Growing up, my family didn’t have loyalty to sports teams — my parents are foreign, and sports rivalries never translated. Even at Duke, I could have cared less about college basketball (sorry). The only real institutional or brand allegiance I inherited was my father’s commitment to Delta Air Lines, which I still maintain. Then I got into crypto — and discovered what real tribalism looks like.

The age of tribes

Crypto’s early culture was a world of factions. Bitcoin maximalists swore nothing else mattered. Ethereum builders believed they were building the next internet. Every new chain arrived promising to fix the last one: faster, cheaper, more pure.

As the industry grew, the debates were technical on the surface but…