Founder of mono.fun: Crossing the cycle, be fearless and innovative
TechFlow Selected TechFlow Selected
Founder of mono.fun: Crossing the cycle, be fearless and innovative
Bear markets are not scary—we will ultimately go through one cycle after another.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsWritten by: Founder of mono.fun
As Bitcoin breaks below 30,000, the arrival of a bear market has finally become a shared consensus. This is the cycle—no matter how many times you tell yourself this bull-bear transition is different from before, the bear market always comes. Yet this particular bear market *is* indeed different: it coincides with a global economic downturn (where once-thriving economies are struggling amid pandemic recovery), the shadow of nuclear-scale conflict between superpowers, and the looming collapse of a decade-long bull run in U.S. equities.
Yet at the same time, this bear market has been widely anticipated. Many teams have already stockpiled sufficient resources to weather the winter. Talent spilling over from traditional industries continues to flow into Web3. Long-term thinkers and entrepreneurial builders are growing in number, while underperforming and failing projects are being cleared out at an accelerating pace—just as Dragonfly noted in their letter—the narrative of this industry has changed.
Opportunities and Challenges in the Bear Market
We are both fortunate and unfortunate to be facing this bear market—it arrived later than I expected, yet also earlier than I thought. With the crash in secondary markets, primary markets are now shedding inflated valuations. More and more projects—including ours—are encountering difficulties in fundraising. This is the biggest challenge of the current bear market. But at the same time, we’re also beginning to see opportunities.
For us, the most important opportunities fall into three areas:
1. The clearing of bubbles means lower premiums on talent and assets. We can acquire more talent and secure more resources at a lower cost during this bear market, enabling faster and more stable growth.
2. It’s easier to find long-termists and walk together with them. In a bull market, it's extremely difficult for a startup team to gain sustained support or companionship from institutions or others. But in a bear market, we can easily identify who our true allies are. During bull markets, the halls are crowded with those chasing quick gains; it's only in bear markets that we find our real comrades.
3. Finally, our competitors are slowing down too. With capital fueling everything, even the smallest niches become overcrowded. When capital retreats, our competitors slow down—or even exit entirely. Only teams that truly believe in what they're doing will keep moving forward—and fortunately, mono is one of them.
What we want to emphasize is this: a bear market isn’t something to fear—we will inevitably go through cycle after cycle. And every downward phase, every bear market, is where new hope begins. Markets rise and fall like tides—only those who respect cycles yet remain fearless within them can truly thrive.
Be Fearless, Be Innovative
Zhang Lei of Hillhouse wrote in the preface of his book *Value*: "On the path of long-termism, walk alongside those with great vision—be friends with time." I first read this book in 2019, at the start of a bull market. Today, as I write this article in 2022, we stand at the beginning of a bear market.
Reading that quote at different times brings vastly different reflections. In a bull market, those words make Zhang Lei seem bold and triumphant—like Su Shi riding out of the city gates hunting, “An old man indulging his youthful madness, left hand holding a yellow hound, right hand lifting a falcon, in brocade cap and sable coat, a thousand horsemen sweeping across the hills.”
But in a bear market, the feeling is completely different. Both ideas—long-termism and grand vision—are deeply counterintuitive. Watching the market plummet and cash reserves dwindle, entrepreneurs don’t often have the mental space to contemplate big-picture thinking. As for being "friends with time," only those with money in hand can afford such a luxury—unfortunately, most founders do not.
So I’d rather summarize it with another phrase: "Be fearless, be innovative."
Entrepreneurs can have reverence, but must not be ruled by fear or anxiety. Once driven by these emotions, people instinctively venture into tasks they’re unskilled at—for example, CEOs micromanaging teams. And most company declines begin exactly there.
And being innovators means remembering why we started in the first place—what transformation we hoped to bring to this industry. In bear markets, entrepreneurs are inevitably tempted by cash flow concerns, unconsciously shifting toward safe, revenue-stable paths—paths that typically involve no real innovation.
But in truth, we entered this industry, built teams, and raised funding because we wanted to build innovative things. Without innovation, we’re just another ordinary team—worth nothing.
So let me rephrase Zhang Lei’s words—for the bear market, we must “be fearless and be innovative.”
Final Thoughts
Finally, I’d like to share a quote from *Star Wars* with all our partners and investors: "Hope is like the sun. If you only believe in it when you see it, you’ll never survive the long night."
Join TechFlow official community to stay tuned
Telegram:https://t.me/TechFlowDaily
X (Twitter):https://x.com/TechFlowPost
X (Twitter) EN:https://x.com/BlockFlow_News
