The most correct direction, the heaviest shackles

Licensed Issuer: The issuer must be a regulated financial institution, not an anonymous group.

1:1 Asset Custody: If you issue 10,000 tokens, you must deposit 10,000 shares of real assets in a custodial account and undergo an audit.

Trading on a Compliant Exchange: Tokenized securities can only be traded on exchanges with specific licenses, not the familiar Binance or Coinbase. Strict KYC/AML: Investors must undergo more rigorous identity and anti-money laundering checks than those required of conventional exchanges. The pursuit of "authenticity" is marred by the complexities of "reality." This "correctness" ultimately leads to a contradictory outcome: a "decentralized" asset that relies heavily on centralized institutions. Consequently, the vast majority of RWA projects remain at the pilot stage, often featured in media reports, ultimately becoming the talk of the town, yet struggling to make a mark on actual financial reports. Second, Security and Compliance: Shackles of "Trust." In the blockchain space, plagued by hacker attacks and regulatory scrutiny, security and compliance are undeniably essential. From smart contract auditing to on-chain anti-money laundering (AML), each niche sector represents a market worth tens or even hundreds of millions of yuan. Many technical teams have indeed created world-class products: code scanners that generate vulnerability lists in minutes, analytical tools that can accurately track the flow of illicit funds. But it is precisely this "urgent need" that constitutes the second shackle, as it faces a nearly impenetrable market. When financial institutions purchase security tools, technological advancement often takes last place; they prioritize endorsements and trust. This creates an invisible barrier: Has your company been recommended by regulators? Do you have partnerships with the Big Four auditing firms or major IT service providers? Do you have a successful track record of serving major state-owned banks? For a startup, the answer to these questions is almost always no. Thus, we witness the most absurd scene: a top-tier team, consistently winning various security competitions, encounters obstacles in business development, ultimately relying on writing research reports and conducting training courses to survive. This "most correct" and fundamental need is locked out by the impenetrable "relationship barriers" of traditional finance, becoming synonymous with "seemingly the most reliable, but ultimately the most hopeless."

Third, Industrial Applications: Are we forced to wear this shackle called "upgrade"?

The logic behind using blockchain for carbon trading, cross-border e-commerce traceability, or medical data sharing is equally impeccable—leveraging its decentralized and immutable properties to resolve trust challenges and thereby reduce costs and increase efficiency. This is an incredibly grand and valid industrial story.

However, the most basic principle of the business world: cost-effectiveness, constitutes the third shackle. When a cross-border e-commerce business owner was asked if he was willing to adopt blockchain traceability, his primary concern was: "That's great, but why should I pay more for a 'more trusted' label? I can do it with traditional databases, and much cheaper." Similarly, a carbon asset platform built on government subsidies quickly fell by the wayside once the subsidies ceased. The grand blueprint for medical data sharing was also stalled by hospitals' reluctance to open up their core data. When blockchain couldn't prove itself to be the only "irreplaceable" and "more cost-effective" solution, the promise of "reducing costs and increasing efficiency" became empty talk. Ultimately, a grand application that was supposed to empower a trillion-dollar industry became a "futuristic-looking" showcase project in a government exhibition hall.

Fourth, Digital Identity and Judicial Evidence: Shackled by a "Grand Vision"

From digital identity and data ownership confirmation to judicial evidence and government transparency, these directions undoubtedly represent future trends and have unquestionable social value. They promise a more transparent, trustworthy, and efficient digital society.

However, this "grand social value" is precisely the fourth shackle, as it often contradicts market-based business logic. Digital identity requires the collaboration of the entire ecosystem, including the participation of governments, industry leaders, and regulatory agencies. This is not something that a single startup can drive. One team spent two years exploring "blockchaining educational information," only to receive the school's response: "A database is enough, no need for blockchain." While judicial evidence can be implemented, it is primarily a one-off project, earning meager service fees and lacking growth potential. These directions are more like public infrastructure—everyone acknowledges their importance, but no one is willing to sustain them. When the "correctness" of a direction relies on government subsidies or pilot projects to maintain its validity, it inherently loses a leg. This grand vision, lacking an independent business model, has become locked in policy documents and PowerPoint presentations at industry conferences. V. Decentralized Governance (DAO): Shackled by "Human Nature" DAOs represent the "correct" future of community ownership and decentralized decision-making. Once a project is launched and decentralized, the team no longer has 100% control, necessitating a mechanism for shared decision-making with the community. However, this ideal, most aligned with the spirit of Web3, is burdened by the heavy shackles of "human nature." The OpenGov model is theoretically flawless: it aligns community interests with those of whales (large investors), incentivizing them to vote for the long-term development of the ecosystem. However, in reality, treasury funds are diverted to bizarre projects like paying influencers with few followers and painting logos on private jets, while truly valuable developer proposals are repeatedly rejected. This theoretically perfect incentive mechanism, in reality, fails due to genuine cultural divides, the formation of interest groups, and the shortsightedness of decision-makers. The most "correct" governance model is ultimately shackled by the most ancient human weaknesses. Breaking free from the shackles, where is the path forward? Looking back at these initiatives, we see that failure wasn't due to the wrong direction, but rather that each "correct" direction was tied to a heavy, real-world constraint. But this isn't the end. Just as the Chinese internet of twenty years ago was once considered a bubble, it underwent countless failed attempts at "correctness" before ultimately emerging as super-apps like e-commerce, payments, and social networking. Blockchain may also have to go through a similarly long cycle. A true breakthrough may not lie in envisioning the next grand and correct narrative, but in finding a tiny fulcrum that can unlock the shackles. We are looking for teams that can use blockchain to truly reduce costs by 1% in cross-border payments, solve the trust issues faced by small and medium-sized enterprises in supply chain finance, and provide an irreplaceable tool for data compliance. These paths may seem incredibly difficult now, but if anyone can be the first to break free from these shackles, it will not only be a victory for a project, but also a significant relief for the future of the entire industry.