The 100x Coin Era is Over? Now You Need to Look at 'Pipes' to See Money | Seo Dong-ju, Kim Dong-hwan, Kim Jun-woo, Zangle CEO

Summary

Xangle CEO Kim Jun-woo compares crypto's last decade to the Odyssey, arguing that after the institutional and ETF Trojan-horse moment, crypto is entering a maturation phase. He says the old 100x coin era is largely over and investors should focus on the 'pipes' such as stablecoin and payment rails, custody, and digital-asset compliance services rather than pure coin price speculation. He still views Bitcoin's digital-gold narrative as valid and sees early RWA and tokenized asset projects as a remaining source of alpha.

• Crypto's 2017 attention and later ETF/institutional adoption were only the starting point of a longer maturation journey.
• Kim Jun-woo argues that the era of easy 100x coin returns is largely over as crypto becomes institutionalized.
• He advises looking at digital asset infrastructure: stablecoin gateways, banks, cards, payments, custody, and remittance.
• Peripheral services such as data, audit, identity, and oracles may be important; Chainlink is mentioned as one example to watch.
• Bitcoin's digital gold narrative remains valid despite recent risk-asset behavior, supported by liquidity and institutional adoption.
• Early-stage clear-use sectors such as RWA and tokenized assets still offer potential alpha because adoption remains low.
• Decentralization is not gone but is rebalancing between centralized and decentralized networks.