I jumped into Fogo early to see how it actually feels instead of just reading posts about it. Here is what stood out to me.
The core infrastructure honestly impressed me. Fogo’s 40ms finality is not just marketing talk. Trades on Valiant feel closer to using a normal exchange than interacting with a blockchain. Orders respond quickly and the experience feels smooth enough that I almost forget it is on chain. On the performance side, Fogo really delivers what it promised.
But once I spent more time there, some cracks started to show.
Pyron liquidity looks strong at first glance, but to me it does not feel organic yet. A lot of capital seems parked there because people expect points or token rewards. I have seen this pattern many times before. When incentives slow down, that liquidity can disappear just as fast as it arrived. Real liquidity usually stays even when rewards fade, and we are not fully there yet.
The bigger issue I notice is usage. The infrastructure feels capable of handling serious market activity, almost like exchange grade rails, yet most transactions right now are just large crypto assets moving around. The system looks ready for heavier financial workflows, but those use cases have not really arrived.
The easiest way I can describe it is this. Walking through Fogo right now feels like visiting a brand new shopping mall. The building is modern, everything works perfectly, elevators are fast, air conditioning is great. But many storefronts are still empty and foot traffic has not caught up with the quality of the space.
So for me, technology and ecosystem maturity are clearly two different things here. Strong infrastructure does not automatically mean a strong network economy.
What I am personally watching is what happens after the airdrop phase. If activity stays and real applications continue building, that will say a lot. If liquidity fades and usage drops, then we will know incentives were doing most of the work.
That next phase will probably reveal what Fogo really is becoming.
