I was chatting with some of my followers yesterday, reminiscing about the “good old days” of crypto - when every day felt like a brand-new discovery and the landscape felt far more PvE than PvP. One thing the group kept returning to was how important the relationships we develop are to our journey in this space. Sometimes community and belonging matter more than profit. This isn’t a new discovery for me. I learned an underlying truth many months ago: Most of us simply want to be seen, heard, and appreciated. We want to belong to something. To be part of something. And yet, that inevitably comes into conflict with what this space has largely become. Crypto has normalized PvP and transactional relationships. Instead of connecting with others on a deeper level through our shared interest in a still-niche form of finance, we too often form the ugliest kind of transactional relationships. We interact with people because of what they can do for us. Will they give us alpha? Will they pump our bags if we shill theirs? Will being close to them increase our own relevance? Eventually, people stop looking like people and start looking like opportunities. But the relationships that make this journey worthwhile are the ones built without an ROI calculation attached - the people who celebrate your wins, build you up through your losses, challenge you when you need it, and expect nothing in return but the same honesty and loyalty. The hope for profit may be the thing that brings us here. But belonging is often what makes us stay. 🫡 From the depths — The White Whale 🐋