{"id":377,"date":"2026-07-29T21:30:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-29T13:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.btcethdata.com\/?btc_ct_news=the-100x-obsession-fundamentals-grow-in-importance-as-crypto-matures"},"modified":"2026-07-30T00:51:50","modified_gmt":"2026-07-29T16:51:50","slug":"the-100x-obsession-fundamentals-grow-in-importance-as-crypto-matures","status":"publish","type":"btc_ct_news","link":"https:\/\/www.btcethdata.com\/?btc_ct_news=the-100x-obsession-fundamentals-grow-in-importance-as-crypto-matures","title":{"rendered":"The 100x obsession: Fundamentals grow in importance as crypto matures"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cInvestments change fast; human nature and human aspirations stay constant.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

That\u2019s how Meir Statman, behavioral finance pioneer, professor of finance at Santa Clara University and author of A Wealth of Well-Being<\/em>, explains one of investing\u2019s oldest puzzles. And it may be why every crypto cycle so far has been about chasing the next hot narrative rather than fundamentals, whether it\u2019s DeFi, meme coins or decentralized compute.<\/p>\n

In an industry that has spent years maturing into an ecosystem of institutional investors, revenue-generating protocols and real-world use cases, investor attention still gravitates toward the next shiny thing that can offer the promise of outsized returns.<\/p>\n

\u201cCrypto is still a young asset class, and price discovery in young markets tends to be driven by attention before it\u2019s driven by analysis,\u201d Samar Sen, head of international markets at Talos, tells Magazine.<\/p>\n

\u201cA new narrative gives investors a simple story to underwrite quickly, while assessing the fundamentals of an established protocol takes real work, from understanding usage and revenue to token design and competitive position.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This behavior isn\u2019t unique to digital assets; it\u2019s just particularly pronounced in an industry that prizes memes over sustainable business models.<\/p>\n

A Pok\u00e9mon card, a digital asset and a tech stock<\/h2>\n

A recent MarketWise study compared<\/a> hypothetical $10,000 investments across cryptocurrencies, stocks, exchange-traded funds and collectibles between January 2021 and April 2026.<\/p>\n

The study found that a sealed Pok\u00e9mon card box outperformed Bitcoin, while a pair of limited-edition sneakers nearly matched Dogecoin\u2019s returns. <\/p>\n

At the same time, some of Wall Street\u2019s most popular artificial intelligence funds lagged the broader stock market despite AI dominating the investment headlines.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

A $10K investment has very different outcomes. Source: MarketWise<\/em><\/p>\n

What does a Pok\u00e9mon card, a digital asset and a tech stock have in common? According to Statman, they\u2019re driven by the same thing: investors aren\u2019t simply looking for the best asset; they\u2019re buying a lottery ticket to a life-changing outcome.<\/p>\n

Investors are chasing transformation, not crypto<\/h2>\n

Traditional finance tends to assume that investors want to maximize returns while minimizing risk, but Statman argues that people often invest for a very different reason.<\/p>\n

In a recent paper<\/a> on concentrated wealth in behavioral portfolios, Statman argues that many investors mentally divide their wealth into two layers. <\/p>\n

The first is a \u201cnot-poor\u201d layer, which is designed to preserve their standard of living and avoid falling into poverty. The second is a \u201cbe-rich\u201d layer, which is for transformative goals, like buying a house, becoming financially independent, or fundamentally changing their circumstances.<\/p>\n

Within that framework, concentrated investments aren\u2019t necessarily irrational; they exist because diversified investing, while statistically sensible, may never offer someone with limited capital a realistic chance of achieving those goals.<\/p>\n

James Royal, a senior writer at MarketWise, tells Magazine:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe asset class may change, but the behavior barely does\u2026 Investors aren\u2019t exactly loyal to crypto, stocks or collectibles. Their loyalty is to whatever promises lucrative returns next.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Statman says that, while some of today\u2019s investors pin their hopes on meme stocks, \u201ca century ago it was railroad stocks [\u2026] today\u2019s investors are simply expressing the same aspirations through a new asset class.\u201d<\/p>\n

Investors aren\u2019t becoming more tolerant of risk, however, just more willing to accept volatility for a chance of life-changing wealth.<\/p>\n

\u201cInvestors aren\u2019t necessarily on the hunt for risk, but they\u2019ve got a case of FOMO on the next life-changing return, and that can lead them down a path of underestimated downside risk,\u201d Royal says.<\/p>\n

Why stories beat fundamentals<\/h2>\n

If investors are searching for transformation rather than simple returns, that helps explain why narratives so often overwhelm fundamentals, particularly in crypto.<\/p>\n

The decentralized finance sector is a case in point. Despite some of its largest protocols like Aave or Uniswap generating substantial revenue, attracting billions of dollars in deposits and processing enormous trading volumes, their tokens struggle to capture the same excitement as newer narratives built around the latest craze.<\/p>\n

Aave\u2019s token was trading<\/a> at around $98 at the time of writing, some 85% from its 2021 peak, but its TVL<\/a> is over $14 billion, and had reached over $37 billion at the height of the bull market in October 2025.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Aave\u2019s TVL is over $14 billion while its token price is 85% from its 2021 peak. Source: DeFiLlama.<\/em><\/p>\n

Thomas Probst, a research analyst at Kaiko market data provider, says that while assets may outperform in the short term, fundamentals will always be more important in the long term.<\/p>\n

\u201cMarket fundamentals continue to play an important role, particularly resilience, liquidity, and volatility\u2026 [an asset\u2019s] ability to establish itself over time also depends on the robustness of its market structure,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Yet, while a mature protocol generating sustainable cash flow may be an attractive long-term investment, it offers little appeal to investors allocating money toward their \u201cbe-rich\u201d bucket. A token that might double over several years will always struggle to compete with the possibility, however remote, of a 100x moonshot.<\/p>\n

\u201cInvestors like to confuse a great technological breakthrough with a great investment opportunity,\u201d Royal says, which might explain why many AI-focused ETFs have underperformed, despite AI arguably becoming the defining investment narrative of our time. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe real skill isn\u2019t identifying exciting investments, it\u2019s recognizing when optimism has already been priced in.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That same skill comes in handy with market timing. MarketWise\u2019s report found that investors who bought Bitcoin in January 2021 turned a hypothetical $10,000 investment into more than $24,000 by April 2026, with +141% gains.<\/p>\n

Those who bought during its cycle peak in October 2025, however, saw the same investment shrink to just over $6,000 with a -38% return by April (and it\u2019d be worth about $5,000 today).<\/p>\n

Anyone who FOMO\u2019d into AAAVE around the same time would be sitting on +85% losses today.<\/p>\n

Institutions play a different game<\/h2>\n

Institutional investors approach investing from an entirely different perspective, Sen says:<\/p>\n

\u201cInstitutional mandates simply don\u2019t allow for chasing outsized, speculative returns. Institutions are underwriting risk-adjusted performance, liquidity, custody arrangements and operational resilience long before they look at upside potential.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

AAVE\u2019s price performance since 2021. Source: Coingecko<\/em><\/p>\n

And while that doesn\u2019t mean institutions are immune to emerging narratives, they generally look at whether the underlying infrastructure can support meaningful capital allocation rather than whether the token could 100x.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s usually a mix, and the order matters,\u201d Sen says. \u201cMost of these themes, DeFi, AI, memecoins, do start with a genuine shift: a real technical unlock or a new use case that wasn\u2019t possible before.\u201d <\/p>\n

Once the narrative begins attracting speculative money, however, prices often move faster than fundamentals, he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cInvestors arriving later in a cycle are often responding to the narrative as much as the fundamentals that started it [\u2026] Institutional capital, which tends to move on process and discipline rather than trend-following, is often a step behind the initial narrative and a step ahead of the correction.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The next Bitcoin isn\u2019t really the point<\/h2>\n

The search for the next life-changing investment is unlikely to disappear, and neither, Statman argues, is the human desire to improve one\u2019s circumstances.<\/p>\n

The next 100x token certainly exists, and investors will continue to seek it \u2014 even when the odds and fundamentals say they\u2019re looking in the wrong place.<\/p>\n

Magazine: <\/strong><\/em>The real reason DeFi projects that survived 2022 crash are shutting down now<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Source: Cointelegraph<\/a> \/ Christina Comben<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Crypto\u2019s fundamentals have never been stronger, yet degens keep chasing hot new narratives. Behavioral finance may explain why get rich quick stories continue to beat substance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":378,"template":"","btc_ct_section":[7],"class_list":["post-377","btc_ct_news","type-btc_ct_news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","btc_ct_section-latest"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.btcethdata.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/btc_ct_news\/377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.btcethdata.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/btc_ct_news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.btcethdata.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/btc_ct_news"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.btcethdata.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.btcethdata.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"btc_ct_section","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.btcethdata.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fbtc_ct_section&post=377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}