The reputation around NFTs and crypto has gotten so bad lately that many places have begun using different terms altogether - in the West, most industry events have pivoted to "tokenization," while Japan officially switched from "virtual currency" (kasou tsuuka) to "angou shisan (暗号資産)," which translates directly to "cipher assets." Functionally, they're all the same thing. They're blockchain-based frameworks, and many companies and organizations are still talking about them because they still believe in the technology's potential - just not the earlier versions of it. These are signs that institutional players are ready to move on - if they haven't already. As someone who has pretty much gone all in on alts (I was an early supporter of Bitcoin and Ethereum but have since moved on), this puts me in an awkward position, because alts sit in a middle ground between the original crypto coins and pure CBDCs meant purely for utility, without the speculative side. Is it possible to get a return on investment with crypto coins anymore without turning it into a Ponzi? With AI, creating your own coin or token is as easy as it has ever been - but where is the future value of crypto really going to come from, especially for projects that have been around for a while?