In crypto, the underlying drive for long-term survival, I think, is the “risk-free return rate” that’s higher than in the traditional world—not some get-rich-quick story that spreads every three days, otherwise it would have ended up like the sneaker and tea-leaf hype, with everyone left holding the bag.

Of course, what I mean here isn’t the strict definition used in economics; it’s the relatively risk-free return in the environment you’re in.
In the traditional finance world, the risk-free return rate is usually benchmarked to the U.S. short-term Treasury yield, and it has long hovered in the 2%-5% range; currently it’s about 3.80%.
And in the crypto context, we typically treat certain stable-return methods with higher safety factors as risk-free or low-risk return rates.
Taking USD1 as an example: a 100% reserve backing supported by cash equivalents such as a Trump family-associated issuance + USD deposits + U.S. Treasuries, along with 1:1 redeemability, together helped make USD1 one of the benchmarks for returns in the crypto market.
Over the past six rounds of activities, USD1 has consistently offered high-yield incentives, with its annualized return rate staying in the 4.94%-15.56% range.
Although it doesn’t sound that high, it is still significantly higher than U.S. short-term Treasuries—let alone other countries adopting tightening policies.
To a large extent, USD1 activities have retained speculative capital that might otherwise flow back into traditional finance. If crypto wants to capture incremental growth and sustain long-term development, it definitely can’t do without opportunities like these for returns.