Compiled by: Golden Finance
In 2024, the crypto industry is still full of challenges and opportunities. This year, we once again focus on Singapore Token 2049, and select 10 "small essays" with deep insights and sharp views to find potential investment opportunities.
1. ZK and privacy, the biggest gain of this conference
Meet Zooko Wilcox, the founder of Zcash, at the Network State venue. He is worthy of being an old cypherpunk. His understanding and promotion of privacy can make the audience cheer. The public opinion in the direction of privacy can be seen. At present, stablecoin payment is the general trend, but payment privacy is a stumbling block. It can be foreseen that after the stablecoin payment is rolled out, the privacy payment solution is not an option, but a rigid demand. The demand parties that have been contacted include e-commerce platforms, stablecoin issuers, banks, etc. The product experience here is the key point. It is definitely not okay to let users wait for a few minutes. The local ZKP generation of one or two seconds is the killer in product experience.
2. Offline is king
Most of the current stablecoin payment products only focus on online payments, but in fact, more than 70% of the payment industry is offline, and few project parties can currently encounter it. In this field, Visa and Master's U cards are just appetizers, and the POS network that natively supports crypto is the blue ocean feast.
3. SWIFT is dead, long live SWIFT
Recently, commercial banks, central banks, and international banking organizations are rapidly increasing their use of blockchain technology. The market opportunities in this area are very large, and at the same time, high requirements are placed on the qualifications and experience of project parties. A little common sense, SWIFT protocol is the foundation of the banking system, and it is basically impossible to shake it. One possible direction is to be compatible with SWIFT protocol, but replace SWIFT message service. From this perspective, there is hope to share SWIFT's cake.
4. SocialFi's new ideas
During the conference, I learned about the recent situation of several leading SocialFi projects. I felt that the possibility of building a new Web3 social garden and expecting users to migrate over was too small. At this point, Solana Blink and Ton wallets have opened up a good idea: meet users where they are. Then can we put crypto wallets in Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, Discord, etc. without platform permission... Let crypto infrastructure bloom everywhere on the stock platforms that already have hundreds of millions of users? There is no doubt that hard-core technical original innovation is needed here, but once it is done, it will be very powerful. The good news is that the dawn has already appeared.
5. New track
Social payment. Specifically, use AI big models, combine with the existing massive social network data, formulate payment/value distribution rules, and use new social payment infrastructure to complete the distribution of tokens/NFTs. Simply put, it is to superimpose a value distribution layer on the basis of Google ads to achieve AI-powered digital value distribution on social network.
6. zk-DePIN
DePIN will continue to exist and will continue to grow. The local ZK calculation in the DePIN device can solve many rigid needs in data privacy. This may not be felt by ordinary users, but it will become a decisive factor in whether a project can be established and whether it can be expanded. After all, the supervision and laws on privacy data protection and data flow out of the country are not a joke.
7. Solana Vibe
The Break Point conference made people feel that there were experts in communication, marketing, and community behind it. The overall atmosphere, setting, agenda, booths, and even DJ and music arrangements of the venue were all great. In terms of attracting the attention of young people, Solana is worthy of reference for other public chains.
1.The main venue of Token2049 had more than 300 booths for sponsors and more than 700 surrounding activities, which was large in scale and intensive in activities.
2. Explain why it is called "retaliatory madness and hysterical powerlessness"
Everyone expects this year to be a bull market,however, the bull market has not been fully realized, and now it is in an awkward stage of neither going up nor down, just like everyone is expecting a hilarious joke, but the performer didn't perform well, but at this time everyone's eyes are on me, so I can only bite the bullet and laugh and show my support;
Every year I think it can't be crazier, but the next year always brings me new shocks, and this madness doesn't even distinguish between bull and bear markets;
The main venue is characterized by a hodgepodge. No matter what type it is, no matter where they come from or where they are going, all the booths are piled together. Every industry has several benchmark summits, but I have never seen such a chaotic scene when I attended other industry summits. Is the organizer really considering promoting the development of the industry through this summit?
I talked to many booths, and the exhibitors could not tell the purpose of participating in this exhibition at all. If the decision makers did not synchronize this matter with the executives, how good results can be expected? Or perhaps most people think that I must occupy a place in this industry's top summit, even if I do nothing.
I admit that I have attended too many conferences this year, and my cognition has changed qualitatively due to quantitative changes, and I have become a little harsh in my view of Token2049.
3. Current status of the track
NFT is dead, GameFi is struggling, DeFi is as stable as an old dog, AI is striving to be the first, exchanges are big and powerful, public chains are trying to make trouble, and Depin is not interested... In a word, if there is no traffic from outside the circle, the ecological construction is useless. The Federal Reserve has cut interest rates, so let us look forward to sending new leeks.
1. Lack of investment to break the circle
Although everyone knows that Web3 needs fresh blood, most of them are still in a prisoner's dilemma, waiting for others to invest resources. I hope more people can follow the example of micro-film investors and contribute to Web3 breaking the circle.
2. Separation of Chinese and Western circles
The activities of the Chinese circle are independent of the European and American circles. Some participants who have just entered the circle cannot even find Chinese activities, which seems a bit embarrassing.
3. The importance of niches and labels
In the circle, you must choose a clear representative label. If you do everything, unless you are a real boss, you may give people an unprofessional impression. People in the circle appear to be more mature and emotionally stable than people of the same age outside the circle, and those born after 2000 perform particularly well. However, many people have hair loss problems, so it is recommended that everyone pay attention to health, such as calcium supplements and rubbing the scalp with ginger. The relationship in the currency circle is simple and deep, and the feelings cultivated through common business and cooperation are stronger than expected. The cost of trust between people is high, and the priority of meeting is reflected.
1. Unprecedented efforts by European and American project parties: The era of easy financing by European and American project parties in previous years has ended. This year, they have held grand side events and personally participated in attracting business, showing unprecedented enthusiasm.
2. Funds in the Asian market are exhausted:European and American project parties still believe that there is money in the Asian market, but the fact is that liquidity in Asia has been exhausted, and the contract products of the exchanges and the Bitcoin narrative have almost absorbed all liquidity.
3. The participants are generally "calm and calm": This year's participants, whether investors, project parties or retail investors, have long exhausted their funds, resulting in low interest in participating in activities, and even began to become Buddhist, no longer eager to make money.
4. People who make money become "leeks":In the currency circle, people who pursue making money have become the targets of being cut, and those who really make money are often those who "want to make money".
5. Solana Breakpoint becomes a highlight: In contrast, Solana's Breakpoint is the focus of this year's Side Event, while Ethereum's activities seem to be overshadowed, and Layer 2 has not performed well.
6. Aftereffects of the cycle:The current market rise is not a new bull market, but a remnant of the 2021-2022 cycle, similar to the situation in 2019. It may not be far from a new cycle, but it is also close to the risk of a callback.
7. The tragic feeling in the primary market: The primary market is full of helplessness and tragedy of "investing is looking for death, not investing is waiting for death", and this emotion is a dangerous signal.
8. Optimistic future direction: Future opportunities may appear in the DePIN project, the issuance of CeDeFi RWA stablecoins, and the innovation of on-chain transactions and leverage tools.
9. The darkness before dawn: Although the new cycle is not far away, it is still in the most difficult moment. In the future, the combination of Crypto and traditional finance will exceed expectations, and the industry faces huge opportunities.
10. Persevere to the end: In the face of a harsh market environment, everyone is the last line of defense of the industry and must hold on, because "there is no one behind."
"People who come out of a storm never rely on umbrellas."
As investors, we usually do something, especially during these events:
1) Participate in the demoday of Portfolio and its ecosystem, select projects to support, and indeed see some interesting ideas, which are relatively early, and also chat with Portfolio offline about sensitive key transactions and listing matters;
2) Go to some acceleration camps where founders gather to talk about our industry observations, mainly about fundamental cognition, which also inspired me to do more research and exploration of some directions combining tokenomics with fundamentals;
3) Communicate with important LPs
Meet up with your friends. If there is business cooperation, focus on matching projects. In fact, many traditional financial institutions are entering or considering entering, which I think is the real alpha in this cycle.
4) Communicate with peers with good performance, understand their respective ways of entering good projects, understand the differences and advantages and disadvantages of everyone's working methods, mainly to review our blindness;
5) Go to a good friend's place to panel to boost popularity and meet old friends, and feel the difference between high-quality activities and filler activities. It is also a point to examine whether the project party will market;
6) Understand the studio behind the project party, connect to the required portfolio, accelerate the progress and speed of build, and make clearer decisions on related investment and budget;
7) Participate in some private dinners to get to know the big guys in the upstream and downstream industries. Because we are a fund from web2, there are indeed many people to get to know;
8) Meet with upstream and downstream of the industry, such as exchanges and market makers, to check some business matters in a public-to-public manner, and ensure that the projects we invest in are seen; 9) Catch up with old friends in Singapore, and find that many people around them have also entered the encryption industry. Everyone is in a good mental state; 10) In-depth chat with four or five founders, mainly those who I knew before but had not met offline. The amount of information collected from face-to-face chats is still huge; In principle, when participating in any activities, do not force a conversation and do not waste energy on ineffective social activities; we have KTV for big guys, colored nightclub activities, high-stakes card games, these are what we have in web2 We have seen it all in the investment era, and it is indeed not our style; I still like to spend a few hours with product and technology veterans in the most comfortable and relaxed environment to discuss major issues, which is the most enjoyable; my colleagues came back to review with me, and many projects with good fundamentals, good development and great opportunities were actually seen by our one or two degree contacts, but we just didn’t choose to invest at that time, so we didn’t rely on these activities to source, and more effort was put into daily life. Just like Didi, Bytedance, Kuaishou, and Ele.me were all projects that investors had looked at over and over again, and it was not so easy to miss them at the sourcing level.
The oversupply of hundreds of events is the same as the oversupply of junk assets on the market; everyone has entered a copy-paste template mode when organizing events, so the marginal utility has long been reduced to near 0. On the contrary, I think there are a few private events that I think are quite practical: (1) Breakfast gatherings before morning events near MBS, where everyone can chat while eating (2) Fundraising celebrations for startups, where new and old investors can have a meal together (3) Centralized demodays for public chain ecosystem projects, where investors from all over the world can come to Singapore to look at the projects together. This is meaningful for the project parties who have come all the way to Singapore.
This time, Token2049 has finally come to an end in stages. The reason why it is a stage is that only the "social" part has been completed, and with social interaction comes even more arduous long-tail tasks.
1. The nature and participants of Token2049:
This Token2049 is different from the past. In the past, I was just a spectator, judging everything that happened in the event from a high God's perspective, but this time I became a part of the matrix in person. If Token2049 is a matrix, whether it is the project party, capital, KOL, exchange, or spectators, they are all interlocking parts. Many friends may not know that there are almost no "leeks" participating in Token2049. Tickets over a thousand dollars are not for ordinary users. Those who pay for the ticket price are often those unwilling industry insiders. This also means that Token2049 itself is a large social stage, a stage for the project party to show to capital, exchanges, and KOLs, but not directly to users.
2. Dilemma of project parties:
- Need to invest a lot of money in booths, publicity and hospitality.
- Faced with huge pressure, must participate in order to obtain financing opportunities, cooperation opportunities and user attention.
- Most project parties are just trying to survive, rather than pursuing rapid development.
- Head projects have more resources and opportunities, while small projects are often at a disadvantage.
The exhibitors’ glamour is actually a whip that whips the project owners, while the investors, exchanges and KOLs are the carrots hanging in front of the mule. They look very close and you want to take a bite, but no matter how hard you try, you can only get closer, but there is almost no possibility of taking a bite, because Token2049 is not a place where transactions can be made directly. In the end, further blending is required, but is it okay without Token2049?
3. Challenges of VC (venture capital) and market makers:
- VCs generally feel great pressure, and even call themselves "real leeks".
- Facing the pressure of "book income", it is difficult to make actual profits.
- Some VCs are forced to consider unconventional means to survive.
- Market makers are in a better situation, but they also face fierce competition.
- Small market makers have difficulty surviving and have to take more risks.
The more you spend, the more you lose, which is already a consensus among VCs. The two-year and three-year lock-up forces some VCs to think of some crooked ways. It’s not that there are no real VCs doing things. On the contrary, I think several acceleration camps and incubators are doing a good job. This has been proven to be useful in Web2 and will not be wrong in Web3. Therefore, the acceleration camps between VCs and project parties have a strong voice, especially the acceleration camps backed by the top public chains or ecosystems. They often go smoothly. Therefore, in the future, high-quality acceleration camps will give birth to a batch of projects that can stand out even in the shortage of liquidity.
4. Dilemma of Exchanges:
Some friends may think that exchanges are indeed at the top of the food chain. Projects and VCs have to look at the faces of exchanges. It seems that they are in the limelight, but in fact, exchanges also have their own sufferings. "Consumption" is the pain point that exchanges are currently facing and cannot get rid of. This consumption is the consumption of users, their own internal consumption, and the loss between industries. User consumption may be the most troublesome problem for exchanges. If you list a high-quality project, users may not thank you, thinking that it is the result of the efforts of the project party and market makers. If you list a project that obviously has a good reputation but a very low price, not only the project party will be scolded, but the exchange itself will also be scolded constantly, not to mention listing a project with a bad reputation and price, that is a nightmare, so exchanges are also headaches. After all, users are the real core, and the most terrible thing is that this core is constantly consumed, but the experience and time spent to make up for user consumption is often higher than the cost of attracting new users.
5. KOL's situation:
KOL is the top building in the industry. Project parties need KOL's publicity, VC is willing to organize KOL, and exchanges hope to use KOL for input and output. They are definitely winners in life. But in fact, "not making money" is the voice of most KOLs. There are always friends who say that you see so-and-so who makes so much money by posting an advertisement, so-and-so who makes a fortune by bringing orders, and so-and-so who makes a lot of money by rebates. It is true that some "KOLs" do make money, but these people are often not needed in every link. Some of you may not understand what I mean. To put it bluntly, KOLs who make money are not what Token2049 needs, because Token2049 needs people who can speak out for the market, for the industry, and spread the "spirit of the conference". Of course, the so-called not making money is different from what everyone imagines. When I say not making money, I only mean that they don't make money in the KOL's side job, and the side job is the most profitable link. It's a pity that "being cut off" is the mainstream of current KOLs.
6. Complexity of the industry ecosystem:
Interlocking and mutually constrained, this is the truth behind the Token2049. On the contrary, what you are doing and how well you are doing it are not that important, because the hot spots of the track are not determined by the project party, but by capital, and the money piled up by capital needs to have enough users to pay for it, and the user's terminal is the exchange. The exchange's customer acquisition is inseparable from one KOL after another, but KOL and the project party love and hate each other. I can say a lot of serious content, such as track analysis, project analysis, and industry analysis, but all of this is just superficial. Back to the basics, you and me in the industry are just drifting with the tide. We don't have much choice, whether it is for our own pockets or our own dreams, we can only break our heads and rush forward, even if we all know that the road ahead may be rugged, but don't say retreat, as long as you stop, you may be trampled under the torrent.
1. Most panel guests are pessimistic about market expectations, and even worry that if there is no new innovation and new growth by May next year, the market ecology may be reshuffled and reshaped as a whole;
2. Lack of innovation, the stock is concentrated at the top, the top 15 coins ranked by user number and market value, such as doge and shib, have fallen 70-80% from their highest point, and others are even worse. (Based on the data I have seen, I guess that the trading volume of exchanges may decrease by 80% from this year); 3. Decentralized stablecoins and payment applications, two infrastructure constructions, are obvious incremental tracks; 4. The faith in the primary market has collapsed. In the past two years, only a few primary market projects have made money; 5. It is not easy to make money in the primary market. Professional financial institutions are rolling up the secondary market. Li Lin took out 500 million US dollars to play the secondary quantitative mother fund, and quantitative entry into the market; 6. At present, we feel that there are no more than 10 institutions with stable secondary quantitative capabilities; 7. The strategy of leeks against quantitative is to buy and hold the top 5 large coins, reduce transactions, and survive; 8. Leeks, buy & hold, the trading volume of exchanges will decrease, AUM will also decrease, and exchanges will be uncomfortable; 9. Second-tier exchanges began to invest heavily in marketing, participated in Bitget and XT activities, went overseas with Gate friends, and saw BingX and Weex marketing... So, the marketing costs of exchanges will increase; 10. Ton Ecosystem is listed on the exchange, Solana Ecosystem, there seem to be some structural trading opportunities; 11. As a veteran who entered the Internet industry in 2003, although I see problems, compared with the Internet in 2000, the number of practitioners, skills, infrastructure, number of users, total industry volume & segmented fields will still have a lot of room for growth. So, don't leave the table. Meng Yan: Blockchain payment has reached the stage where it can be implemented on a large scale. 1. Blockchain payment has been talked about for so many years, and it has really reached the stage where it can be implemented on a large scale. The only obstacle is privacy. Technically, local ZKP generation will clear this last obstacle, making the Internet, with the support of blockchain and ZK technology, the most advanced value transmission network that far exceeds traditional banking financial networks and centralized technology solutions such as WeChat Alipay. When I tell people this truth in the real world, many people still come to refute, or want to defend the bank network, or want to defend WeChat Alipay. I have a pleasing personality in my bones, and I don’t want to be too arrogant in front of people, but to be honest, it’s a waste of time for me to explain the advancement of blockchain payment. Things that should not be compared together at all. My current view is that blockchain payment has passed the stage of needing to tell stories to gather consensus. It can be a little domineering. If you don’t understand, forget it. The development of technology will convince you within a few years.
2. In terms of payment, supporting supervision is now the key. Anti-money laundering, anti-terrorist financing, and anti-corruption are indeed what a payment product should support. This is not surrender, nor is it a compromise made out of interests. Reasonably, it should be like this. 3. It is said that SWIFT is building a chain of its own. Those who are still defending traditional payment technology, let's learn from this. 4. Social Pay is both pay and Web3 Social, which may be the key breakthrough point to kill two birds with one stone. I have analyzed it in an article I wrote about the Web3 track not long ago. 5. A breakthrough inspiration, the core problem of the token economy may not be how to design a perfect economic model, but how to develop an AI to measure the contribution of users and issue incentives. 6. Solana launched a religious reform in the blockchain field, which is equivalent to a movement of ideological liberation in a sense, and it has made great contributions. But this does not mean that application innovation can only happen on Solana, and Solana is not necessarily the final winner in the wave of Web3 application innovation.
1. Most investors are looking for high-quality projects that combine artificial intelligence with cryptocurrency.
2. A large number of teams imitating projects such as "pump.fun" have appeared in the market, lacking innovation.
3. The community has higher requirements for the practicality of projects and has less interest in pure Meme projects.
4. When considering the MemeFi project, the team will give priority to the impact on the brand image.
5. The number of high-quality investment projects in the market is limited, and homogeneous competition is serious.
6. Participants evaluate the professionalism and attitude of the project by the quality of the surrounding products.
7. The quality of the activities held by many teams is not high, and some even have empty venues.
8. Social activities during the conference have a great impact on the project, and some teams have left a negative impression due to poor performance in the activities.
9. The valuation of projects at the infrastructure layer is high, while the valuation of projects at the ecosystem layer is relatively low.
10 The current financing market is sluggish, teams have difficulty in financing, and venture capital institutions are less willing to invest in cryptocurrency projects.
The industry is reshuffling, and small and medium VCs are clearing out. Many dpis cannot reach 1. On the contrary, the top VCs continue to grow and quickly close new rounds within 5 months. Only investing in early tasteful incubators or vertical VCs that focus on the ecosystem can leverage the super high odds/vertical competitive advantages to find a living space.
2. Regulation is the elephant in the room, but Americans are more optimistic about US regulation than China. Compared with fearing risks, it is more important to accurately assess risks and understand the risks you are facing.
3. MM is still the most core player. There are many new MMs. The ability of the founding team to select and pua MM has also become one of the core capabilities. They need to judge the bear market and bull market environment and formulate a suitable MM deal structure.
4. The most discussed application tracks are Socialfi and Ai crypto. Ai has hard barriers to landing, and it is necessary to wait for the turning point of technical breakthrough. Pumpfun is the most successful socialfi. The socialfi that is truly suitable for web3 is not Web3 twitter, but a socialized casino.
5. Quantitative returns are further compressed, and many quantitative teams that have left A-shares are entering crypto.
6. BTC, stablecoin/payment, casino is the only proven effective biz model in the industry. Stablecoin has become the new king track in the first level, but no one can explain how to break the network effect of Tethe. Everyone should be prepared. If there is no new innovation in the future, all increments will only buy BTC. What should we do?
7. Ecological perspective: Solana breakpoint is more lively than the main venue. Developers are optimistic about the firedance update to break the Solana "downtime chain" curse. "Pay now buy never" tries to add Ponzi to the payment track.
8. The traffic effect of Ton ecology has begun to ferment. The ecology is rolling up small applications. Several VCs focusing on games have entered with a group of web2 game teams. At present, it is unclear whether they will tear off the fig leaf of false traffic, or convert TG wool party into effective retained users with VC and gamefi Ponzi subsidies.
9. The AI ecosystem is a bit awkward. After decentralized AI and Agentfi were disproven in stages, AI projects that received a lot of money began to roll themselves into the new Alt layer 1.
10. Don’t be superstitious about authority and agents in listings. What the exchange looks at is how many new users the project can bring. Making good products, brands and communication are better than anything else.
Gamefi, when the Web3 narrative winter comes, are games the "fire" in the winter? Golden finance, finance and games will be the first scenarios where blockchain will be implemented.
JinseFinanceOf the 50 largest airdrops, 23 (46%) recorded token price peaks within two weeks of the airdrop date. This suggests that the best time to sell airdrop tokens may be within 14 days of receiving the airdrop tokens for maximum profit.
JinseFinanceWilcox, in a blog post, cited concerns about his personal identity becoming overly associated with Zcash during his tenure as CEO. He expressed the belief that this dynamic could be detrimental to both himself and the cryptocurrency.
BrianJinseFinance上一轮熊市里，币安的IEO（Launchpad） 是普通人对抗风险最好的选择之一。这轮熊市，是否还能再次重演？
Tech Flow由于加密寒冬，Solana在2022年的大部分时间里都处于下滑状态，但在2023年开始却迎来了一个积极的开端。Solana一直是加密货币市场好转的受益者，近期的加密市场走势也使其继续攀升至顶峰。
fx168newsCrypto data firm Arcane Research said that if listed bitcoin mining companies sell off a large portion of their supply, "this could push the price of bitcoin further down."
CointelegraphThe report seems to indicate that the turmoil in the crypto market has not interfered with the investment and development of some GameFi and Metaverse projects.
CointelegraphThe downturn in the crypto market has made it difficult for crypto companies to strike any new sponsorship deals with teams they spent hundreds of millions of dollars on sponsorship earlier this year.
CointelegraphAs a key technology that lays the foundation for the development of my country's digital economy, how does the blockchain industry perform in this epidemic? After the epidemic, what will its development trend be?
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