor, look, the technology has been upgraded, the ecosystem has been implemented, so surely now the value has been discovered?"

Every time I hear the phrase "value discovery," I can't help but feel a mix of amusement and skepticism.

It's like the owner of the experience hall telling you, "Now we can not only see the future but also smell it," so our membership card is worth this price.

But essentially, you're still wearing a headset in a dark room. The reason you're willing to pay isn't because you really need to "smell" the future, but because you see others lining up and you're afraid of missing out.

So today, we need to do some "disillusionment."

We're not here to discuss the rise and fall of a particular code but to talk about an eternal theme in the financial world: storytelling, or more precisely, "narrative."

Often, especially when something new just emerges and no one understands it, the price of an asset is fundamentally its "narrative" price.

You're not buying its current value, nor even its future value; you're buying a "possibility" that makes your blood boil.

Let's take this FIL thing as an example to analyze.

What is its core narrative?

"Decentralized storage," the "data foundation" of the Web3 era.

This story sounds grand—meaning that in the future, our data won't be stored on Amazon or Google servers but will be dispersed like pepper across countless miners' hard drives worldwide—safe, censorship-resistant, and never lost.

Doesn't that sound exciting?

It's like a digital Declaration of Independence.

But if we translate this grand narrative into a makeshift scenario, you'll understand immediately.

It's essentially like our community wanting to build a library but lacking the funds to buy land and build a big building. So, the homeowners' committee calls out: "Everyone, don't store books at home anymore; each family takes a few pages and keeps them mutually."

Zhang San's house stores the first page of "War and Peace," Li Si's house stores the second, Wang Wu's house stores the third... In theory, as long as there's a resident in the community, the book will never be lost.

This is "decentralization."

Sounds wonderful, but how does it work in practice?

When you want to read the book, you first have to shout at the homeowners' committee (the network), and then Zhang San, Li Si, Wang Wu will each hand over their pages.

This process takes time and costs "running errands fees" (Gas fees).

What if Zhang San moves away or his hard drive fails?

Although the homeowners' committee claims to have backup mechanisms, like storing a copy with Zhao Liu, the communication and retrieval costs are obviously much higher than going directly to a central library.

Recently, the so-called "technology upgrades," like the FVM virtual machine, are akin to the homeowners' committee announcing: "Good news! Now we can not only store books but also hold reading clubs, sell coffee, and hold signing events beside the books!" Of course, that's a good thing—it adds more functions to the library.

And the so-called Gas fee "being cut in half" is like the committee saying: "Good news! From now on, the delivery fee for passing books around is halved!" That's also good, reducing operational costs.

But the key issue is that these improvements only make the experience of this "community mutual help library" go from "very difficult to use" to "relatively difficult to use." They haven't fundamentally changed one thing: for most commercial applications that require efficient, cheap, and stable data read/write, going directly to the nearby, well-lit, on-demand, and dirt-cheap "downtown library" (Amazon AWS, Alibaba Cloud) remains the first choice.

Here's a cold fact: in the Web3 world, the cost of storing and reading data—especially high-frequency reads—is currently astronomical.

The biggest value of decentralized storage lies in "storing," that is, "keeping it still."

It's very suitable for storing things you want to be there forever but preferably never touch, such as legal evidence or some digital artworks you wish to pass down.

It's a digital safe, not a digital warehouse.

You put heirlooms in a safe, but you wouldn't put daily-use pots and pans in a safe.

Once you understand this, you'll see the market frenzy with a different perspective.

The market is applying "warehouse" logic to hype the price of a "safe."

Institutions rush in, retail investors FOMO, everyone discusses how much the TVL (Total Value Locked) has increased, how many new ecosystem applications there are.

But behind this, human nature is simple: the story has become appealing again.

During the long bear market, everyone got tired of the old story of "decentralized storage." Now, new chapters—"ecosystem explosion" and "cost reduction"—are added, like giving a dull old movie new special effects and voiceovers, making people willing to buy tickets again.

This pattern repeats throughout history.

In the 19th-century railway bubble, people weren't investing in transportation efficiency but in the dream of "connecting the entire country."

In the 2000 internet bubble, people weren't investing in companies' profitability but in "eyeballs," that is, website clicks.

Today, many Web3 projects are not invested in their current practical use but in a narrative of "disrupting the future."

So, how you view the rise and fall of such assets shouldn't rely solely on technical analysis or fundamentals.

You need to incorporate a "narrative analysis" dimension.

Ask yourself: what chapter is this story in now?

Are there many listeners?

Are new, better storytellers entering the scene?

Are external events, like policies or macroeconomic conditions, adding new "buffs" to this story?

When a narrative begins to fade or is replaced by a grander one, no matter how advanced the technology, the price can plummet.

Conversely, even if the fundamentals are just a "makeshift show," as long as the narrative is compelling and attractive enough, it can soar.

This isn't about right or wrong; it's how human nature operates. It's where the charm and cruelty of financial markets coexist.

Of course, as ordinary people, even if we see through the essence of the narrative, it's hard to control ourselves during market frenzy.

After all, missing out on a "get-rich-quick" opportunity is more painful than losing money.