The 100x obsession: Fundamentals grow in importance as crypto matures

“Investments change fast; human nature and human aspirations stay constant.”That’s how Meir Statman, behavioral finance pioneer and professor of finance at Santa Clara University, explains one of investing’s oldest puzzles. And it may be why every crypto cycle so far has been about chasing the next hot narrative rather than fundamentals, whether its DeFi, meme coins or decentralized compute.In an industry that has spent years maturing into an ecosystem of institutional investors, revenue-generating protocols and real-world use cases, investor attention still gravitates toward the next shiny thing that can offer the promise of outsized returns.“Crypto is still a young asset class, and price discovery in young markets tends to be driven by attention before it’s driven by analysis,” Samar Sen, head of international markets at Talos, tells Magazine.“A new narrative gives investors a simple story to underwrite quickly, while assessing the fundamentals of an established protocol takes real work, from understanding usage and revenue to token design and competitive position.”This behavior isn’t unique to digital assets; it’s just particularly pronounced in an industry that prizes memes ove...