Betrayal: A Tale as Old as Time, From Historical Treachery to Crypto Backstabs

Betrayal. A single word that carries the weight of treachery, deception, and broken trust. It’s a story as old as civilization itself — whispered in the halls of fallen empires, etched in the blood of kings — and now, coded into the blockchain where even decentralization can’t protect you from the stab in the back.

From the Roman Senate to modern crypto communities, betrayal remains an unshakable force in human nature. Whether it’s friends turned foes or insiders exploiting trust for their own gain, the pain of being blindsided is universal. But in crypto — where we battle both the market and the enemies within — betrayal isn’t just a possibility. It’s part of the terrain.

Historical Backstabs: The Blueprint for Deception

Throughout history, some of the greatest falls came not from external enemies, but from those closest to the throne.

Julius Caesar: Et Tu, Brute?

Perhaps the most famous betrayal of all: Julius Caesar’s assassination was the ultimate backstab, literal and symbolic. On March 15, 44 B.C., he entered the Senate believing himself untouchable. Instead, he was surrounded by allies… including Brutus, his friend, who joined the blades that ended him. “Et tu, Brute?” still echoes anytime trust collapses in a single moment.

The Fall of Constantinople: The Ally Who Walks Away

Constantinople stood strong for centuries. Yet when the Ottoman Empire besieged it in 1453, its fate wasn’t sealed by superior firepower alone — betrayal and abandonment helped crack the walls. Deals dissolved. Promises became paper. The city fell, and with it, an era.

The Judas Factor: 30 Pieces of Silver

Judas didn’t conquer with an army — he traded loyalty for a payout. Thirty pieces of silver for a life-changing betrayal. If that doesn’t sound familiar in modern markets, you haven’t been watching closely enough.

Crypto Betrayal: When the Backstabbers Are Among Us

Crypto is a small world. A tight, high-voltage bubble of builders, traders, creators, and emerging-market risk-takers. People with shared goals, shared timelines, shared obsessions; tech, freedom, upside, and a shot at rewriting their future.

And yet… we end up in PvP.

The same communities that preach “we’re early” and “we’re in this together” can turn into arenas: scamming, shit-talking, clout-chasing, back-channeling, doxx threats, fake leaks, insider whispers, coordinated dumps, performative outrage. Why?

Because this is what happens when human nature collides with high stakes.

• Envy when someone else hits the 50x you missed.
• Overexposure when people are too deep in a gamble and need someone to blame.
• Market sentiment swinging from euphoria to rage in a single candle.
• And the big accelerant: anonymity.

Crypto social platforms have normalized incognito life: undoxxed KOLs, shadow teams, masked devs, Telegram “admins” who appear overnight, X accounts with flawless confidence and zero accountability. In that environment, reputation can be manufactured fast — and destroyed even faster. When identity is optional, trust becomes a commodity… and betrayal becomes cheap.

Exit Scams and Rug Pulls: The Meme Casino

Some projects are built for the long run. Others are built like slot machines with a “community” sticker slapped on the front.

Nowhere is this more obvious than meme cycles, where overnight pumps become next-day obituaries.

Pump.fun-style launch culture turned creation into a few-click event. That’s innovation, sure, but it’s also a scammer’s dream: deploy fast, hype hard, dump harder. Liquidity disappears, the timeline refreshes, and the victims are told they should’ve “managed risk” better.

Narrative Exploits: Politics, Celebrities, and World Leaders

Once it worked with one big name, it became a template:

• Launch a token tied to a famous figure
• Farm engagement with “it’s bigger than a meme” energy
• Pull in retail FOMO
• Offload bags through insider advantage
• Vanish behind a new pfp, a new handle, a new “team”

It’s not sophisticated. It’s just effective — because it weaponizes attention, identity, and emotion.

The Cycle: Pump, Dump, Repeat

The formula is painfully consistent:

1. Attach the coin to a trending narrative
2. Recruit shills (paid or hopeful)
3. Use community excitement as rocket fuel
4. Sell into strength while everyone else celebrates
5. Watch the chart go vertical… then go silent

And the cruelest part? The betrayal usually isn’t from some distant villain. It’s often from the “trusted” account in the chat, the “community leader,” the “partner,” the “advisor,” or the “friend” who was right there with you, until it paid not to be.

Lessons from Betrayal: The Road Forward

Betrayal teaches one truth that never goes out of date: trust is earned, not assumed.

• Watch actions, not words. Betrayers rarely flip overnight, they leave breadcrumbs.
• Decentralization doesn’t prevent deception. The chain is trustless; people are not.
• Adapt, don’t fold. Every cycle filters tourists from builders. Every scar is a lesson you paid for. Learn it once.

Crypto is a battlefield, and betrayal is one of its oldest enemies. But traitors don’t win the war — they just take quick profits and leave empty footprints. The builders, the real believers, the ones who choose reputation over a fast exit… they’re the ones who create legacies.

A Glimpse of Light

Here’s the part people forget while they’re doom-scrolling and quote tweeting each other into oblivion:

Enterprise adoption is coming.. quietly, steadily, inevitably. TradFi, payments, tokenization, stablecoins, settlement rails, on-chain identity, infrastructure. The “small” high-risk corner we live in is feeding innovation into a much bigger machine. And if we’re honest, a lot of us got into this space for the same reasons: freedom, opportunity, merit, and a better system than the one we inherited.

So maybe we do make it. Together.

Maybe the next era isn’t just PvP, it’s progress.

Let’s make peace where we can. Support each other. Help each other. Call out scams without turning into monsters ourselves. Celebrate wins without jealousy. Share lessons without ego. Because if we keep eating our own, we’ll hand the future to the people we claim we’re trying to outbuild.

To those who stabbed us in the back — enjoy your thirty pieces of silver.

We’ll be here. Still standing. Still building. And when this sector finally goes mainstream… we’ll celebrate that we survived it together.

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Lion’s Share Group — Crypto (@Lions_Share_) / X

Betrayal: A Tale as Old as Time, From Historical Treachery to Crypto Backstabs was originally published in Coinmonks on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.