Earlier on 19 Feb, Dom, founder of DFINITY, shared a striking post on X about how a restaurant waiter in the U.S. picks tokens to invest in. His criteria? Trading volume, novelty, and AI hype on social media. While amusing on the surface, Dom argues that this simplistic approach reflects deeper industry-wide distortions—where hype outweighs actual technology, and the crypto press, influencers, and research firms sustain a deceptive cycle.
Dom doesn’t mince words when discussing the campaign against the Internet Computer. From price manipulation to coordinated legal attacks, the blockchain industry’s old guard did everything possible to suppress ICP when it launched in 2021.
“When the Internet Computer went live, crooked industry players manipulated ICP’s price using exchanges and market makers they controlled,” Dom says. “The crypto press ignored it—hardly surprising when you consider that figures like SBF were making secret payments to senior editors at the time.”
The price manipulation wasn’t just opportunistic—it was strategic. “This wasn’t just the usual volatility. These were deliberate efforts to crash ICP’s price, engineered by industry players who saw it as a threat. The Internet Computer was introducing real Web3—apps running fully on-chain, not just tokenized speculation. That didn’t fit the narrative they were selling.”
But the attack didn’t stop there.
Weaponising the Law
“The class action was no accident,” Dom explains. “A crooked law firm, which held tokens from a ‘competitor’ worth hundreds of millions at its peak, launched a lawsuit against DFINITY. This wasn’t their first rodeo—they had a history of targeting crypto projects with lawsuits. And here’s the kicker—one of their partners was caught on video openly admitting they used litigation as a competitive strategy.”
For anyone who understands how the industry operates, Dom says the implications are obvious. “This wasn’t some noble fight for transparency. This was a hit job. Certain players saw the Internet Computer’s technology as a long-term threat to their business model, so they resorted to legal warfare.”
Despite clear evidence of bad faith, the industry stood by. “Federal judges eventually kicked the firm off all their cases, including the class action. That tells you everything you need to know. If this had happened in any other industry, the founder of the project that funded these crooked lawyers would have been finished. Not in crypto.”
The Industry’s Rotten Core
Dom argues that what happened to the Internet Computer is just a symptom of a deeper problem in crypto—an ecosystem where extraction matters more than innovation.
“The structure of this industry has been draining liquidity into the hands of people focused on pumping token prices rather than building long-term utility,” he says. “A huge proportion of crypto projects today aren’t real tech ventures. They’re just token marketing operations wrapped around snakeoil narratives.”
This cycle, Dom says, has been sustained by a mix of market manipulation, media complicity, and regulatory blind spots. “The industry has been conditioned to reward narratives over technology. Projects with real engineering—projects that actually build things—are drowned out by those who focus entirely on pumping their token price through coordinated marketing plays.”
The Alternative: Real Tech That Works
DFINITY, Dom insists, refuses to play that game. “We are laser-focused on contributing technology to the Internet Computer. We’ll weather this storm. We believe in traditional blockchain applications like DeFi 2.0, but we also believe blockchains should be full-fledged tech stacks, running social networks, enterprise apps, and AI models entirely on-chain.”
For Dom, the way forward isn’t another hype cycle—it’s real, usable technology. “The fastest way out of this mess is mass-market utility—technology that billions of people can use, without even realising they’re interacting with blockchain.”
One example? Caffeine.ai. “We’re moving as fast as we can to launch Caffeine.ai. Not just to kickstart a new paradigm on the Internet Computer, but to create a shining light for crypto. This is about proving that tech still matters—and I believe it will win.”
Quotes sourced from Dom’s recent post on X.
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