In fact, the exchange itself is not easy, and it will only get harder. In addition to the tightening of regulations, deeper pressure comes from on-chain applications rapidly eroding market share, and this competition is happening among the most core and high-quality user groups.
Taking the prediction market as an example, from the beginning of the year to now, the overall trading volume has increased by about 130 times. More importantly, most of those participating are high-cognition users. As understanding deepens, participation itself continually reinforces positive feedback; the more they play, the clearer it becomes, and the more invested they are. As I mentioned before, the prediction market is not merely a tool for gambling, but a tool that visualizes and settles human reasoning and judgment using money. Including myself, more and more people around me are starting to participate in Polymarket, expanding their knowledge boundaries while gaining practical judgment experience. Regardless of winning or losing, that positive feedback and satisfaction is something that other tools cannot provide.
The contract market is similar. Taking Hyperliquid as an example, its market share has increased from less than 1% to about 20% in just one year. More notably, its trading strategy transparency is becoming an important reference indicator for many traders, which is nearly impossible to achieve in traditional exchange systems.
The exaggerated growth curves presented by these two on-chain protocols are repeatedly validating the same trend; on-chain markets will not be marginalized but will instead continue to grow and gradually penetrate the core territory of traditional finance and exchanges. The next decade will essentially be an era of on-chain application explosion, and it will also become the golden decade for cryptocurrencies. It is not excluded that a team or individual will create on-chain applications worth billions of dollars in the on-chain market.
