All media are pursuing “speed and excitement,” but podcasts are fighting emptiness with “slow and clumsy”—the hosts of Chinese crypto podcasts are rebuilding a territory of depth on the ruins of traffic.
Background recap: What is a16z’s New Media? The ongoing shift of power in new media
(Additional context: Elon Musk’s first interview in 2026: exploring AI, robotics, energy, and the impact of US-China competition on the near future)

Table of Contents

• The cost of not taking money
• The paradox and dilemma of commercialization
• Those intangible gains that can’t be measured by money
• Methodologies for success
• How to persist?
• Epilogue

On a late night in 2025, Sea Talk’s host Sea turns on his computer, preparing to edit the just-recorded episode. This is the most agonizing part for him—he needs to process the two-hour conversation recording, handling filler words, fragmented expressions, and stutters.

But this is only halfway through all the work; afterward, he still has to write shownotes, produce subtitles (proofreading technical terms and mixed Chinese-English capitalization), create cover art, distribute across multiple platforms, and promote.

Before this, he spent a week contacting guests, listening to all their interviews, browsing hundreds of their tweets, making early calls to understand recent topics of interest, and forming 20-30 questions for the interview outline, before finally entering the actual recording, which took him over two hours.

Almost simultaneously, someone on X posted a lengthy analysis report on the same topic. It’s obvious that this report was AI-generated, full of AI-style phrases like “not… but…” and accompanied by AI-generated charts and conclusions. Yet, this did not prevent it from gaining attention. When Sea’s episode, which he considered successful, hit 1,481 listens, the AI article’s readership within 12 hours far exceeded that.

This is a true reflection of the current Chinese crypto content ecosystem: one side is an industrial flood of information, the other is handcrafted workshop-style content creation. According to market logic, the latter should have been eliminated long ago.

But strangely, more and more people in the crypto industry are making podcasts.

Why?

To answer this, we conducted in-depth interviews with six hosts of Chinese crypto podcasts: Liu Feng of Web3 101, Bill of Bill It Up, Mable of HODLong 后浪, Vivienne and Zhiyang of Cryptoria, and Sea of Sea Talk.

Their podcast formats vary, their degree of commercialization differs, but their stories point to a common direction: in an information ecology rapidly dominated by AI, algorithms, and emotions, podcasts are becoming one of the few remaining forms of expression that still preserve the “human presence.”

The cost of not taking money

“Many times when people want to give me money, I refuse,” Mable says.

Mable is a pioneer in Chinese crypto podcasts. At the end of 2019, after joining well-known crypto VC Multicoin Capital as Executive Director, she quickly launched a podcast called 《51%》 (51 Talk). This show became an enlightenment podcast for many newcomers entering crypto, but it always had a small note: “Presented by Multicoin.”

In 2022, after leaving Multicoin and embarking on her entrepreneurial journey, she started her own fully independent crypto podcast, 《HODLong 后浪》. At the same time, as a new consumer investor, she also participated in building a podcast about Chinese brands, 《牌牌坐》.

Two podcasts, one focused on crypto, the other on consumer brands, but both share a common point: no one told her what to say or what not to say.

Mable has long maintained a solo operation—no team, no sponsorships—all topics, recordings, editing, and publishing are done by herself.

Maintaining independence has always been her stance. She loves creating content, has her own standards for quality, and doesn’t want to be driven by ads or sponsorships. “If I took money, I wouldn’t be able to say whatever I want, talk to whoever I want,” Mable says.

But this pursuit comes at a cost. The financial return on independent podcasts is too low to be considered a business.

“But why do I persist for so long?” we ask.

“Because I still want to talk,” she replies without hesitation.

Similarly, Liu Feng, host of Web3 101, also values freedom of speech. Formerly the chief editor of the crypto media ChainNews, he has worked at Bloomberg and is a well-known industry media figure.

Liu Feng is very clear about the positioning of Web3 101: he only wants to produce vertical, in-depth content, regardless of sponsorship. His stance in interviews is very firm: if a guest shows obvious PR behavior, he will cut the ad segment without hesitation, even risking dropping the entire episode.

“Don’t you worry this might affect future interactions with the guest?” we ask.

“Then don’t interact,” Liu Feng answers decisively. “They don’t respect our program anyway.”

If for these elites, free speech comes at a cost, then for ordinary people, how high is the cost to be heard in the public sphere in 2026?

The answer may be surprising. As text fragments are AI-processed, videos require appearances and persona management, and social media becomes an emotional battleground, podcasts remain one of the few channels allowing “ordinary people to express themselves deeply.”

Looking at the timeline of interview subjects, the earliest creators started experimenting with podcasts around 2018–2019. At that time, there were no mature platforms or commercial expectations—more like a convenient expression tool.

The real change happened after 2022, as other forms of expression began to systematically fail.

Text content was compressed into “opinion fragments” by algorithms, X evolved into a battleground of stance and emotion, and video content faced high costs for identity exposure, production, and emotional management.

In this context, the value of podcasts was rediscovered. They may not have the highest information density, but their “form is complete”; they are slow to spread but allow for deep cognition.

While all media chase “speed” and “excitement,” the “slow” and “clumsy” nature of podcasts becomes a moat against emptiness.

The paradox and dilemma of commercialization

Not all podcast hosts refuse commercialization like Mable.

“We started getting sponsors when we only had a few hundred followers,” Vivienne says, feeling incredulous herself.

“I truly believe that apart from luck and gratitude, there’s nothing else to say. If we were doing emotional or personal growth podcasts, that volume would be impossible.”

This reveals an interesting paradox in the crypto podcast track: the ceiling is low, but the threshold for monetization is also low.

The reason is simple: it’s a market driven by high-net-worth B-side buyers. Projects need to speak out in the Chinese world, but traditional advertising channels either can’t reach the target audience or are too expensive. A focused crypto vertical podcast, even with only a few hundred precise subscribers, can be more valuable than a general account with tens of thousands of followers.

But that’s only half the story. The other half is that even with sponsorships, most crypto podcasts still don’t make money.

Why?

Fundamentally, it’s a very niche market.

Liu Feng candidly says: “If Chinese crypto podcasts want to make big money through commercialization, they can consider giving up. But if it’s just for fun, everyone can keep going.”

He believes: deep content has always been consumed by the long tail of the audience; ultimately, it can’t compete with traffic-driven products. But educating elite audiences is very costly, and no one is willing to pay that price.

The Wall Street Journal reported that top English crypto podcasts can charge up to $100,000 per episode for custom content. In China, no podcast has reached that scale.

This gap is not just about money but also about influence structure.

In the English-speaking world, podcasts have long been an important channel for elite discourse. Elon Musk appears on Joe Rogan’s show for three hours, Trump uses podcasts to rally voters during campaigns, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang discusses AI’s future in depth. The influence of these conversations rivals any formal press conference.

But in the Chinese world, podcasts are still in their infancy. Entrepreneurs, policymakers, industry leaders—more accustomed to traditional media interviews or official announcements. Podcasts are seen as “niche, informal, with limited influence.”

In other words, earning small money from podcasts is easy; making big money is hard; building influence is easy; monetization is difficult. This is the common dilemma faced by all Chinese crypto podcast hosts.

Sea is aware of this: “I don’t see crypto podcasts as a way to monetize. It’s a medium for my expression. I have no expectations of commercialization, which lowers my expectations and reduces communication losses.”

That’s why, when exchanges and market makers approached Sea for branding collaborations, he still firmly refused. First, because he has no urgent need for monetization; second, because such sponsorships don’t fit the tone of Sea Talk.

Those intangible gains that can’t be measured by money

From a purely investment return perspective, making a podcast is a bad deal. But almost all hosts mention one word: cognitive restructuring.

“It forces me to think deeply,” Vivienne says. “It not only helps me understand the industry better but also clarifies what suits me and what doesn’t.”

Over the past year, she has been oscillating between job hunting, switching roles, and returning to traditional finance, but the process of making podcasts has helped her find direction. She knows clearly that if she only works a job, this self-awareness might take longer to develop.

Liu Feng shares a similar feeling. To explain a single episode clearly, he must constantly deconstruct appearances, question logic, and verify assumptions. This is actually a process of self-learning and cognitive reconstruction. Often, after recording an episode, he finds his understanding of a problem has completely changed.

This reveals a hidden value of podcasts: they are not just a content output channel but also a form of enforced cognitive training. The preparation for each episode systematically organizes a topic; each conversation with a guest probes the boundaries of one’s understanding.

Sea sees this from another dimension.

“I joke with my daughter that if she’s interested in Bitcoin in the future, she can listen to my podcasts over the years.” He pauses, then continues, “The voices from ten years ago, and the words from ten years ago, have a different level of penetration.”

He compares each episode to “a snapshot of the guest’s thoughts at that moment.” Like a blockchain, recorded and stored for future reference. It’s a form of temporal value. It doesn’t generate immediate returns but ferments slowly over time.

More simply, the process of making a podcast itself brings joy.

But this “joy” needs to be redefined. The early preparation and recording are stressful; editing can cause anxiety. Only after the final product is released does it become truly joyful. This is the real feeling of all podcast hosts. A vivid metaphor might be: the joy of making a podcast is “rebirth after self-torture.”

Methodologies for success

In interviews, one repeatedly emphasized but often overlooked fact is: most failed podcasts don’t lose because of viewpoints but because of product awareness.

“Many people just record their chats,” Liu Feng says. “But that’s not a program.”

There’s a fundamental difference between “just recording chats” and “producing a program.” Sound quality, editing, and pacing determine whether the show can be fully consumed during commutes, workouts, etc. A poorly produced, sluggish-paced show full of filler and redundancies, no matter how good the viewpoints, will struggle to retain listeners.

Mable makes a sharp observation: “Although homogeneity is serious, it doesn’t feel very competitive because most are not very good. There are very few high-quality crypto podcasts with product thinking.”

Product awareness is just a basic threshold. More difficult is how to create truly valuable content in an industry where narratives change rapidly and viewpoints are constantly rewritten.

Liu Feng summarizes with a formula: find topics everyone cares about, find the most valuable and most popular people, then sincerely have a deep conversation.

Bill’s advice is more focused on the creator: do what you’re good at, then think about what users and listeners need in this era, what information and insights can help them. Combining these two points allows continuous creation of good content.

But there’s an even more hidden dilemma.

Many expressionists exist, but it’s not easy to find friends for deep exchange. Opening Twitter, WeChat Moments—many people have the desire to express, and everyone is trying to output. But if you sit down for an hour or two, you’ll find many can only sustain 15 seconds of expression, making deep discussion difficult.

This is a side effect of the short-video era. People are used to fragmented output, losing the ability for structured, long-form expression.

Sea confirms this from another perspective: “Many people have ideas, but they don’t post on Twitter every day like KOLs. Their insights are buried in their minds. If no one asks, they can’t express them.”

Therefore, as a podcast host, you need to be like an information excavator—possessing structural skills. It’s not just about speaking well; you must control the rhythm in dialogue, capture the main thread, and reorganize information without interrupting the guest.

From this perspective, good crypto podcasts are more like a “slow variable.” They don’t create explosive moments but build relationships and trust over time, sparking profound insights.

How to persist?

Vivienne vividly remembers when Cryptoria just reached episode 15.

That day, she casually mentioned in a listener group: “Lately I feel a bit exhausted, not sure how long I can keep going.” She just wanted to vent, but suddenly the group exploded.

Someone started proactively contacting the project team, asking “We have a podcast, do you want to sponsor”; someone launched a crowdfunding campaign, “Everyone send 50U, enough for three months”; others said, “Don’t stop, I listen to every episode, it’s the most important channel for understanding the industry.”

Vivienne looked at those messages and suddenly cried. “At that moment, I realized someone is really listening, and cares about what we’re doing.”

Now she calls her listener group the “energy station,” not because it brings money, but because it proves that what she does is meaningful to some people.

That’s why Vivienne suggests establishing a listener group from day one—“don’t test human nature.”

It makes sense. Without immediate positive feedback, it’s hard to persist, no matter how passionate you are. The earlier you have a listener group, the sooner you get feedback, which helps you adjust content structure, depth, topics, and attract like-minded people.

Bill’s advice is concise and powerful: “Find what you like and are good at, and spread it. Be persistent; don’t give up because of short-term difficulties.” To him, creating content is an infinite game. Platforms change, formats diversify—posting, writing, filming, podcasting—but what’s worth sticking to is the act of dissemination.

Epilogue

Returning to the scene at the beginning: when the data of a painstakingly produced episode still can’t compete with an AI-generated article, should you still persist?

This is a harsh reality test, and the answer lies in the meaning of podcasts.

That AI-generated analysis is buried in a flood of new information within 24 hours; no one remembers what it said. But a carefully crafted podcast episode, three months later, still has listeners, comments, and shares. It becomes a “standard reference” for a particular topic, repeatedly cited.

Mable is right: “In the AI era, being noticed and remembered as a real person is itself very valuable.”

In an environment flooded with copy-paste, AI generation, and profit-driven content, authentic conversations and honest viewpoints are becoming extraordinarily precious. This may be the most unique value proposition of crypto podcasts.

They don’t make money, they are inefficient, and their audience is limited. But they record real people, real ideas, real moments in this industry.

As Zhiyang said: “Making podcasts can bring many unexpected gains, and these gains are coming to you, not something you have to struggle to open one by one.”

Chinese crypto podcast hosts may not realize how important what they are doing truly is.

They think they are just documenting an industry, but in fact, they are fighting against a trend—the industrialization of information production squeezing human expression.

They may never get rich from it, their shows may only reach a few thousand listeners, but ten years later, these voices might be the most precious annotations to understand this era.

On the ruins of traffic, they are rebuilding a territory of depth.

While blockchain records wealth, podcasts record vibrant souls.