Original Title: Welcome to the 『Show Me』 Era
Original Author: Paul Cafiero, a16z
Translation: Peggy

Editor's Note: The encryption industry is entering a new phase of dissemination. In the past, a white paper, a token, or a grand vision was enough to attract media, community, and capital attention; but after regulatory scrutiny, industry scandals, and information noise have accumulated, external audiences’ patience for "stories" is decreasing.

The core judgment presented in this article is that the crypto industry has entered the "show me" era: the market no longer only asks what you want to do, but also questions what you have already done, who is using it, whether the data is real, and whether partnerships are tangible. As traditional financial institutions like BlackRock, Fidelity, JPMorgan Chase, and Franklin Templeton enter the crypto space not just as concepts but as products, the standards for judging "trustworthy projects" are collectively rising.

This means that the communication logic for startups must also change accordingly. Visions are still important, but they can no longer replace evidence. Authentic trading volume, mainnet data, active users, revenue, retention, third-party verification, audit reports, and publicly endorsed partners are becoming the new "evidence stack." Compared to "We are building the future of payments," a more convincing statement is: "We have reduced cross-border settlement time from three days to four minutes, and real companies are already using it."

For crypto projects, this is both pressure and opportunity. Higher dissemination thresholds will eliminate a lot of noise relying on conceptual packaging, but will also make teams with real products, data, and users easier to be seen. The question is no longer whether a project can tell a big enough story, but whether it can produce enough solid evidence to support that story’s continued validity.

Below is the original text:

For decades, the tech industry has been able to gain public recognition and external praise through interesting ideas emerging within it.

This situation once reached such a level that: startups often talk about "Minimum Viable Product" (MVP), and even share the same abbreviation as stars like Jaylen Brenson—MVP. (New York forever.)

But over the past ten years, especially in recent years, the tech industry has undergone huge changes: MVPs, good ideas, and excellent teams are no longer enough to impress external audiences. The crypto industry has been particularly impacted—regulatory issues remain unresolved, and bad actors constantly hitting headlines make people’s "BS radar" more sensitive than ever. As noise increases, people are also becoming more proactive in filtering information.

And when traditional finance (TradFi) players truly start to take crypto seriously—such as BlackRock launching tokenized money market funds, Fidelity applying for crypto ETFs, JPMorgan Chase completing transaction settlement on its own blockchain—the focus of discussions has also shifted. The change is not just about "what is crypto," but also about "what makes a project worth taking seriously in this industry."

We are now at this node. This node has quietly rewritten the dissemination rules for all crypto builders. Welcome to the "Show Me the Evidence" era.

What has changed? Why now?

Throughout most of crypto’s history, it has operated on a "promise logic": visions themselves are the product. You can start a project with just a white paper and a token, and media and the crypto community will still follow. Everyone bets on what something might become in the future, not what it has already proven. Now, this dynamic has changed.

Why? Simply put, I believe this shift in communication stems from several factors working together: this technology has been around for over twenty years, yet skepticism persists or even deepens; traditional financial institutions are entering crypto at scale, not just nominally but by launching real products; meanwhile, the AI industry is also delivering consumer-facing, perceptible products—though it seems to have succeeded overnight, decades of groundwork have been laid behind the scenes.

Large institutions are no longer just spectators; they are no longer isolating their efforts in "innovation departments," but are building infrastructure for scaled applications: BlackRock and Larry Fink fully embrace tokenization; Fidelity is building custody and ETF infrastructure; JPMorgan has launched the Onyx network; Franklin Templeton has launched on-chain money market funds.

These are no longer experiments but real products, backed by traditional financial compliance frameworks, institutional clients, and balance sheets.

The large-scale entry of traditional finance raises the bar for "seriousness" in crypto. When the world’s largest asset manager begins tokenizing government bonds, what a trustworthy project needs to demonstrate to media, partners, and markets also rises accordingly.

From a policy perspective, the industry has also entered the mainstream. With the passage of the Geniuses Act (GENIUS Act) for stablecoins last year, and now the comprehensive Market Structure Act (CLARITY Act) preparing for full Senate vote, product dissemination is expected to further evolve. If the CLARITY Act passes, founders will be able to publicly discuss what they are building with unprecedented specificity.

All these changes combined mean that the industry has matured—whether it is ready or not.

The result is that the starting point for dissemination is no longer "what are you doing," but "what have you already done? Who is using it?"

In practice, this means that a compelling story alone can no longer truly move the needle. We need evidence.

The New Evidence Stack

The narrative that once worked was: "We are building X for Y, and here’s why it matters." Today, this narrative needs a second act. I call it the "evidence stack": a layer that can turn hypothetical, abstract narratives into credible, concrete stories.

So, what should the evidence stack look like?

Substantive partnerships, not just "communications." This means real integrations, deployed contracts, and a willingness to publicly explain why your partners chose you. In the past, partnership announcements were often lazy substitutes for growth. Now, only when a partnership itself is proof of growth does it become effective. That is, a large institution, protocol, or platform chose you out of several alternatives, and you can clearly explain why.

It also means sharing more hard data: not testnet metrics, but mainnet transaction volume; active wallets; revenue; retention curves. Not "growing fast," but specific percentages, timeframes, and benchmarks. Journalists covering this space are becoming more professional—they will verify on-chain data themselves. If your data can’t withstand scrutiny from Dune, CoinMarketCap, or other analytics dashboards, your story won’t hold.

The evidence stack also includes genuine product-market fit signals. Who is using your product? Why do they keep using it, including other market clients?

I believe the clearest evidence of fit isn’t a press release but community growth that existed before PR push and is growing naturally.

If your most enthusiastic users are investors or stakeholders, that’s a yellow flag—they have economic incentives to hype. But if these users found you through word of mouth, that’s a story worth telling.

The key here is: coverage and attention existed before media push, not because of PR. Third-party verification, audits, independent research—all are important evidence. The most credible evidence is the evidence you didn’t artificially create. That is, others are proving to the world that there is something real here.

What does this mean for startup communication?

When you are still early, with a product in development but a clear vision, the most common impulse is to start with the vision or declaration. It feels sincere. And it is sincere.

But in today’s environment, this kind of expression can be read as a risk.

A better approach is to frame your narrative around facts you can prove. Start with the data points you are most confident in, even if they are small. For example, having a thousand daily active users who don’t know the founders personally is more convincing than a $1 million strategic funding round. A protocol handling $50 million in transactions 90 days before launch is more interesting than one that "will handle transactions at scale in the future."

This also means you need to describe your claims more precisely. "We are building the future of payments" is an argument, not a proof point. "We have reduced cross-border settlement time from three days to four minutes, and three companies are already using it today," is a proof point—and it naturally supports a larger argument.

For communication teams and founders personally doing outreach, the practical takeaway is: stories should grow from facts, not start with stories and then seek facts to support them. This is a different approach—more difficult in some ways, requiring more discipline—but it produces better results. Especially now.

The Long Game

All of this does not mean visions are no longer important. The best crypto communication still runs on two tracks: what we have built, and why it’s just the beginning of something bigger. The difference lies in the order of storytelling and the proportion of information.

By "proportion," I mean that in 2021, you might have used 80% vision and 20% substantive content. Today, that ratio has flipped.

You can still publish white papers, declarations… but that’s no longer enough. Visions remain important—they make the proof points more meaningful and give journalists and analysts a direction to continue writing. But visions must be supported by concrete evidence underneath.

The "Show Me the Evidence" era is not a temporary industry correction. The maturity of crypto audiences—whether media, institutions, or retail—has permanently advanced.

The most talented builders in this space have realized that this is actually good news. If you have real growth, real data, and real partners, higher thresholds are actually advantageous; they filter out noise and make your signals stand out more clearly.

The question is: Is your dissemination strategy designed to showcase this evidence, or are you still in the stage of promising it?

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