Back in 2021 and 2022, most of the blockchain companies, DAOs, NFT projects were raising enormous amounts of money, and some grew into unicorns. While some investors never knew about the founders or the technology they were betting on. There was massive hype, along with unnecessary products on the market trying to become the next big thing. On the other hand, non-technical founders tried to build $100M blockchain companies with the help of inexperienced engineering teams. “How many of these companies or founders really contributed something to the technology or took the planet from Zero to One?” – My honest answer would be neither and finally it was either looking like a get rich quick scheme and going bankrupt faster than the dot-com bubble companies. I have worked in several such companies as a senior developer and it was difficult to convince a non-technical founder that things don't work this way in blockchain.
But today's blockchain is unlike that. The founders and companies have left to build AI vibe coding companies. At Proxikle, we always wanted to solve these problems and create meaningful value for the community which helped us to grow where we are and build something that can last, improve the experience for our users and uplift their experiences.
When I was a senior developer, I noticed a number of problems and differences compared with traditional SaaS companies. These companies created lasting models and strategies which existed for decades. The companies which failed quickly in this industry never followed any of these and we wanted to apply those principles at Proxikle from Day 1.
Crypto markets are unpredictable, to be honest. I have been traveling in this industry for the past decade since 2016 and creating massively valuable companies without any underlying plan will bankrupt the companies and technology. For example, FTX was a colossal failure where SBF built something incredible in paper valuations by mismanaging people's money and investing as he wished by backing it with a currency (FTT) created out of thin air. Well, not just me, many lost a significant sum of their hard earned money when the FTX scandal unfolded publicly on Twitter (not X). New examples pop up in every cycle where the projects and company behind were entirely driven by fake hype and narrative which subsidized and failed over the years. Now most of such projects either died or they have moved on to continue wasting investors resources. To counter this, if you do not follow the hype, build lean and create a highly competitive technology that competitors cannot easily replicate then you have won the game and can sustain regardless of market conditions.
The crypto projects I worked for failed big, some had $500M in valuations and some had $100M in valuations when they applied for bankruptcy. But all these projects had one thing in common: Manipulating the customers and their investors with false narratives as if they are going to change the world within a blink of an eye. Internally, the projects and shell companies created to tackle the investors money legally have a burn rate like anything without creating any meaningful value. Additionally, founders of these projects tend to consume millions of dollars in compensation which can be enormous when you look internally. Externally, this will look like the infamous Wallace Hartley crew who played violin when the Titanic was sinking and hundreds and thousands of people were drowning in mid Atlantic. When the founders cannot extract millions beyond a point, they would file a bankruptcy with a X post and leave just like nothing happened. We tackled this by building the entire infrastructure right from hosting on massive dedicated servers in-house. As pointed out in our Proxikle Infrastructure blog, we own the stack end to end right from designs (consists of Product designs, in house Design System, typeface), software (indexers, full nodes and a lot more), infrastructure (we do not heavily rely on AWS or Google Cloud except the edge caching layer) and so on.
A few days ago, Visa reported in their article that approximately 17% stablecoin linked volume occurred across business and commercial card programs and this had a 200% increase year over year. What started out as an ambitious project with USDT and USDC has started serving a purpose beyond the speculative niche. Similarly, builders moved onto building real infrastructure rather than driving the hype. Traditional financial assets have moved on-chain rather than living offchain. We wanted to position Proxikle in such a way that we can bridge the gap between consumers and businesses where it can reach a broader market. We have a major product in the pipeline which can bridge how we think and use stablecoins today.
Traditional SaaS companies built after the dot-com bubble have changed the way we use the Internet today. For example, Uber changed the way we rent taxis, Stripe changed the way we transact, AirBnB changed the way people book short-term stays, Reddit changed the way we communicate and finally Coinbase changed the way we manage money. All these companies built after the dot-com bubble never relied on fake hype or narrative but rather created a lasting business which can create lasting value. Similarly, Proxikle is built in such a way that it can sustain for years to come and can last beyond the hype and growth model popularized by the dot-com and blockchain bubble.
Finally, there are countless things to think about as a founder building a blockchain startup. But, building a lasting company which can self sustain itself and forever regardless of the market cycles will be a great move forward and this is where we are taking Proxikle towards.
.png){kind=small}
.png){kind=small}
