years ago, i was convinced that eth would flip btc. it made perfect sense: ethereum was fast, scalable, and actually useful. bitcoin was none of these things. i learned a hard lesson that cycle. protocol tokens aren't valued by revenue, P/E ratios, or utility—for a simple reason. *they can't be.* these are valuation metrics for stocks, and protocol tokens are much closer to nation-state currencies, both denominating and ensuring transactions between parties. in their absence, the market has used hand-wavey metrics of mimetics and lindiness. do other people believe it's valuable? well then, it *is* valuable. social consensus is all that backs the validity of these transactions, so tokens become self-reflexive. if you think other people will like it, you should like it too. this is dangerous obviously, and why crypto is so volatile. there is nothing to back it but our hopium and fear. anyway, cut to 7 years later. suddenly everyone is talking about solana flipping ethereum. it made perfect sense: solana was fast, scalable, and much more useful (with a more supportive ecosystem for app builders too). ethereum was none of these things. i'm sorry to say that some things have yet to change in crypto. we're all learning the same lessons all over again right now.