Anthony Pompliano says most of the crypto industry is already dead and that 
the market has not fully admitted it yet. In a May 6 video posted on X, the 
Bitcoin investor and commentator argued that the sector’s long tail of unused 
chains, illiquid tokens and speculative projects is being cleared out as the 
parts with real utility merge into the broader financial system. Pompliano 
said the reaction to his initial post on X was immediate and hostile. He had 
written that “most of the crypto industry is dead and it’s never coming back,” 
a message he said followed him through the Consensus conference in Miami. “I 
have been called an idiot, I’ve been told I was wrong, and I must have been 
asked over 50 times about the tweet while I was at the Consensus Crypto 
Conference yesterday down in Miami,” Pompliano said. “But after spending the 
day at the conference, I’m more convinced today than I was yesterday. Most of 
the crypto industry is dead and it is never coming back.” Crypto Ghost Chains 
And Zombie Coins Pompliano’s core argument rests on what he sees as a broken 
business cycle inside crypto. In traditional industries, failed companies are 
shut down, capital is redeployed and talent moves toward stronger ideas. In 
crypto, he said, that clearing mechanism rarely works because blockchains can 
keep running with minimal participation and tokens can linger far above zero 
even after liquidity and relevance have evaporated. Related Reading: Economic 
Disaster Is Coming? Top Author Says Hold These Cryptos Or Pay The Price He 
described the result as an ecosystem filled with “ghost chains” and “zombie 
coins.” Ghost chains are networks that remain technically operational but have 
little meaningful activity. Zombie coins are tokens whose communities or 
markets have collapsed, while remaining holders are often unable to exit 
without taking severe losses. “There are millions of coins and there are 
thousands of blockchains,” Pompliano said. “Just those two things alone would 
make my original claim that most of the crypto industry is dead accurate. 
Because you have to ask yourself: does anyone actually believe that millions 
of crypto coins are going to thrive in the future?” Pompliano said he asked 
that question from the stage at Consensus and “literally zero people raised 
their hand.” Beyond unused networks and dead tokens, Pompliano argued that 
crypto has lost much of the ideological conviction that once defined its early 
base. The industry, in his view, has shifted from “hardcore missionaries” who 
prioritized the success of Bitcoin and the underlying technology toward 
“mercenaries” who chase whichever trade offers the largest financial reward. 
That shift, he said, is visible in short-lived meme tokens, scam coins, market 
manipulation, rising yield-farming incentives and product launches designed 
more for attention than utility. Pompliano’s criticism was not aimed at 
speculation alone, but at an industry culture he believes has become detached 
from solving real user problems. “If you have mercenaries outnumbering the 
missionaries, the broader crypto industry is now run by people who don’t 
understand or believe in the original vision for the industry,” he said. “As 
the saying goes, if you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything. 
And I think that’s what’s happening across the industry.” Wall Street Is 
Absorbing Crypto Pompliano also pushed back against what he called the “we 
hate investors class,” pointing to online criticism of venture capital, large 
financial institutions and regulation. He argued that venture firms funded 
much of the early infrastructure that allowed users to buy, store and send 
Bitcoin, while major institutions are now becoming the dominant distribution 
layer for crypto exposure. Morgan Stanley’s plan to launch Bitcoin trading 
through E-Trade was his central example. Pompliano noted that E-Trade has 8.6 
million clients and said Morgan Stanley intends to offer Bitcoin trading with 
lower fees than Coinbase and Charles Schwab, using ZeroHash as infrastructure. 
He framed that as a major “narrative violation” for crypto-native firms. At 
the same time, Pompliano said crypto-native companies are moving in the 
opposite direction by adding equities, prediction markets, options, 
commodities and other non-crypto products. The distinction between crypto 
platforms and traditional brokerages is becoming less clear. Related Reading: 
$150M Crypto Ponzi Crumbles: $41.5M Frozen In DSJ Exchange Collapse That 
convergence also shaped his reading of Michael Saylor’s recent comments that 
Strategy could sell Bitcoin or Bitcoin derivatives to fund preferred dividends 
if doing so served the company’s interests. Pompliano said such an idea would 
have been treated as “blasphemy” years ago, but now looks more like standard 
capital allocation inside a financialized Bitcoin business. The crypto 
industry is dying. That is a good thing. The resilient and valuable aspects of 
the industry need to compete on the biggest stage, not stay pigeon-holed in a 
boutique industry with declining capital and talent. 
pic.twitter.com/TlVJAG6zFz — Anthony Pompliano 🌪 (@APompliano) May 6, 2026 
Crypto Becomes Finance Pompliano said he still sees major value accruing to 
four areas: Bitcoin, stablecoins, infrastructure and tokenization. His thesis 
is not that all crypto disappears, but that the speculative long tail does 
while the useful parts are absorbed into mainstream finance. “We do not need 
more carnivals. We do not need more nonsense,” he said, referring to a “Crypto 
Carnival” booth he saw at Consensus. “We are in a competition with the legacy 
financial firms that have a lot of money and very smart people. We need more 
people focused on building real things for real problems.” At press time, the 
total crypto market cap stood at $2.65 trillion. Featured image created with 
DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com

The Crypto Industry Is Dying, That Is A Good Thing, Says Anthony Pompliano

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The Crypto Industry Is Dying, That Is A Good Thing, Says Anthony Pompliano

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