From the "zeroing" warning to the "king" comeback, what exactly has FIL experienced?

Let me tell you a story. Recently, the "Future World Experience Hall" downstairs, which has been closed for years, suddenly started forming long lines. Rumor has it that the owner replaced all the VR headsets with the latest models, even adding scent features, attracting a bunch of people 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 but suddenly became "popular."

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

Every time I hear the phrase "value discovery," I feel a mix of amusement and skepticism.

It's like the owner of the experience hall telling you, "Now we can not only see but also smell the future, so our membership cards are 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 queuing 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: stories, or rather, "narratives."

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

You're not buying its current value, nor even its future value—you’re buying a "possibility" that excites you.

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 is grand: it means that in the future, our data will no longer be stored on Amazon or Google servers but scattered like pepper across countless miners' hard drives worldwide—safe, censorship-resistant, and never lost.

Does that sound exciting?

It's like the Declaration of Independence in the digital world.

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 funds to buy land and build a big building. So, the homeowners' committee calls out: "Everyone, stop storing books at home. Each family takes a few pages and keeps them for each other."

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

This is "decentralization."

It 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 hear you and each bring out their pages.

This process takes time and incurs "running-around" costs (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 cost of communication and retrieval is obviously much higher than going directly to a central library.

Recently, the so-called "technology upgrades," like FVM virtual machines, are akin to the homeowners' committee announcing: "Good news! We can now not only store books but also hold reading clubs, sell coffee, and host signings next to the books!" Of course, that's good—it adds 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 half-price!" 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 don't fundamentally change 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 "city-center 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 things still."

It's very suitable for storing things you want to keep forever but ideally never touch—like legal evidence or some digital art you want to pass down.

It's a digital safe, not a warehouse.

You put family heirlooms in a safe, but you wouldn't put everyday pots and pans in a safe.

Once you understand this, you'll see the market frenzy for what it really is.

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

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

But behind this, human nature is simple: the story sounds good again.

During the long bear market, everyone got tired of the old story of "decentralized storage." Now, a new chapter—"ecosystem explosion" and "cost reduction"—has been added, like adding special effects and voiceovers to a dull old movie, 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 whole country."

In the 2000 internet bubble, people weren't investing in companies' profitability but in "eyeballs," i.e., website traffic.

Today, many Web3 projects are not about their current practical use but about investing in a "disruptive future" narrative.

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

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 factors, adding new "buffs" to this story?

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

Conversely, even if the fundamentals are just a "makeshift show," as long as the narrative is compelling 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 feels worse than losing money.