In the wild world of crypto Twitter—sorry, X—where fortunes flip faster than a bad trade, one post can cut through the FUD like a hot knife. That's exactly what Mert (@0xMert_), CEO of Helius Labs, did with his recent thread quoting a frustrated dev from Monad. If you've ever wondered why bear markets turn everyone into a doomsayer, especially when it comes to hyped projects like Monad, this is your wake-up call.

Let's set the scene. An intern at Monad (the high-performance Ethereum-compatible Layer 1 that's been making waves with its parallel execution tech) drops a simple vent: "why does it feel like everyone wants Monad to be a scam lol" Check out the original quote here. It's raw, it's relatable, and it's the kind of sentiment that bubbles up when prices tank and trolls come out to play.

Enter Mert, dropping wisdom bombs:

"thinking is hard, that's why most people judge" — some guy smarter than me

the reason sentiment gets particularly awful during downturns is that CT is dominated by traders

(and especially now, many more leverage traders)

sentiment and current price are their primary inputs

these are present and past looking, not future looking

it is hard for most (not all) traders to be optimistic because they have a surface-level understanding of things

for them to be optimistic, they need to see the price go up first, the price is their main sensor

builders/investors go deeper and hence form a stronger anchor for their theses that can't be shaken by quick volatility

but builders/investors are severely outnumbered

anyone can troll you about what can go wrong, but outsized success comes from believing in what can go right

Read the full thread on X. Boom. In a few paragraphs, Mert nails why crypto feels like a toxic breakup during every dip.

The Trader Trap: Price as the Only North Star

Picture this: You're a leverage trader, eyes glued to charts, heart rate synced to candlestick wicks. Your job? Spot patterns, ride momentum, cash out before the rug. Deep dives into whitepapers? Nah, that's for the suits. When the market bleeds red—like it has been lately with Bitcoin hovering under $70K and alts getting wrecked—your brain screams "scam!" at anything not pumping.

Mert's spot-on: Traders live in the now. Sentiment? It's just vibes from the latest price action. No green candles, no good feels. And with leverage amplifying everything (hello, 10x longs getting liquidated left and right), the negativity spirals. It's why even solid projects like Monad, with its promise of 10,000 TPS and EVM compatibility, get memed into oblivion as "vaporware" or worse.

But here's the meme coin angle—because let's face it, that's our jam at Meme Insider. Dogecoin didn't moon because of TPS metrics; it rode Elon tweets and trader FOMO. Yet in bears, those same traders flip to "dead cat bounce" narratives, tanking even the funkiest memes. Remember PEPE's summer surge? Now it's scraping lows while builders quietly stack liquidity pools.

Builders and Investors: The Unshakeable Anchors

Flip the script to the builders and long-term holders. These folks—Mert included—don't bet on ticks; they bet on theses. Monad's team? Grinding on testnets, optimizing for real-world scale. Investors like Paradigm? Pouring in $225M because they see a future where Ethereum's congestion is a relic.

It's depth over drama. Volatility? Just noise. As Mert says, "outsized success comes from believing in what can go right." Think Solana in 2022: FTX crash, network outages, "scam" chants everywhere. Fast-forward to today, and it's a top-5 chain powering half the meme ecosystem. Builders anchored; traders bailed.

For meme token hunters, this is gold. The next 100x pup might be launching amid this exact FUD storm. Ignore the price sensors—hunt the narratives with real utility hooks, like privacy plays (shoutout Zcash in the replies) or AI-meme hybrids.

Cutting Through the Noise: Your Bear Market Playbook

So, how do you stay sane when CT's a trader echo chamber?

• Go Deeper: Skip the tickers. Read the GitHub commits, join the Discords. For Monad, that's auditing their async execution docs—game-changer for DeFi scalability.

• Anchor Your Thesis: Write it down. "Monad solves EVM bottlenecks because [X reasons]." When prices dip 50%, reread it. Laugh at the trolls.

• Balance the Feed: Follow more builders (Mert, Anatoly from Solana) than chart gurus. Less leverage, more leverage—on ideas, not positions.

• Meme It Up: In crypto, humor disarms FUD. Turn "scam" chants into copium memes. Outsized wins? They start with outsized belief.

Mert's reminder hits hard: Thinking is hard. Judging? Easy mode. But in a space where memes birth billionaires and L1s redefine finance, the builders win long-term. Traders might own the dips, but visionaries own the pumps.

What's your take—trader pain or builder gain? Drop it in the comments, and keep an eye on Monad. This bear might just be their origin story.

Stay memed, stay informed. Meme Insider: Where crypto's wild side meets the knowledge base you need.