DeFi will rise again after memecoins die down: Sasha Ivanov, X Hall of Flame

The hype around celebrity memecoins won’t last — give it a few months, and people will be back to focusing on DeFi and real utility projects, says Wave founder Sasha Ivanov.

“This extractive economy cannot be very stable, and it’s going to be short-lived, so it will last maybe for half a year more, and then we will see something else,” he tells Hall of Flame.

“Everybody’s trying to extract as much money as possible, which is a big problem,” Ivanov continues. He believes people will be “very disappointed” because very few celebrity memecoins “will be successful in the long run.”

Ivanov says the crypto industry was much “more exciting” in 2016 when he launched Waves — a global public blockchain platform for building decentralized applications — as people were more focused on utility.

Users can trade crypto assets on Waves, while developers get easy-to-use tools to create tokens and build decentralized apps.

Ivanov says it’s much harder in 2025 to create valuable projects because “there is a lot of noise.”

“It is hard to understand what value can bring because the temptation to launch memecoins and try to make money is too high,” he says.

“It’s always harder to focus on something valuable when they’re just easy cash cows of memecoins and cheap projects.”

Ivanov says even though there is “no hype” around DeFi now, the shift back is bound to happen because, sooner or later, all the failed celeb memecoin launches will spook people.

“People will be more cautious and try to look for something more meaningful, like infrastructure projects or DeFi,” he says.

He thinks that the rotation will start around April or May this year.

The rumors about Kanye West launching a token? Ivanov’s not buying it, either.

“I’m not sure that’s going to be successful because I saw the tokenomics — he wants 80% of the supply for himself; it’s not going to be pretty, in my opinion,” he says.

How did Sasha Ivanov build his X following?

Ivanov says he’s toned down his X posts a lot since he first joined in 2013, though he’s still managed to rack up 165,000 followers over the past 11 years.

“I was trying to be more controversial on Twitter and push some different ideas, now I’m not trying to do so because I don’t see any value, and don’t see as much feedback because there is so much noise on Twitter,” he laughs.

Ivanov says his follower count has climbed over the years, mostly off the back of big Wave announcements. He sees a clear connection between his follower count and the price of the Waves token, which is sitting at $1.46 at the time of publication.

“When the token price goes up, you can see more followers,” he says.

What type of content does Sasha Ivanov produce?

Ivanov says his content revolves around his mission as an “evangelist for decentralization.”

He says he is “trying to push the agenda” on how decentralization can change society, not just in terms of payments but also issues like censorship.

Predictions from Sasha Ivanov?

Despite what Arthur Hayes says about Bitcoin possibly dropping back to $70,000, Ivanov isn’t so sure.

“I don’t think it’s possible unless something really bad should happen,” he says.

But he’s not overly bullish on Bitcoin for 2025, either.

“I’m not sure in the current political situation there’s going to be a huge Bitcoin pump,” he says, predicting it’ll hover around $110,000 for the year.