After looking at some data from blockchain game pools for a while, the more I look, the more it feels like the familiar “tap water plant”: once the output is turned up, the tokens start spilling out nonstop, and the little real consumption in the pool simply can’t keep up. Inflation, put simply, is just releasing future value ahead of time; it’s lively in the short term, and afterward there’s only trading back and forth and even higher emissions to keep it going—until no one is willing to be the last one to take the bag.

Recently, someone has been using ETF fund flows and the risk appetite in the U.S. stock market to explain all the up-and-down moves… it sounds pretty grand, but when it comes to small ecosystems like blockchain games, what determines life or death is whether “someone spends money to buy fun/buy progress,” or whether “everyone just wants to mine and leave.” Without stable inflows, no matter how great the APR is, it’s just a time bomb. Anyway, whenever I see high-output pools now, my first reaction isn’t to rush in—I first try to find where its consumption outlet is. If I can’t find it, then so be it.