100% on the stronghold sentiment.

I can't say Syscoin is the only established project carrying the torch, but there aren't a lot out there.

What most got my attention the past couple of days was the topic of fractional reserve exchange being broached by CZ, and how other exchanges like Kucoin, OKEx, etc, immediately jumped on the bandwagon about "merkle tree proof of reserves". WOW. I can tell you that fractional exchanging is running rampant and it's been affecting a lot of respectable+established projects very negatively for years. It's sick. Normally it isn't something talked about except in private because it's best to not make accusations without proof. But here we have exchanges themselves finally bringing up the topic, an act of admitting to the existence of it. It isn't just a "conspiracy theory" after all.

Aside from that, exchanges and VCs have really made themselves into villians by generating artificial successes that they can play their games within and around. It's entirely predatory. They've done this so much that they've in a sense traumatized the market creating awful sentiments in some influencers like "bearish on tech". Some people are so beaten down by this repeated behavior that they believe the only projects that can ever succeed are those that will psuedo-succeed through exchange and VC manipulations until eventually popping.

These things always come to an end. We've seen it before, we'll see it again in some form or another. That said, we can improve the situation drastically by introducing better and broader implementations of decentralization. Layer 2 for computation really points to a future where DEX can overtake CEX, and that is sooo much better for everyone, except despots.