This article mainly wants to talk about some market phenomena observed in the past two months from the perspective of the primary market, mainly focusing on the relatively popular tracks of derivatives, Ton, games and ZK. I believe you have read a lot of 2049 essays. Most of the articles are generally neutral and slightly pessimistic. For example, the VC+ project team is about to run out of money, and there is still a lack of applications for breaking the circle... These are all correct. In the past two months, from From the perspective of the primary market, we can also clearly feel that there are fewer projects on the market. In the past few months, we could discuss about 20 projects per week, but recently the number has dropped to about 10. When a good project appears, every VC is rushing to grab it, which is quite a bit "More wolves and less meat" is the visual perception. As for the secondary market, let alone...

However, I still want to say something optimistic. I will leave it at the end of the article and get down to business first.

1. Derivatives

In recent months, except for Aptos and Sui, which are occasionally seen, we have basically seen no new projects on spot Dex or lending on other chains. Almost all new projects are concentrated in the track of on-chain derivatives, mostly Contracts, a small number of options.

One of the biggest trends in the derivatives industry is that it becomes more and more like Cex.

For example, you can register with email (MPC wallet technology);

For example, you can trade multiple assets;

For example, off-chain high-speed Orderbook;

For example, KYC is available and there are even transaction rebates, VIP gold cards, etc...

Generally speaking, the trading experience of derivatives is gradually approaching that of Cex. It requires speed and quantity of assets. At the same time, self-hosted wallets are safer, trading pairs can be listed quickly without permission, and retail investors can also do LP and Trader as counterparties. (In response to the problem of GLP, which causes LP to suffer substantial losses when Trader makes substantial profits, we have seen more than one project developing neutral strategies for hedging). From a rational perspective, it can be said that as long as there is sufficient liquidity and market makers, the overall experience of on-chain derivatives in the next 1-2 years can even be better than Cex.

Of course, user trading behaviors and habits cannot be changed in a day or two. The industry reputation and derivatives experience of Binance and OK are indeed very good. If it weren’t for the FTX explosion, on-chain derivatives might still be banned. Rubbing on the ground. Now we at least see the possibility of the next bull market taking off.

By the way, I would like to mention http://Friend.Tech , are there any veterans who think like me that this thing may be more suitable for on-chain derivatives? For example, a leading on-chain derivatives allows a trader that has passed KYC (you can use Twitter KYC like FT) to issue its own Share, and 10% of the trader's monthly profit will be automatically distributed directly to all Share holders through the contract. Because of the instability of Trader's profits, some make huge profits every month, and some suffer huge losses every month. Share trading must also have ups and downs. Sometimes you can get a large sum of money by holding Share, which stimulates the Trader's share amount to increase sharply. Maybe because of losses in the past month, everyone sold his shares crazily... I feel that "empty trading" like FT, which does not require a counterparty and hangs on the curve, is very suitable for this scenario. And there are many ways to play it. For example, if you want scarcity, you can only allow the top 100 traders on the trading list to post Share at the beginning.

If you want to stimulate trading volume, you can require the buyer of Share to complete a contract transaction volume of more than 1,000U... Of course, there are many details, such as the Trader suddenly changed its address, suddenly stopped trading, etc., which can be solved through various technical or economic means. constraint. As for why Trader should use part of its profits to issue Share? It can be for fame, or you can cash out some future profits in advance (the issuer of Share purchases and sales collects taxes), or it can be just for fun, and Share buyers have an extra perspective to cash out, and small funds can leverage high returns. There is a possibility that if you start early, you may earn much more than playing contracts by yourself...

2. Ton

Ton has been very popular recently, and everyone is full of expectations for such a "base" with 800 million monthly active users. Especially the launch of the Ton Space official wallet this month can be regarded as a MileStone. But what I want to say is that Ton’s ecology may be slightly overestimated in the short term.

First of all, this wave of popularity of Ton is actually caused by Bot, and the user profile of Bot is originally the Crpyo Degen of Web3, not the traditional Telegram users of Web2. Secondly, Ton’s official wallet has actually been online for a year, but it was “custody” before. This time Ton Space has become self-hosted. In other words, built-in wallets have just become more decentralized, rather than a process from scratch as many people think.

We have talked with many projects and foundations in the Ton ecosystem. For now, we have not seen anything truly "exciting". The Defi ecosystem is more of a replica of Uniswap, Lido, etc. Everyone is looking forward to platform-level applications such as WeChat red envelopes and rewards. Last year's managed wallets failed to become popular. Can it be realized by changing to self-hosted Ton Space? I personally have my doubts.

But overall, Telegram, which has 800 million monthly active users, makes Ton a public chain worthy of attention anyway. Its technical characteristics are also similar to ICP. It is not a global consensus reached by all node calculations like ETH, but a bit Semi-centralization is the “local consensus” that prioritizes visual performance and experience. Therefore, whether it is technical architecture or user portrait, we believe that Ton’s success is unlikely to rely on traditional Dex, lending and other Defi suites, but should start from payment, Bot, Social, Game and other tracks. If there are any good projects in these directions, you are welcome to introduce them or tease them.

3. Games

The game is currently in a state of split factions.

One is Web2.5, and the other is full-chain games.

Among them, Web2.5 games are becoming more and more like Web2. The first-generation Gamefi with "rough" playability like Axie has completely disappeared. The new Web2.5 games are getting closer and closer to Web2 in terms of playability, and Web3 among them elements are becoming increasingly diluted, and it can even be said that their main target audience is Web2 gamers. When players find it fun and are curious about and have demand for the equipment inside, that’s when wallets, NFTs, and Tokenomic get involved.

Therefore, the new Web2.5 games we see now are no longer about finding a balance between Play and Earn, but about creating the ultimate, close to the playability of Web2 or even Web2 head games, and throwing in a little Web3 along the way. Elements go in to form differentiation from Web2 games. Many games are also directly released on the mobile version instead of the desktop PC version. The team has an all-star lineup, including employees from major companies such as TiMi, NetEase, and MiHoYo + 1-2 Crypto OG. Two days ago, we were chatting about the project and even met someone who worked on Web2. The prestigious founder of a legendary game IP actually came to Web3 to start his own business for the Nth time. Although I am not sure whether the road to Web 2.5 can be taken, it is really visible to the naked eye that more and more "talented people" and funds are pouring into it.

As for the full-chain game, there seems to be no question of whether it can be achieved. This is a path that is almost certain to be achieved, but how long it will take is very uncertain. Our team members experienced a number of Onchain Games at close range a few days ago and concluded that they are "interesting but not addictive, easy to use but not fun". Fully Onchain Game is still "fun", maybe there is still one round of bulls and bears?

4.ZK

The hot spot of ZK is no longer Zk-Rollup, but two new types of applications.

One is the coprocessor concept represented by Axiom, which is also called Storage Proof. Lagrange, HyperOracle, and Herodotus are all competing products on the market. If I could use one sentence to describe what a co-processor does, I think Dr. Dong Mo from Celer’s statement is the simplest and easiest to understand - “Give smart contracts the ability to do Dune Analytics” (by the way, Celer is also going to get involved in this track. ).

The other type is a more general type, General Purpose's ZK calculation and verification, which is not only for Web3 users, but also for Web2 users. There are various virtual machine architectures, such as those based on WASM, some based on LLVM, and some based on Mips. Of course, those based on Risc V such as Risc0 also count. Proof systems Plonky2, Plonky3, Nova, SuperNova can be seen. At present, projects of this type generally face the problem of "lack of application scenarios", but in the long run, especially from the first principles of blockchain, I think general ZK computing is still a promising track. If the first principle of the Internet is to "close or even eliminate spatial distance", then the first principle of the blockchain should be "to remove trust". BTC/ETH eliminates trust in on-chain calculations through full-node settlement. Then General Purpose’s ZK can be calculated off-chain. The on-chain verification method theoretically “removes trust” from all traditional calculation processes. What will be born when it matures? New computing types or scenarios are still unknown and need to be taken step by step.

5. The final words

Finally, let me talk about something optimistic. Although the primary and secondary markets are currently very cold, the vitality of the entire industry is still very strong.

From a technical point of view, in addition to the increasingly mature public chain system, we also have ZK, which conforms to and expands the first principle of "trustlessness" in the blockchain. ZK technology is changing with each passing day, evolving extremely fast, and its speed is as fast as AI. A fight.

From an application perspective, we have a full-chain game that is sure to be successful in the future. All it takes is time. RWA, the continuous attempts of Web2.5 games, the continuous evolution of Defi and NFT, the new exploration of AI+Crypto, the payment potential of the third world... there will always be several truly useful scenarios in the future.

From a talent perspective, the proportion of blockchain entrepreneurs in top Ivy League schools is quite high. It seems that about half of the founders of the projects we talked about are from Harvard, Yale, Oxford and Cambridge. Those in China are all from Qingbei. I occasionally see them. Zhejiang Building is big. In other words, the smartest young people in the world are either working on AI or Web3. The founder of the IP of the legendary game mentioned above (not the online game "Legend" haha) came to Web3 to start a business again. From a pessimist's perspective, he felt that because Web2 games were too complicated, he was forced to move. From my optimist's perspective, he felt that Web3 It is still a "Western World", where capable people can show their talents to their heart's content.

So, why are you pessimistic? Build is done!