TIA Token big dump 90%, traditional encryption industry narrative faces challenges

The TIA Token, which was once the focus of attention during the early 2024 mini bull market, has now fallen below the price when it was first listed on exchanges. As of now, its price is only $1.62, having experienced a big dump of over 90% from its peak of around $20. As a former leading project in modular blockchain, TIA is now caught in a vortex of negative public opinion surrounding founder sell-offs and internal management issues.

The fall of the TIA token from grace not only reflects the decline of the modular blockchain track, but also more deeply reflects the reality that the once-popular narratives in the encryption industry are gradually being debunked. The collapse of a leading project that was extremely popular last year reveals a more profound industry dilemma.

Currently, we see one side with the Nasdaq index reaching new highs in a stock market frenzy, while on the other side, the once-hot narratives within the cryptocurrency circle are collapsing, leading to big dumps in coin prices. The traditional cryptocurrency narratives seem to be hard to sustain, and the industry is entering a period that truly tests practical applications and actual value.

From Glory to Fall

TIA stands for Celestia, and it was one of the most关注的 modular blockchain projects from the end of 2023 to the beginning of 2024. In the small bull market at the beginning of 2024, the TIA token soared from single digits after the airdrop to a peak of 20 dollars. The project's vision is to combine the sovereign interoperation zone of Cosmos with the Ethereum ecosystem centered around shared security.

However, as the market heat declines in the second half of 2024 and project ecosystems advance slowly, the governance and team issues of Celestia gradually come to the surface. The most controversial is the suspicion of its senior executives collectively cashing out. Some users revealed that as early as the beginning of October 2024, all executives of Celestia completed the token unlocking and began massive selling. One co-founder was accused of selling over $25 million worth of tokens in the over-the-counter market and then quietly relocating to another country.

At the same time, Celestia's marketing operations have also encountered backlash. Several well-known figures who previously endorsed TIA have been exposed for receiving promotional fees, while a co-founder of a media platform's contradictory statements on the key issue of "whether to hold coins" have further sparked community doubts about the essence of the project.

Internal management issues are gradually becoming apparent. A former head of developer relations was fired due to alleged misconduct, triggering a public relations storm. Celestia has also been reported to have bought out competitors at high prices and forced them to withdraw from collaborations with other projects, which has sparked controversy over such "exclusive mergers and acquisitions" and exposed the team's anxiety about their expansion path.

At a time when coin prices are crashing and community trust is on the verge of collapse, a co-founder proposed a radical governance model of "governance as proof" in early 2025, advocating for off-chain governance voting to replace the traditional proof-of-stake mechanism in response to ongoing inflationary pressures. However, before this disruptive proposal could be implemented, the fact that team executives were cashing out was gradually exposed, leading the community to generally believe that this was a governance pretext aimed at "stabilizing prices and covering up problems."

As of now, the price of TIA has fallen more than 90% from its high point. Its on-chain activity is also showing a dismal situation; according to data platforms, its on-chain Gas revenue in the past 24 hours was only $231.

The Fall of TIA: The Collapse of the Narrative in the Encryption Industry

The decline of TIA is not just the failure of a single project and Token; it reflects the challenges faced by the new narrative of the entire encryption industry.

In the past cycles, concepts such as modularization, AI Agent, DePIN, GameFi, and NFT have sparked waves of investment frenzy, attracting a large amount of capital and retail investors. However, by 2025, we witnessed the collective collapse of these once-popular narratives, with many altcoin projects falling into困境.

Similar to TIA, other prominent projects in the industry that once garnered attention and were favored by capital, such as a certain identity verification project and a certain IoT project, also rapidly accumulated a large amount of traffic and achieved a big dump in coin price in a short period, thanks to a favorable narrative. However, these projects often can only maintain a brief surge of popularity before quickly cooling down.

The fall of these star tokens reflects a deeper crisis in the encryption industry: the lack of true technological innovation and user adoption, making it difficult to sustain solely on narrative and trust in the long term. After modularization, it is also hard to find new compelling narratives at the public chain level. Meanwhile, there are voices in other tracks within the industry, such as the combination of AI and blockchain projects that mostly remain at the conceptual level, and RWA (real-world assets) not only faces regulatory challenges but also needs to answer the fundamental question of "whether there is a real demand."

The once-promising trends are being debunked one after another and are quickly forgotten by people. Meanwhile, the traditional financial markets continue to receive positive news. Whether it's US stocks or Hong Kong stocks related to compliance with encryption currencies, such as stablecoins and compliant exchanges, they have all seen continuous increases.

On one side, there is a lack of native innovation in encryption and a big dump in coin prices; on the other side, the Hong Kong and US stock markets favor compliant encryption projects. Some believe this foreshadows the decline of the encryption industry, while others think it is actually a warning to various project parties: only true technological innovation and application implementation can create lasting value. The traditional model in the encryption circle that relies on storytelling, traffic competition, and pump-and-dump strategies has become unsustainable. Like Web2 projects, current Web3 projects need to focus more on actual application implementation and value creation.