Six months ago, I moved from the fringes of Web3 to the center of the payments industry. Now, I have decided to stop this exploration.

This is not a retreat from failure. On the contrary, it is precisely because I have truly experienced and touched real business that I made this decision. Over these six months, I visited commercial hubs like Yiwu, Shui Bei, and Putian, and even went to Mexico to see the lively payment ecosystems described in reports. I built MVPs, handled accounts, and developed Web3 payment tools, trying to take everything I imagined from the first step to the last.

The deeper I went, the more I understood a harsh reality: payments are not a business where "doing a good job on the product equals winning." Features? They are the least important. What truly matters are banking relationships, regulatory licenses, capital efficiency, and long-term risk management capabilities. These things cannot be bought with money, and time may not be enough either.

What do those seemingly "profitable" payment businesses look like? Most are just eating risk premiums—that is, they haven't yet taken a big fall. How far a payment company can go has never depended on how much profit is on the books, but on whether it still has the resilience to survive when risks truly explode.

I'm not writing this to criticize the industry; I just want to shift the perspective and openly discuss the real things. Perhaps this will help future people gain more clarity.