TIA Token falls below the issue price, the encryption industry narrative faces a re-examination

In the small bull market at the beginning of 2024, the TIA Token, which once performed brilliantly, has now fallen below the price when it was listed on exchanges. As of now, its price is only $1.62, a drop of over 90% from its peak of around $20. Once a leading project in the modular blockchain field, TIA is now caught in a vortex of negative public opinion due to founder sell-offs, internal management issues, and more.

The decline of this former star project is not only a microcosm of the downturn in the modular blockchain track, but also reflects the reality that the once-popular narratives in the entire cryptocurrency industry are being dismantled one by one. Meanwhile, the traditional stock market shows a scene of prosperity, with the NASDAQ index reaching new highs. This stark contrast highlights that the cryptocurrency industry has reached a critical moment where it truly needs to test practical applications and actual value.

TIA project: From Glory to Fall

TIA, short for Celestia, has become one of the most notable projects in the modular blockchain space between the end of 2023 and the beginning of 2024. In the early 2024 bull market, the price of TIA Token skyrocketed from single digits to a peak of 20 dollars. The vision of the project is to combine the sovereign interoperability of Cosmos with the Ethereum-centric shared security.

However, as the market heats up cools down and project ecosystems progress slowly in the second half of 2024, governance and team issues of Celestia are gradually coming to light. The most controversial is the suspicion of the senior management collectively cashing out. Some users reported that as early as the beginning of October 2024, all the executives of Celestia completed their unlock and began to sell Tokens on a large scale, with one co-founder accused of selling Tokens worth over $25 million off-market.

At the same time, Celestia's marketing strategy has also come under scrutiny. Some opinion leaders who support TIA have been exposed for charging high promotion fees, while the co-founder of a certain media platform has contradicted himself on whether he holds TIA tokens, raising doubts in the community about whether the project is merely a marketing product.

In addition, Celestia is also facing an internal management crisis. A former developer relations head was dismissed due to alleged misconduct, causing a public relations uproar. The project has also been reported to have acquired competitors at high prices and forced them to withdraw from collaborations with other projects, which has sparked considerable controversy.

At a time when the coin price is plummeting and community trust is on the verge of collapse, a co-founder proposed a radical governance model of "governance as proof," attempting to replace the traditional proof of stake mechanism with off-chain governance voting. However, before this proposal was implemented, the fact that team executives had cashed out was exposed, leading the community to generally believe that this was merely a guise to cover up the issues.

As of now, the price of TIA has fallen by more than 90% from its peak, and on-chain activity has also significantly decreased. Data shows that in the past 24 hours, its on-chain Gas revenue was only $231.

collective disillusionment of the encryption industry narrative

The decline of TIA is not just the failure of a single project, but also reflects the collective disillusionment of the entire encryption industry’s new narratives. In the past cycle, concepts such as modularization, AI agents, decentralized IoT, GameFi, and NFTs had all created huge waves, attracting a large amount of capital and retail participation. However, by 2025, these once-popular narratives have all collapsed, and many altcoins have suffered heavy losses.

Similar to the fate of TIA, other projects that were once favored by capital, such as WorldCoin and Helium, have also experienced a brief period of prosperity before quickly cooling down. The decline of these star projects reflects a deeper crisis in the encryption industry: without genuine technological innovation and user adoption, narratives and trust will continue to be consumed.

After modularization, the public chain has also failed to produce new compelling narratives. Currently, there are still some competitive tracks in the industry, such as the combination of AI and blockchain, which mostly remain at the conceptual level. Meanwhile, RWA (real-world assets) faces not only regulatory issues but also a profound question of "whether it is truly needed."

The once-promising trends are being disproven one by one and quickly forgotten. Meanwhile, positive news continues to emerge from the traditional financial markets. Whether in the US stock market or the Hong Kong stock market, stocks related to compliance with cryptocurrency, such as stablecoins and compliant exchanges, have experienced a continuous rise.

This stark contrast has raised concerns among some about the prospects of the encryption industry. However, it actually serves as a warning to various project parties: only true technological innovation and practical application can create lasting value. The old approach in the traditional cryptocurrency circle of relying on storytelling, traffic, pump-and-dump tactics is no longer viable. Today's Web3 projects must focus on practical applications and implementation just like Web2 projects to establish themselves in this new era.