Compiled by: TechFlow
After Token2049 comes to an end every year, it is time to write short essays. This article selects 8 short essays so that you can feel the crypto pulse of Singapore without going there.
Jewish Director Zhao: Cycles, Dawn and Liquidity Impotence
1. I have never seen European and American project parties work so hard.
2. In the past, white men just talked and made videos, and the Asian market would shut up and take my money. But this year, they actually had to organize a series of grand side events, dress themselves up and even go out to solicit business. The last time I saw them working so hard was in 2019 when Afro came to Beijing to raise funds.
3. The information gap between Europe, America and Asia is still huge:
3.1 European and American project owners still think that there is still money in Asia, so they want to continue to exploit it by constantly splitting up new assets. Unfortunately, the Asian market is really out of money, not even a penny left;
3.2 As for where the money went, the contract products of Asian exchanges continued the fine tradition and ate up most of the liquidity. The BTC ecosystem (Inscription Rune Layer2) also successfully revived a new track for the Asia-Pacific region in the asset issuance business monopolized by Europe and the United States through the Bitcoin Asia narrative. Both took away most of the Asian liquidity;
4. The lack of liquidity in the Asian market also made it so difficult to write this year’s Chinese essay. Even after a busy week, attendees could not express any feelings, because no matter whether they were investors, project owners, KOLs or retail investors, they had basically run out of bullets. As a result, attending the conference this year was like a eunuch visiting a brothel, with a calm mind . There were even some moments when they were so Buddhist that they didn’t really want to make money.
5. After all, whoever wants to make money is a leek, and the best way to make money is to make money from the person who wants to make money.
6.SOL's Breakpoint is the highlight of this year's Side Event. As for Ethereum, neither the foundation nor Layer 2 has a decent event to prove its existence:
6.1. If Vitalik was still the “ Emperor Xian of Web3 Han ” in April, then Vitalik, who sold coins for love in September, could only be the “ Ethereum King You of Zhou ”;
6.2. The way he sang on stage was exactly to fulfill the task of public shame of the hostess Bao Si;
6.3. Those who are not clear-headed are clamoring to "ban some Layer 2 that does not meet the standards", just like a tyrant who loves beauty more than the country and is unable to tie up a chicken but still insists on reducing the power of the vassal states;
6.4. I really want to see how Web3 “clears the court”;
7. As for the cycle, this year's rise is not a new bull market , but the aftereffect of the 21-22 year cycle . This is why this year's market is infinitely close to 2019. If you don't believe it, take a look at the Altcoin you hold. Are most of them issued in 2021? 2019 is not far from the start of a new cycle in DeFi Summer in August 2020, and of course, it is also closer to 312.
8. The primary market is full of a sense of self-care and tragedy, and this sense of tragedy is a very dangerous signal. After all, if you don’t invest, you are waiting for death, and if you invest, you are seeking death.
9. The market will wear out the patience of most people in the midst of fluctuations, and new directions will grow quietly in silence. The directions that I am optimistic about include:
9.1 DePIN Project for Consumer Electronics ;
9.2 CeDeFi RWA is used as the underlying pledge to issue stablecoin projects (BlackRock Buidl + USDM);
9.3 All on-chain transactions + all tools to increase on-chain leverage (Perp Dex);
10. The new cycle is not far away, but the darkness before dawn is pitch black, and it is also the most mentally challenging time . The combination of traditional finance and Crypto will be more than expected in the near future. Whether the crypto is rising or accepting amnesty, they will face the infinite sea of stars that you have never experienced.
11. You cannot fall down before dawn. As the last line of defense of the industry, each of us cannot fall down, because there is no one behind us.
12. A word of encouragement to you all: People who come out of the storm never rely on umbrellas.
Ruby (Incuba Alpha): Industry reshuffle in progress
The industry is reshuffling, small and medium VCs are being cleared out, and 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-stage tasteful incubators or vertical VCs that focus on the ecosystem can leverage super high odds/vertical competitive advantages to find survival space.
Regulation is the elephant in the room, but Americans are more optimistic about U.S. regulation than China. Rather than fearing risks, it is more important to accurately assess risks and understand the risks you are facing.
MM is still the most core player. With many new MMs emerging, the founding team’s ability to select and pua MMs has also become one of the core capabilities, judging the bear and bull market environment and formulating a suitable MM deal structure.
The most discussed application tracks are SocialFi and AI Crypto. AI has hard barriers to implementation and needs to wait for the turning point of technology breakthrough. Pumpfun is the most successful SocialFi. The socialFi that is truly suitable for Web3 is not Web3 Twitter, but socialized casinos.
Quantitative returns have been further compressed, and many quantitative teams that left the A-share market are entering Crypto.
BTC, stablecoins/payments, and casinos are the only proven effective biz models in the industry. Stablecoins have become the new king of volume in the primary market, 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, and all incremental purchases are only BTC, what should we do?
From an ecological perspective: Solana breakpoint is more lively than the main venue, and developers are optimistic that the firedance update will break the Solana "downtime chain" curse. "Pay now buy never" attempts to add Ponzi to the payment track.
The traffic effect of Ton ecosystem has begun to ferment, and the ecosystem has been flooded with small applications. Several VCs focusing on games have moved in with Web2 game teams. It is unclear whether they are going to tear off the fig leaf of fake traffic, or use VC and GameFi Ponzi subsidies to convert TG wool parties into effective retained users.
The AI ecosystem is a bit awkward. After decentralized AI and Agentfi were falsified, AI projects that received a lot of money began to roll themselves up into the new Alt layer 1.
Listing: Don’t be superstitious about authority and agents. What the exchange looks at is how many new users the project can bring. Make a good product, brand and communication are better than anything else.
0xLouisT (L1D Partner): ALT L1 is resurrected, GameFi has been forgotten
Fragmentation and the battle for attention
One of the highlights of Token 2049 is that the number of Side Events hit a record high (over 600), reflecting the current decentralization of the field.
VC-funded projects are clearly competing for attention, trying to outdo each other in events, dinners, and marketing. I sense that the private equity market is saturated with excess capital.
SOL and ETH
Solana undoubtedly dominated the discussion. Breakpoint showcased an impressively strong Solana community.
Meanwhile, ETH is still struggling with its identity crisis. I’ve noticed a lack of Bayesian thinking among some ETH investors, who are struggling to update their thesis despite recent data points.
It is worth noting that despite the low market sentiment, most people's ETH holdings have barely changed. Most holders I know have not significantly adjusted their ETH allocations. However, cracks are starting to show as some people start exchanging ETH for SOL.
Alt L1 resurgence?
Obviously, Solana’s success and the ETH philosophical debate have reignited the new L1 thesis like never before. Some claim that SOL will be the ETH killer, while others believe that other L1s could be SOL killers.
Monad and Berachain have received a lot of attention, but when I asked people why they were bullish, the main arguments came down to one thing: their TPS was higher than their competitors, and Sui was often mentioned as well. The question is: do we really need so much block space?
L1/L2 Failure to Turn to B2B Technology Providers
I’ve noticed that some of the first-level L1/L2s that have been struggling to attract attention and usage over the past year are now shifting to becoming infrastructure providers for Rollups and AppChains. These strategic shifts are often focused on B2B transactions that don’t create meaningful value for the token. This trend appears to be bearish for token holders, but may be bullish for equity holders.
What are fundamentals?
There is a renewed focus on crypto fundamentals, but market participants don’t seem to agree on what those fundamentals are: profitability, cash flow, organic vs. inorganic earnings, volume, transactions, TVL, TPS?
While it makes sense for cryptocurrencies to gradually move toward fundamentals, I have noticed that a strong focus on fundamentals and cash flow often coincides with market bottoms. As Howard Marks said, calls for fundamental analysis are strongest when markets are at their lowest, as fear drives investors to quality assets.
Aave= DeFi ?
The argument for a DeFi renaissance is slowly taking shape, yet with the exception of Aave (which is pretty popular now), most investors are still unconvinced of other DeFi investments… May I suggest taking a look at Pendle?
VC and Liquid
At Token 2049, I spoke with many Tier 1 projects who are shifting their focus from venture capital to liquidity funds with the goal of:
Liquidity Investors: Due to lack of secondary buyers.
Liquidity Providers: As competition for capital and attention intensifies.
Many VCs realize that the landscape is changing and are starting to launch liquidity funds. However, it is currently difficult for these funds to raise capital due to a lack of liquidity. The reason is simple: most secondary funds have underperformed Bitcoin over the past year. I still believe that secondary funds will far outperform VCs in this cycle.
Infrastructure and Applications
People are slowly but surely starting to acknowledge that we have lost ourselves in the ivory tower of the bottom layer. Crypto needs more applications and tangible use cases. DeFi and DePIN are two of the most promising areas for new application development. However, I have yet to hear a consensus that people are excited about specific applications.
Use products
I never thought I would say this, but using these products does give you an edge. It's crazy how many investors and researchers write 20 page reports without even using what they analyzed.
After countless conversations, I estimate that at least 75% of investors are not actively participating in the products in which they invest.
Hyperliquid: Perp DEX Chad
Hyperliquid is taking the cake. With its smooth user experience, it has quickly become the exchange of choice for many people. People have mixed opinions about it, some love it, some hate it.
Traders are pretty transparent: some are sitting on a lot of points and betting big on the token launch. It’s hard to predict how it will perform initially, but it’s worth keeping an eye on
Memecoin is still not fully distributed
How you interpret this is up to you, but surprisingly, most institutional funds and whales have 0% exposure to any memecoin - not even DOGE or PEPE.
GameFi has been forgotten
I barely hear anyone mentioning or expressing excitement about Web3 gaming. I think this apathy signals a bottom in sentiment.
I believe we will see a resurgence in web3 gaming, with several projects currently offering very attractive R/R at their valuations — but that’s a topic for another day…
Zolo (co-founder of TechFlow): The industry is always driven by optimists
From WebX, KBW to TOKEN2049, each event reached an ATH in terms of the number of attendees.
It's another conference, what are you guys rolling out this year?
1- Dresscode , the trend started by berachain has finally swept everyone. Wearing a headgear is a basic operation. The best thing is that you can share it without wearing any clothes. The purpose is the same, hoping to spread it;
2- Volume DJ , check the top 100 DJ rankings, check the DJ's body shape, and even check if the DJ has hair;
3-Awards ceremony . Many activities this year require awards. Most of the awards are not actually awards, but just social skills.
But speaking of awards, the most eye-catching award this year came from Breakpoint, which is also one of the best conferences I have attended recently.
Breakpoint2024, one of the best conferences this year
Key Features:
1- Most speakers only have 5 minutes to share, so you must focus on the key points;
2-Add debate format instead of pure boring pannel;
3- An alternative award ceremony, full of community vibe.
When you walk into the Solana exhibition hall, you feel like it is a supermarket rather than just an exhibition.
From a project perspective, dozens of projects including Jupiter, Pyth, Wormhole, Birdeye, etc. have released their own new products, and the whole process was full of interesting moments.
The meeting was divided into two stages, from left to right and from right to left. I can’t remember how many times I ran back and forth just to avoid missing some important links.
The first day of the meeting lasted from 10:30 am to 6:00 pm. Thanks to the compact schedule and agenda with almost no advertisements, almost every sharing session was packed.
While listening to the sharing, whether it was the applause for “Firedancer” or the shouts of “GO!” to “DeGods”, you will find that the current Solana community has an extremely consistent consensus on the general direction.
We all know what Solana’s future development focus is;
Everyone knows which projects in the Solana ecosystem are truly loyal members;
Everyone knows which jokes in the Solana ecosystem can only be understood by Solana insiders.
It should be a consensus among many people that Solana is the Beta in this cycle. The non-consensus exists in: many friends feel that after the launch of major projects such as Pyth, Jupiter, Wormhole, Drift, etc., the Solana ecosystem seems to have not so many alpha projects worth looking forward to.
In fact, this is not the case.
For example, Backpack, Cube, Flashtrade, Sonic, Solayer, ComputeLabs, etc., developers are pouring into Solana and creating more interesting things.
I remember that on the technical stage on the right, the host asked at the beginning how many people in the audience were coming to Breakpoint for the first time, and almost half of the people raised their hands. The proportion of fresh blood reached 50%!
Solana has climbed up from the bottom, and the community has become more resilient. Thanks to Solar for allowing me to participate in such an event.
It’s great that Solana has a community like yours.
Move series, another alpha besides Solana
During TOKEN 2049, Sui's surge also attracted a lot of attention.
Sui Builder House is also one of the most popular activities before TOKEN 2049.
In fact, I started to contact people about SUI in April this year. The main logic was:
1-Solana traffic overflow. For developers/speculators who think that the ecosystem on Solana is saturated, they will look for the next Alpha. In the last cycle, there were polygon, avalanche, etc. This cycle should be SUI, Ton, etc.;
2- The relevance of Move language and RUST . We all know that it is not difficult to switch from RUST to Move. Therefore, whether Solana's project is squeezed out or wants to do a side project to launch a new project, Move is a good choice. For example, Solend went to SUI to create Suilend. This applies to SUI, Aptos, and Movement.
3- Recognition from technical friends. Currently, Sui and Aptos have both launched their tokens on the mainnet. After consulting some technical friends, many people think that Sui’s technology and documentation are better.
At that time, there was no so-called Grayscale Trust, and there was no Native USDC on Sui. With the support of these two, I believe Sui will develop better.
Of course, overall, I am full of expectations for Sui, Aptos and Movement. When writing this article, $APTOS also rose by 14%.
However, Sui's problem is that there are too few assets that can be hyped. Although SuiPlay was launched and the largest game booth was set up at KBW in Korea, its star projects are still Cetus, Turbos, Navi, Scallop, and Meme. You can count them on two hands. I hope that the incubation plan of Cetus and Sui will produce more.
Aptos’ problem seems to be that users/community are still a little confused about which direction its foundation wants to go. Movement is the only Move-related project that has not yet issued a coin. Keep an eye on it and hope to see some star cases soon.
With the expectation of a rate cut, everyone is more optimistic
From Japan, South Korea to Singapore, since I am a trading idiot, I can only seize every opportunity to consult my friends about their views on the future market. Generally speaking, everyone seems to be more optimistic.
Two or three months ago, most of my friends thought that the cycle was over, or that the bull market would only last until Q4 of this year or Q1 of next year.
From now on, it is a more conservative view that the bull market will last until Q1 of next year, and many people believe that it can last until Q3 of next year.
The main reason is that the interest rate cut cycle has begun, and 50 points is just the beginning. It takes time to loosen the money supply. At the same time, the asset outflow of US stocks/BTC has not yet started.
The main uncertainty lies in the general election in November.
Although some people have said before that everyone is looking for exit liquidity, and even some old people have expressed that they are very disappointed with the industry and cannot see any innovation, etc.
But my advice is, Let it Go.
Don't just look at the pessimistic side, just let them go if they are disappointed.
In fact, there are still many hard-working founders and projects in the industry. Yes, some are actively looking for exit liquidity, some are actively posting memes and creating a market; but there are also many people who are always exploring the development direction of the industry, constantly trying and failing to find PMF, and there are also founders with very high token rankings who are still shuttling between various venues as model workers.
For example, Jambo has sold more than 500,000 units of its "African Phone" in the last cycle, covering more than 120 countries. Two days ago, it also launched the Jambo Phone 2. Every time I meet with their founders, I can feel their passion for the project.
For example, Solv, which had difficulty finding PMF before, now embraces the BTC ecosystem. With a tenacious team, they now have $13 billion in solvBTC.
For example, Sonic, which started out as a marketplace for gaming projects, has now become famous for building SVM;
For example, Matr1x, from its launch to its coin listing to testing, has faced various doubts and is now officially online for gold farming testing without deleting files.
In every cycle there will be people who are pessimistic about the industry, just as every project will experience different frustrations .
Be it pessimism or F ud,
The industry is always driven by optimists. Without Fud , there is no real community .
Let us strive for beautiful things!
Captain Jack: Faith in the primary market has collapsed, but don’t leave the table
Most panelists are pessimistic about market expectations, and even worry that if there is no new innovation and growth by May next year, the market ecology may be completely reshuffled;
Lack of innovation, stock concentration in the top, the top 15 coins weighted by user numbers and market value, such as doge and shib, have fallen 70-80% from their peak, and others are even worse. (Based on the data I have seen, I guess the exchange trading volume may decrease by 80% from this year);
Decentralized stablecoins and payment applications are two infrastructure projects that are obvious growth tracks.
The faith in the primary market has collapsed. Only a few of the primary market projects invested in the past two years have made money.
It is difficult to make money in the first level, so professional financial institutions are involved in the second level. Li Lin took out $500 million to play the second level quantitative mother fund, and quantitative entered the market;
At present, we feel that there are no more than 10 institutions with stable secondary quantitative capabilities;
Leek fights against quantitative, the strategy is to buy the top 5 big coins and hold them, reduce transactions, and hold on;
Leeks, buy & hold, the exchange trading volume will decrease, AUM will also decrease, and the exchange will be uncomfortable;
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;
The Ton ecosystem is listed on the exchange, and the Solana ecosystem seems to have some structural trading opportunities;
As a veteran who entered the Internet industry in 2003, although I see problems, compared with the Internet in 2000, there is still a lot of room for growth in the number of practitioners, skills, infrastructure, number of users, industry volume and sub-sectors. So, don't leave the table.
Little Crow (Editor-in-Chief of Crypto City): There are abundant exhibitions and activities, but there is still a lack of innovation
According to official statistics, TOKEN2049 had more than 400 speeches, 700 side events, and 200,000 participants. In addition, the event was followed by F1 races and Solana Breakpoint, which led to a surge in accommodation costs in Singapore, long queues, and even traffic jams near the Sands. The reviews of this event were very polarized:
From a purely observation perspective, you will probably feel that this event is very fulfilling, and you will be able to meet many people that you would not have met if you were in Taiwan.
But in terms of industry innovation, it's honestly very disappointing, because most of the narrative content is almost the same as in the past few years, and as a result, many developers told me that they find it quite boring.
Judging from the booths, the main focus is on encrypted payment, AI, and DePIN. This time, there are actually several manufacturers specializing in sports tracks, fan economy, and RWA, as well as many manufacturers focusing on compliance. Some projects were even established in the past few months, and they directly came to TOKEN2049 to output firepower.
After a tour, my colleagues asked me in confusion why the TON event in Taiwan was so popular, but there were almost no TON ecosystem projects and promotions on TOKEN2049 (the only obvious one should be Catizen).
My guess is simple: TON will be heavily promoted in Asia and even Taiwan, mostly due to media hype, plus the matrix system between the project team and KOLs, so many people are playing with the TON ecosystem. Later, I asked some foreign participants at the Side Event about their views on TON. Many people were just observing or not caring. There was even a radical foreigner who directly replied to me: "I Don't Fucking Care about TON!", which also confirmed my guess.
Back to the price of TOKEN2049, it was originally priced like this not to attract retail investors, so most of the people in the main venue are industry professionals, roughly divided into the following categories: capital, exchanges, VCs, project parties, KOLs (with scale), and media. In addition, because the market and liquidity in the past year were very poor, most people in the main venue were there to discuss business, so it really didn't make much sense for ordinary users to come in. And why are there so many Side Events this time? In fact, it is also easy to understand. If the project party does not hold an event, it is basically difficult to attract funds, users, or even more cooperation opportunities, so many project parties have to bite the bullet and continue to hold it, just to have more "deal" opportunities.
Theo (Founder of 3rdStCapital): Infrastructure valuations are still high
1. Everyone is optimistic about AI x cryptocurrency and looking for excellent teams to invest in;
2. Many teams are working on the next pump.fun;
3. Most of the on-chain participants I met are tired of memes and are more focused on practicality;
4. Teams are interested in MemeFi but do not want to damage its brand. Therefore, most teams do not plan to build their own;
5. There aren’t many good projects to invest in right now, and many teams are developing the same thing or iterative versions of something that’s already on the market;
6. The merchandise that the project launches is also heavily judged, with people joking that the team might be in a bad situation due to the low quality of the merchandise, and that the team should really pay attention to detail in these campaigns;
7. Many teams are not qualified to hold events, and their event content is empty;
8. There are many side events, and attendees will judge you based on these events. Some teams performed poorly in the events and left a bad impression. I won’t name them here because some of the projects were invested by friends, etc.
8. Valuations at the infrastructure level remain high, while valuations at the ecosystem level are lower;
9. It’s hard for startups to raise money right now, and VCs are not very interested. Many of them are surprised that we are still actively investing;
10. Extremely bullish on Solana, SUI had a big party, and ETH’s price action made everyone uneasy.
Degentrading (KOL): Most projects are boring and just burning VC money
I spend 99% of my time in one-on-one communication, which is more productive than any activity;
Of all the events, the bittensor asia meetup was by far the best, I saw real builders on $TAO which reinforced my belief that this is the AI coin of this cycle;
Most of these projects are boring/uninteresting/just burning VC money, and if we don’t get inflows… the founders will leave and the tokens will probably die…. If we do get inflows, I guess they’ll be fine for a while? I don’t know, I won’t buy these coins anyway;
With the exception of funds that also trade cryptocurrency-related stocks, most liquid funds have underperformed Bitcoin;
Many VCs are indeed mentally retarded;
Despite some projects having huge marketing budgets, the mood is so low that it actually reminds me of some MLM schemes;
About $SOL (Solana): I have to say, I really admire the Solana ecosystem. Although I am not sure it can surpass Ethereum, I think Solana has a good chance to survive the token unlocking pressure brought by FTX liquidation now... Ethereum's opinion leaders seem to be out of touch with the masses (maybe because they are too rich? Who knows, anyway, this is not a good thing). How much faster is Solana progressing than Ethereum? Five times?
Regarding perpetual contract decentralized exchanges: These exchanges have been neglected recently. I think they will become popular again after Hyperliquid goes online.
Regarding $LDO (Lido): It may have reached the lowest point in sentiment, no one hates it anymore...no one cares. As a bull, I think this is actually good, it can't get worse, right?
