From September 18th to 19th, the global Web3 conference TOKEN2049 was held in Singapore. The conference aims to define the next development of the Web3 field. During the two-day main event, hundreds of gatherings and seminars were held, bringing together more than 7,000 companies and over 20,000 participants from more than 150 countries. BlockBeats on-site reporters followed up and reported on the conference in real time. Please refer to: "Real-time Update | TOKEN2049 Singapore Concluded Successfully, Review of Wonderful Content"
After each TOKEN2049 conference, many participants will share their thoughts and insights on various platforms. BlockBeats has selected four 2049 essays so that you will not miss the latest market information even if you did not go to the site. The full text is reproduced as follows:
Jewish Director Zhao
Cycles, Dawns, and the Impotence of Liquidity
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 hold 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 when Afro came to Beijing to raise funds in 2019 .
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 a penny left .
3.2 As for where the money went, the contract products of Asian exchanges continued the fine tradition and consumed 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 brightest star of this year's Side Event. As for Ethereum, whether it is the foundation or Layer 2, there is no 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 can only be the “King You of Ethereum Zhou” .
6.2. The way he sang on the stage was exactly what he was doing to publicly shame 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". It's like a tyrant who loves beauty more than the country and is unable to control the power but still wants to cut down the feudal lords.
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 August 2020, the DeFi Summer, 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:
· DePIN Project for Consumer Electronics
CeDeFi RWA is used as the underlying pledge to issue stablecoin projects (BlackRock Buidl + USDM)
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.
Jademont
The short essay written by Director Zhao is as good as ever and contains all the truth.
1/BTC ecology is indeed a track where Chinese people barely have a place and even a certain voice in the entire Crypto market dominated by the West, while Chinese people are basically just running along in other tracks. In a speech at the BTC sub-forum at the 2049 main venue, I shared some data. For example, if several projects that are about to be launched are included, the total market value of BTC ecological projects is currently close to 10 billion US dollars, while it was still less than 1 billion US dollars at this time a year ago, indicating that the growth rate is still very fast. Unfortunately, the overall Crypto market is relatively cold, and the BTC ecology cannot support the entire market except for creating some local wealth effects.
2/ From the perspective of popularity, the most popular seems to be the Ton ecosystem. There are at least 20 BTC ecosystem-related events. I went to five or six of them, and most of them were not full. It is said that the Fractal event was full but I did not go. But the two Ton events I went to were full, similar to the BTC ecosystem events when the inscriptions just broke out at the end of last year. However, the customer unit price of the Ton ecosystem is relatively low, which is its problem. It is estimated that the average account funds are more in the tens of U, while the average account funds of the BTC ecosystem are in the thousands of U. In other words, the Ton ecosystem is more suitable for contributing popularity, don't expect too much deposit.
3/The most suitable party to buy a booth is the DePIN project party, who can just treat the conference as a trade show to sell goods. I found that there were not many audiences in the speech area of the main venue, while the booth area was crowded, which was particularly suitable for selling goods on the spot, and it was not a problem to sell the booth fee.
Although the organizers of 2049 made a lot of money by selling booths and tickets, after asking around, exhibitors generally felt that the cost-effectiveness was not high, and it would be better to save the funds for community promotion. We also bought a booth two years ago, but received a lot of decks from junk projects, which wasted not only money but also time. So we decided not to buy again. I suggest that unless the project owners can sell goods on site, it is better to save the money and spend it on online media and community. 
Jack0x137
I have been in Singapore for less than a day. Although there are still various activities such as swimming pools, discotheques, AI, DePin, and BTC ecology, the strongest emotion I feel is "disillusionment". Entrepreneurs, investors, and various participants in the entire industry are turning to the consensus of "crypto scam" at supersonic speed, just like discovering a new narrative.
The industry has reached its absolute lowest point now, but it is impossible to hope for a sudden and violent bull market to save everyone. The industry's predicament today is not only due to the overall background, but also the staged death of the underlying logic.
Everyone has discovered that the industry logic and exit mechanisms of the past five or even ten years: founding projects, VC packaging, user growth hack (points PUA), Binance listing, exit and lay flat, are really coming to an end. All models in the crypto industry seem to be ending under the impact of rounds of so-called "cycles", new narratives are ending, mining and selling are ending, and even roll activities are ending; in terms of funds, VCs are braking, market makers are braking, exchanges are braking...
But death is a good thing. The root of human thinking generally does not change, so society needs death to promote evolution, and the same is true for an industry. When I came to Singapore last year, I heard a sentence during a chat that left a deep impression on me: "The industry is still talking about the popularization of blockchain, which means that we have done nothing in the past ten years." When I came to Singapore this year, everyone was saying this. Everyone was saying: "The old tricks don't work anymore, and the next step is to fight for hard power."
But what is hard power? Take the public chain ecosystem as an example. Hard power comes from the superiority of technology development + strong user stickiness and consensus building of the ecosystem + close integration of operation rhythm and secondary active market making strategy, etc. All of these are just the so-called "hard power" portraits of the past decade, which is what people call "game-making ability". Although there are countless L1s in the crypto, only two have been successful so far.
Now, everyone's fantasy about "hard power" seems to have turned into "revenue", "real users", and "application scenarios". These are all correct and I agree with them, but one question has always bothered me: Do entrepreneurs and even investors in this industry really have the hard power in this regard? To be honest, compared with the past Internet/payment wars, the glamour of the Crypto industry is more like playing house.
So it seems that the old saying still holds true: new opportunities are born in the places where people are most desperate. But investors need to be clear about two things:
1. What will the new industry logic be?
2. Does my protfolio have the “hard power” to survive/complete this transition?
Zolo
Thoughts from the conference in Singapore: Stay away from the noise; the development of the industry is always driven by optimists.
From WebX, KBW to TOKEN2049, each event has reached the highest number of attendees in history. It’s another conference, what are everyone competing for this year?
1- Dresscode, the trend started by @berachain has finally spread to other people. 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 DJ top 100 ranking, check the DJ's figure, 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.
Walking into the Solana exhibition hall, you feel like it is a supermarket, not just a trade show. From the project perspective, dozens of projects such as #Jupiter#Pyth#wormhole#Birdeye have released their own new products, and the whole process is full of excitement.
The meeting was divided into two stages, from left to right and from right to left. I have lost count of how many times I ran back and forth, just to avoid missing some important sessions. The first day of the meeting lasted from 10:30 am to 6:00 pm. Thanks to the compact sessions and the agenda arrangement with almost no advertisements, almost every sharing session was packed.
While listening to the sharing, whether it was the applause for "Firedancer" or the shouting "GO!" to "DeGods", you will find that the current Solana community has an extremely consistent consensus on the general direction .
Everyone knows what the focus of Solana’s future development is;
Everyone knows which projects in the Solana ecosystem are truly loyal members;
Everyone knows the jokes in the Solana ecosystem that only Solana insiders can understand.
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 had so many Alpha projects worth looking forward to.
In fact, this is not the case. For example, @Backpack@cubexch@FlashTrade_@SonicSVM@solayer_labs@Compute_Labs, etc., developers are pouring in to Solana and creating more interesting things.
I remember that on the technical stage on the right, the host asked how many people were coming to Breakpoint for the first time. Almost half of the people raised their hands, and the proportion of fresh blood reached 50%! Solana has climbed up from the trough, and the community has become more resilient .
Thanks @Solana_zh for letting me be a part of this event. It’s great to have a community like you guys on Solana.
Move, another alpha besides Solana
During TOKEN 2049, the surge in $SUI also attracted a lot of attention. Sui Builder House was also one of the most popular activities before TOKEN 2049.
In fact, I started to contact @SuiNetwork 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 to 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 or launch a new project, the Move system is a good choice, such as 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 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 it launched SuiPlay and made the largest game booth at KBW in Korea, its star projects are still Cetus, Turbos, Navi, Scallop, and memes. 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 people thought the cycle was over, or that the bull market would only last until Q4 of this year or Q1 of next year. Now, it is a more conservative view that the bull market will last until Q1 of next year, and many people think it can last until Q3 of next year.
The main reason is that the interest rate cut cycle has begun, and 50 basis points is just the beginning. It takes time to release the money. At the same time, the asset outflow of US stocks/BTC has not started. The main uncertainty lies in the general election in November.
Although some people have said that everyone is looking for exit liquidity, and some old people have even expressed their disappointment with the industry and that they cannot see any innovation, etc., my advice is, let it go. Don't just look at the pessimistic side, just let them leave 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 making deals; but there are also many people who are always exploring the development direction of the industry, constantly trying and erroring 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, @JamboTechnology has sold more than 500,000 units of the "African Phone" in the last cycle, covering more than 120 countries. It also launched JamboPhonev2 two days ago. Every time I meet their founders, I can feel their passion for the project. For example, @SolvProtocol, from the difficulty of finding PMF before to embracing the BTC ecosystem now, the tenacious team has enabled them to own $13 billion of solvBTC; for example, @SonicSVM, from the beginning of being a Marketplace for game projects to the current reputation of building SVM; for example, @Matr1xOfficial, from launching, to listing, to testing, despite various doubts, now officially launched the non-delete version of gold farming.
There will be people who are pessimistic about the industry in every cycle, just as every project will experience different FUD.
Be it pessimism or FUD, the industry is always driven by optimists. Without FUD, there would be no real community. Let us go all out for beautiful things!
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