Incentive design can change the fortunes of retail investors.

Comment by: Ilya Tarutov, founder of Tramplin

Crypto didn't struggle because the technology was flawed. Instead, the incentive structures created by the industry made it work against someone who was supposed to serve quietly.

Every crypto market cycle since 2017 has followed the same pattern. Each cycle began with a boom in retail earnings, followed by a speed trap and catastrophic slowdown, followed by an erosion of confidence that took months, not years, to rebuild. Each cycle begins with optimism, overconfidence, and ends with fear and despair.

Often crypto users blame market conditions, macro winds and regulation. Yes, they are important things. What really determines the outcome, cycle after cycle, is how the incentives are set up.

Crypto loses everyday users because the system quietly pushes them to take the biggest risk. This starts with psychology: traders often adopt the mindset that “the higher the return, the higher the risk.”

A small token balance that earns only a fraction of a percent per spin doesn't seem like real progress. Yes, the stock market is over $245 billion, but platforms generally offer 2%-10% API, which for a balance of two thousand dollars or less, can yield less than $100 in annual profits.

Meanwhile, take the starting platforms. They offer sophisticated and high-capacity business opportunities to their users and have recorded a peak trade volume of $85.7 trillion by 2025.

“Just a stake” is no longer enough.

Native staking is straightforward and relatively safe; Rewards come directly from the network. Pinching alone won't fix the problem. The platforms built around it still encourage speculation, high leverage, FOMO-driven trading and risky looping strategies.

What retail investors are looking for is a way to continuously expose themselves to risk or act as an exit liquidity for faster and better-informed market players.

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What is the solution? Creating a savings product with capital preservation as the main design goal.

The concept of “savings layer”.

Crypto savings should be built around a clear set of rules. These principles are non-negotiable as they have a large and positive impact on consumer behavior. Examples of this include preservation of capital, full transparency and rewards for discipline over speed or discretion. The savings layer should work just as well for a 10-USDt (USDT) balance as for a 100,000-USDt.

The “real” world offers products designed around trust and capital protection rather than guesswork.

See UK Premium Bonds. They do not promise high consistent yields. All you do is protect your capital and give yourself a chance for rewards.

According to NS&I, by 2025, 71,722,056 awards have been paid out, totaling £4.95 billion ($6.6 billion), with more than 470,000 new accounts opened and qualifying premium bond holdings growing to £134.6 billion.

Yes, it is not a blockchain product. It is a well-designed savings program. The lesson is still simple: there's a reason to participate, understand how it works, and your money stays safe.

In the United States, rewards-related savings have gained popularity for similar reasons. This type of incentive coverage makes it easier for people to build consistent savings habits.

The mechanics of the “storage layer concept” in crypto should be easy to explain in a sentence or two.

If someone can't clearly explain to their friends where their rewards come from, then the design isn't clear enough. Whether rewards are generated from transparent sources or a clearly defined chance-based model, the system must be honest about what it can and cannot offer people.

The most important aspect is that incentives should work even on small scales. The system should reward consistency over speed, and discipline over speculative thinking, so it catches more cases than early entry.

It is important that what the system does not do. Since the goal is to minimize losses, keep users profitable, and encourage long-term engagement, destructive risk should not be the default option.

That's what a savings layer is: a system designed to help everyday users stay in the game, not push it quietly.

Rewriting the system

If the next cycle doesn't introduce ways to protect everyday users, they'll continue to experience crypto as a story that always ends the same way: big hype, big hopes, and painful crashes.

It's not the technology that needs to change, it's the technology that's optimized for it. Products should be built to reduce losses, not to achieve significant change. Unless industry players want to repeat the same mistakes over and over again, these changes need to happen now.

The future of crypto comes down to a choice: protect everyday users or continue to optimize for short-term profits. Only one of those leads somewhere worth going.

Comment by: Ilya Tarutov, founder of Tramplin.