Over the past couple of days, I’ve been watching the liquidity pools of a few on-chain games—and it really feels like boiling a frog in warm water: the yield is ramped up way too aggressively, people come in and enjoy it for a few days, and then inflation pushes down the token price. The nominal returns within the pool are still fluctuating, but the actual buy-side demand is getting thinner and thinner. Even more noticeably, large wallets don’t really “all-in” anymore. They’re splitting their positions into small chunks and moving them out one after another—routing through a few hops and only then getting into the exchange—like they’re looking for an exit that won’t cause any stir.

To put it plainly, if on-chain games rely only on continuously issuing tokens to prop up production, it will inevitably turn into a relay of “you produce and I withdraw,” and in the end, whoever ends up in the pool will be the one taking the blame. In the group chat, they’re still passing around talk about stablecoin regulation, reserve audits, and de-peg rumors. Once emotions tighten, it’s even easier to bring up withdrawals first—after all, the most “solid” thing is always the APY in the screenshot.